Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Always a Leupold guy, BUT..

Formi used to post on the ‘fire years ago.

We had a drop test:
Formi dropped his on a shooting mat.
Sam dropped his in a pasture.
Deflave sent his skittering across a frozen Montana sewage lagoon.
Stick pitched his off a switchback.

Can’t entirely recall how the scopes fared……

Leupys don’t tend to fare all that well.

Older was better, and the fixed powers were money.

I quit Leupold when they quit on me, sent 2 in for repair, when they came back one took 17 shots to zero and the other would adjust erratically. The old 2 x 7 was the worst tried several.

Where is Big Stick, he might tell us exactly how he feels about scopes?????

No longer even consider Leupolds on new rifles. I think I have 5 left of Vari-X flavors as set it and forget it scopes. I know one is a rimfire on my Marlin 39A. Now it's Zeiss, NF, Trijicon, SWFA, Meopta.

None of 'em do, which is the problem IMO. When 98% of everything tested, "fails"..........I guess rings/mounts, action torque, bedding, etc get a free pass, as it's always the scope's fault. I've killed a buttload of game with "failed" scopes such as the VX6, Arken EP4 (2), Athlon Helos, Athlon Ares BTR Gen 2.

I hope you have better luck with Swaros than I did. Had 2 go wonky on a 300 wm. Less than 50 shots for each one. Explanation on the first one was something to the effect that they were only designed to be adjusted a certain percentage of their range, which I was still in. After the replacement did the same thing in about the same number of shots, I concluded that they weren't a good fit for magnum recoil. A cursory scroll through a few threads on rugged scopes showed that I was far from the only one to have such luck with them.[/quote]

Had one cost me a Booner at 167 yards lasered. Off a sandbag rest. Shooting 7 feet to the right at 50 yards I found out the next day. Love Swaros but they'll never be on a heavy recoil rife any more. They do have a reputation for not being able to handle recoil per our most esteemed posters here.

There are certain scopes that do pass the tests, and it seems to be a lot more than 2% of all scopes tested. The testing is far from being scientifically robust and statistically powerful, but they try to control as many variables as possible by bonding action to stock, etc. At the end of the day, it is a source of data, and it should be interpreted and used with the level of experimental design and control taken into consideration.

A recurring theme in these discussions is that killing game is assumed to be the metric by which scope performance and function should be assessed, but that is not the metric that this testing seeks to address. I am very confident that more game has been killed with Tasco scopes than with the VX6. That doesn't mean that everybody wants a Tasco or that the Tasco is "better" for hunting than the VX6. The scope requirements for killing the vast majority of game in NA are fairly lax. Most scopes that are used to kill game don't need to track correctly. They don't need to RTZ. They don't even need to retain zero much better than holding POA to a 2-3 MOA cone. However, some hunters and shooters require, or just want, better performance. While 2-3 MOA zero retention may be sufficient for most hunters' needs, they may want the scope to hold zero within 0.25 MOA.

These sorts of tests push gear to the limits, and that is useful for some people as they assess to what level they want their scopes to perform, and which products they consequently want to use. I see this testing as a good thing and another useful data point, which should be taken for what it is and with a grain of salt.

Had many Leupolds over the years and only one that actually failed was Fixed powder VX2, cross hairs just collapsed, sent it in and got it back in couple of weeks. Now I did notice that sometimes tracking isn't responding as it should and had the same issue with Meopta I spoke about this with Meopta rep and he stated that sometimes adjustments get stuck. This is his response and I'm sure it is true with many scopes in that respect.

"It is possible for the adjustments to kind of “stick” in the scope. I have had a lot of customers send scopes in saying they won’t track, or the adjustments don’t match the click value, and the first thing I will do is spin the adjustment all the way one way, then count rotations back the other way, then turn it half the number of rotations back in the first directions. This not only gets the adjustments moving, but it allows me to reset the scope to optical zero in case the issue is with the rifle being drilled and tapped off center."

I’ve seen it with me own eyes. Might be even more frequent if the scope hasn’t been dialed or adjusted in a while.

I do the same thing as you but using a Bushnell bore sighter and observing if the reticle moves accurately as it’s dialed. When turning the dials I’ve seen the reticle barely move then “jump” as it apparently unsticks.

The erector typically moves in one direction using only spring force, so it is certainly possible for the erector to stick if that spring force is insufficient. This is more likely with some designs than others.

By the same token, if one is a proponent of these ridiculous drop tests, you're also adhering to the premise that those that "fail" the drop test are unable to hold zero, which is laughable. Most people around here didn't kiss Form's butt or ego so he took his toys over to Rockslide where they revere this dude. I find that laughable as well, especially where he bragged about killing "thousands,plural" of animals the past 15 years.

Social and personal issues aside, scopes that fail the zero retention component of these drop tests are unable to hold zero when subjected to those types of impacts. Such impacts may be more than most scopes will ever experience, but it is interesting and useful knowledge to see which scopes can get through that and still retain zero. Of course, to make any blanket statement about model X scope holding zero and working across the board would take testing a lot more than 1 or 2 individual samples of that scope model to have any statistical validity. Still interesting, none-the-less.

So at what point do they become less interesting? 40" drops? 46" drops? 50" drops? How about dropping one off of your rooftop? Is that still relevant? Plus, any hunter that drops his scoped rig on the ground/rocks/etc from any distance would surely recheck zero anyway even with the scopes that "passed". As I mentioned earlier, I have a VX6 that never lost zero in 6 trips to Africa and 60+ big game animals over there. In light of that fact, had many flat brimmed mullets continue to tell me my scope wasn't holding zero. I find that laughable as well.

Why doesn’t Leupold make a VX5 that works for all the naysayers? I don’t get it, they are missing out. That said, until mine fails, I’ll keep using it because is the perfect scope for me. Great glass, good in low light, duplex reticle, dimly lit firedot, alumi caps, good warranty, 3-15 magnification perfect for my hunting and target practice, and holds zero so far. I couldn’t care less about dialing or the CDS system but since it’s there, I also want it to lock so I don’t have even think about it.

Ok. So I may just switch to Talley lightweights to save a few OZ, and then pull the trigger here. The .416 Rigby I used in Africa was topped with a S&B and it performed flawlessly. Thoughts?

https://www.opticsplanet.com/schmid...v_code=BD-RS-SB312K-645-811-882-40-05A02

I suppose it becomes less relevant when the drop distance represents something that the hunter/shooter could not envisioning ever happening in actual use. I think 12", 18", and 36" drops are still in the range of realistic possibilities in the field. I've definitely BTDT. When I was a young hunter, I even had a rifle fall 15+ feet to the ground when I failed to tie it off correctly to lower it from a tree stand. Not that I expect a scope to hold zero through that type of drop.

I don't disagree with you there. It may be difficult to verify zero if on a big trip or when deep in the mountains, but I would sure try to verify zero if the rifle took a tumble.

There are two scenarios here that emerge from that test: scopes that are dropped, lose zero, but continue to work fine once re-zeroed; and scopes that are dropped, lose zero, and never go back to working properly after the drop test. So verifying zero after a tumble is fine if the scope simply needs to be re-zeroed and then continues to hold zero and track properly afterward, but verifying zero isn't going to help if the scope has shaken loose internally from the fall. That's probably where having a scope that can withstand these <3' drops without losing zero or failing to function is particularly useful.

That would be beefing up one part of your system and exposing another part to weakness, IMO. I would rather use something like the Leupold Backcountry one-piece rings if you want that style.