Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Scope article in Rifle

John Haviland has an article on tough scopes in the latest Rifle. About half of the article is stuff JH wrote, and half is quotes from Tim O'Connor of Leupold.

Folks on both sides of the current Leupold argument ought to find this enlightening or infuriating. A lot of it is stuff we've all heard or experienced before, but a couple are new to me. One tip from O'Connor is to run the adjustments of a new scope end to end a number of times to seat the springs and spread the lubrication. According to some stories here, that would greatly exceed the usable life of the adjustments on the Loopys.

Popcorn time, I believe.

"One tip from O'Connor is to run the adjustments of a new scope end to end a number of times to seat the springs and spread the lubrication"

And why would they not do that at the factory before boxing them up?

It cost $$$

A one sided article, but how can you blame them? Most scopes going back for repair are due to customer error? Ah c'mon now. Really?

I would imagine that a lot of guys do not know how to properly mount a scope. I bet an equal number also buy mounts that are not up to snuff, mounts that will eat up w/e adjustments because they are poorly machined.

I've had maybe a dozen over the years with no failures as yet, but I'm not a twister and don't bounce my stuff around a lot. I also go slow on the ring screws, but like them pretty tight. When one goes belly up on me for no reason, I'll try something else.

Many, no make that most, other brands either look too tactical for classic rifles or too European. The Leupolds for hunting rifles look just about right. They're also very user-friendly as regards eye-relief and head position, qualities other brands often sacrifice in exchange for other optical properties.

"They're also very user-friendly as regards eye-relief and head position, qualities other brands often sacrifice in exchange for other optical properties."

Excellent point. They all have decent eye relief at the bench, but in the field some better than others. The only Leupold I ever had held zero for years and always provided flexible eye relief.

It would be nice if they (Leupold) could make their eye relief constant throughout the power range as well. I've been brushed by their oculars more than once when shooting off the bench with heavy kickers when they were set on their max. power.

They have, but it'll cost you; VX-6.

Don't know if other makes have the same feature in their variables.

According to Mule Deer, everything is a trade-off. I don' know what that feature "costs". Maybe just money.

Some of the newer scopes out there have constant ER. My Leica ER does, as well as the new Meopta R2. Never looked at the VX6. You shouldn't have to pay for that feature as it has nothing to do with the cost of the components. It's merely how they design the optical system to work.

We have several 3.5-10x40 Leupolds on hand, most VX-3's but also at least one VX-III. The eye relief on all of them doesn't vary more than about half an inch, which is usually about what ER varies on scopes advertising constant eye relief.

But the easiest and cheapest way to buy a constant eye relief Leupold is buy a fixed-power.

Pretty sure that's not all you get for the price of a VX-6; it's just another raisin in your cookie.

The difference in eye relief has never been much of a problem. I just mount the scope so it's usable at the highest power and the rest are okay.

John Burns has stated similar here on multiple occasions.