I have a Leupo story. Have only shared it with one or two other people here via PM. I thought you'd get a kick out of it...
Jason
Old PM, with some edits:
I've had my share of experiences with Leupo C/S. I live near their facility so I hand deliver my returns. Had two scopes with smeared lenses, internally. It took 4x before they got it right. From "America's Optics Authority"! My buds were shocked that it took that many tries to clean the internal lens surfaces. I stood in the Leupold lobby with my flashlight showing one tech after another how the lenses were cloudy. Amazing really, but the lack of detail was a wake-up. I never found out the reason for it. Maybe contaminated gas, chamber, or lines? Still, someone should have caught that as a QC item right?! I could see it getting missed once, maybe twice. But 4 trips to get it fixed!!!
Also had a VX2 with the new fast focus eye-piece... but the entire ocular spun when I put the rifle on its side with BC caps. C/S dragged their feet (head of C/S and lead designer were on a trip), then they said that the lead project engineer admitted that it was a design flaw. The entire ocular wobbled too and didn't inspire confidence. No jam nut on the new VX2. Leupo more than made up for my time/expense on that scope so I can't complain too much.
I've taken back 3-9x Leupos for wandering zero for some buds. One sold a rifle before he found out it was the scope! Leupo couldn't make that scope hold zero so they offered a new replacement.
Another good story... one of my old shooting buds introduced me to his friend that had just gotten a job offer at Leupo as a design engineer. One day at the range we talked about different scopes and ideas for new models. Nice fella. He was really excited to work at Leupold and we discussed some things like a true-1x tac scope, and other tacti-cool snipery stuff and .mil contracts.
Next time we met at the range, he had a different demeanor. He was like a beaten dog. He said, "The old man runs the show there. They said they don't give a fuuk what people want. Don't like what we have, go somewhere else was their motto." I didn't ask who the "old man" was but he said it was an uphill battle to get new ideas going.
He had some proto-types for us to play with that were well before production so that was fun but the bad moral and resistance to forward thinking was disappointing. Now, whenever I visit their facility I take note of the attitudes and demeanor of their employees as they leave just for fun. I get there in the late afternoon and see a bunch of people leaving for the day. Vast majority look sad, depressed or angry. Now, I could be reading into it more than I should, or there is something I don't know about... maybe they get cavity searched upon exit?
Leupo has always taken care of my complaints but sometimes with resistance and I've had to escalate. I have dealt with one of their lead techs many times. And even bought a rifle from his boss. There's some good people at Leupo. But there are absolute jerks there too... just like anyplace.
