Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Koshkin.......Drop Test Question Please.

I meant to type "fudge". So that statement was basically saying you know how to mount scopes?

The issue with your strike eagle, what if it occurred with 6 different strike eagles? What would the statistical probability be of getting 6 that malfunctioned? How many would need to be tested to be statistically valid? 50, 100, 1k?

Do you know of any optic company that tests rifle scopes for zero retention from impacts? As in mounting them to a rifle, shoot, impact, shoot? If so, who, if not why?

I’ve done various ‘quality engineering’ tasks in my career. A very high confidence level for a particular variable can be obtained by measuring that variable on 30 sample parts that are all produced using the exact same process, materials, tools, etc… However, the level of confidence needed (acceptance criteria) is established based on a lot of inputs (anticipated production/sales volume, acceptable deviation from nominal, severity of non-conformance, etc…). Not all brands will come up with the same acceptance criteria based on their business model.

Something to keep in mind is that any variable (dimension, material property, etc) that could result in a failure, like a shift in zero or tracking variance, has to be collected and monitored in order to ensure conformance. Usually, this is multiple characteristics on each individual part. In the case of a scope there would be multiple parts that could give similar failure modes. I note that to say that for lower volume brands, it may well be less costly to fix as fail, based on the customer’s feedback, rather than invest in the resources to develop detailed quality control plans and maintain them.

Yes, I know how to mount scopes, but the statement was meant to say that if someone wants to get a particular result it is very easy to do so with selective scope mounting. Frankly, it is a pretty straightforward thing and it is remarkable how many problems come from scope mounting. Yet, they do.

No scope company tests every scope that way. Every respectable company I can think of does that during the product development process many times. Hell, I've done it for a couple of them in the past. It ain't rocket science if you pay attention to consistency. Expensive scopes get some amount of individual evaluation, i.e. every scope gets looked at. As they become less expensive, companies do spot checks. For some larger companies, they will pull a scope from every lot and beat it up a little to see if there are systemic lot to lot variations.

How much testing is statistically significant is hard to say because lot to lot variation plays a role. Assuming manufacturing is consistent and expected failure rate is in the 1% to 4% range depending on the scope price and build quality, looking at 40-50 scopes should be reasonably indicative. More is, of course, better. Some of that can be short-circuited with accelerated wear testing. Some companies do it, but it is hard to say how many.

Here is the rub: most companies do not make enough scope to easily afford to go bang up 50 of them, so there is a lot of educated guessing and trusting the OEM happening.

Once the scope is out, a lot is learned from simply analyzing service department records. That's usually where we find the most statistically significant data on how different designs hold up under average use.


ILya

That's the strategy where the customer who bought the product also serves as the durability test function.

I'll take a guess that companies who use that strategy as a principle measure of quality/durability speak the loudest about their exceptional warranty/customer service policy in media ads.

Some companies DO have either in house or use test labs to validate their product. My comment above is not specifically aimed at optics companies.

With most companies I know, marketing people and service/repair people do not talk to each other very much. There are, of course, exceptions.

I recall a guy from one of the Instagram optics companies (Atibal, I think) telling me that all this product development product is a bunch of nonsense and he can get any product configuration to marker in 6 to 12 months: just tell the chinese what specs you want and they make it. Well, that explains his products.

Serious companies have serious engineering groups and serious quality departments.

ILya

koshkin, aside from Arken's apparent lack of interest in QC and CS, have you found their products to perform pretty well?

I'm pretty sure that Form makes the same sort of claim in his tests.

Hard to say. I have one here and it works well for the money. However, the failure rates on them seem to be so high that I do not know what to make of them. I know one Youtuber who received six different Arkens over the last couple of years and three had to go back for various problems. At every rimfire match, when I talk to the match director, they say that every match they run, one or two Arkens go down.
They get the look and feel right, but seem to need some work on the fundamentals.

For me, when I review a scope, I have to have reasonable faith that they make them consistently. I am sorta rooting for Arken to get it all worked out since I like what they are doing with the potential value proposition. Until I see some consistency, I'll be watching from the sidelines.

ILya

Thanks for the reply!

This has been very informative and makes sense to me from a practical level. I'm a scientist by training and statistics make sense sense to me, especially on this subject. There is no such thing as a zero failure rate. I've also long thought that some companies use buyers as their QA/QC department.

You mentioned a few mounts I've seen but not used - I'll have a look.

I hope we can keep this respectful and learn - and not turn this into an aggressive name-calling pissing match.

While not the scope you reference, I posted on this a while back with a pic or two so people could see the problem. When I took the scope apart, the erector tube had some nasty gouges where the turret pad contacted it. After I polished those out, the scope tracked repeatably and very close to the mfgs stated incrementals for adjustment.

Thanks for your participation.

Good shootin' -Al

I would like to echo the sentiments of bwinters. Very good thread. Thanks to the knowledgable contributors. Keep it going.

I've never found it a problem,to simply procure that which intrigues and flog upon same. If it connects dots,I buy more. Hint.








Not that the Fixture Fhuqkery and lack of Live Rounds,ain't funnier than fhuqk. Hint.

Just sayin'..................

Koshkin,
You say that most reputable brands do some sort of drop or impact test for zero retention. Shoot to verify baseline, drop or create impact of some sort, then shoot again to verify zero retention. I think that’s what you said. Are they actually doing this in a manner that imparts lateral force via side impacts? To mimic actual drops that might occur in the field? Or via some sort of machine that only mimics longitudinal force (recoil simulation)?

I haven’t seen much of the former (outside of Nightforce). I have seen plenty of the latter, and frankly it doesn’t mean much to me. Of course a scope should hold up to recoil as that’s the very job it was assigned to do. That’s a minimum level expectation. Holding up to recoil of hunting rounds, magnums included, is really nothing exceptional, imo. Please show me exceptional so that I know it will easily hold up to the routine. Of course I also expect the tires I buy to be round, hold air, and roll down the road too.

And if a scope is truly drop tested/torture tested in some manner, why isn’t that shown in marketing materials? Nightforce seems to be the only company that actually demonstrates their durability claims. Consequently, I own more NF scopes than any other brand, and they are on all of my most important hunting rifles.

As a hunter, durability is my #1 concern. I buy quality scopes that naturally have good glass. The glass nuances and subtleties on $1000+ scopes are mostly meaningless for most hunters. Why do marketing departments focus so much energy on stuff that matters less? Show us more of the torture testing and we’d probably buy a lot more of those scopes.

That's the thing - manufacturers like Leupold have a "trust me bro, our scopes are fine, you're just mounting them wrong" attitude, like the claims on their now defunct video. If they showed good testing we'd be more likely to believe the claims.
The thing with Form's tests is they might not have been statistically viable, but they often tended to reflect the results many of us were already seeing in the field with the exact scopes that were failing.
If someone has a better test, bring it on. In the meantime, we go with the data presented in the tests available to us.

Last NIB Reupold I bought. Hint.






Set aboard my 18lb+ Bart' barreled Vudoo at 50yds,with 20 Mil's in the erector,between shots. Hint.






Remounted it a coupla weeks later,for more laughs. 3-shot cluster with only zoom manipulations(swung stop to stop twice),the wild brace with 10 Mil's of erector between pokes. Hint.



As per always,when the Swiffer 5-20x HD FFP MQ LitBitch goes back on board,it's in the .2's. Hint.




Never not interesting,to extrapolate side by each,with Live Fire. Hint.



Just sayin'.................

This as an interesting 4 mins or so. Not really whacks but pressure on a scope.

You're preaching to the choir

Great thread, thank you for the information.

isn't big stick and ubber fan boy of Arken?

here is a leupold tracking test for your enjoyment.

This.