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.
I missed this one earlier.
All the major manufacturers I have talked to in any sort of a detail do side impact tests in addition to the recoil test. Some have the equipment to do it. Some rig things up out of what they have. It is a tricky thing to do in a repeatable manner without fairly expensive equipment. I obviously have not talked to all of the riflescope manufacturers, so I can not tell if they all do it or do not do it. I have not done an exhaustive survey of that.
I am not aware of Nightforce demonstrating anything. They talk about it in their marketing literature and do an occasional publicity stunt or two. It is mostly nonsense, but it looks impressive and seems to be a successful marketing technique for them. It is hard to estimate exactly, but I suspect Nightforce spends more marketing money per scope than anyone else and it has worked well for them. They seem to be falling a little behind on product development at the moment. Hopefully, they will start releasing something new soon or they will Leupold themselves into a tricky situation.
Back when Nightforce was a fairly new company and they were working on NXS scopes, they did a significant amount of work with their OEM on enhancing the reliability of their designs. I think they were one of the first companies or the first to work that closely with the OEM during the design process. It is a good bit more common now. In many ways, Nightforce is probably responsible for how robust many of LOW's designs are. You can design for reliability and that acquired knowledge went into LOW's designs that they do for other customers as well.
None of the marketing departments show you any torture testing. Actual testing is a very different thing from marketing stunts. Why marketing departments of optics companies do or do not focus on certain aspects of their products is not a question I can answer. I do not do marketing for anyone and I have no clue how they make marketing decisions.
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.
I missed this one earlier.
All the major manufacturers I have talked to in any sort of a detail do side impact tests in addition to the recoil test. Some have the equipment to do it. Some rig things up out of what they have. It is a tricky thing to do in a repeatable manner without fairly expensive equipment. I obviously have not talked to all of the riflescope manufacturers, so I can not tell if they all do it or do not do it. I have not done an exhaustive survey of that.
I am not aware of Nightforce demonstrating anything. They talk about it in their marketing literature and do an occasional publicity stunt or two. It is mostly nonsense, but it looks impressive and seems to be a successful marketing technique for them. It is hard to estimate exactly, but I suspect Nightforce spends more marketing money per scope than anyone else and it has worked well for them. They seem to be falling a little behind on product development at the moment. Hopefully, they will start releasing something new soon or they will Leupold themselves into a tricky situation.
Back when Nightforce was a fairly new company and they were working on NXS scopes, they did a significant amount of work with their OEM on enhancing the reliability of their designs. I think they were one of the first companies or the first to work that closely with the OEM during the design process. It is a good bit more common now. In many ways, Nightforce is probably responsible for how robust many of LOW's designs are. You can design for reliability and that acquired knowledge went into LOW's designs that they do for other customers as well.
None of the marketing departments show you any torture testing. Actual testing is a very different thing from marketing stunts. Why marketing departments of optics companies do or do not focus on certain aspects of their products is not a question I can answer. I do not do marketing for anyone and I have no clue how they make marketing decisions.
ILya
Interesting. If I were involved with marketing of a riflescope, I would beat on them, and show them holding zero. That would be the basis of my marketing campaign. If you don’t have durability and zero retention in a scope, nothing else matters. At least not to me.
Stunt or not, that NF video where they freeze the scope in a block of ice, shoot the scope with a shotgun, pound a big nail into a stump with it, and then put it back on the rifle and shoot is a powerful and convincing video. There’s also the video of the NF guy beating the scope on its side and putting it back on a collimator. Despite your claim of NF not demonstrating anything, that sure demonstrates something to me — that the manufacturer has confidence in their product. I’d love to see Swaro or Zeiss or Leica, for example, do something similar. The fact that they don’t speaks volumes. Pretty glass, questionable construction. It’s only reasonable to surmise that if a manufacturer were actually building demonstrably durable scopes, they would be marketing such. I’m in no position to question your knowledge of the industry, but as a consumer it’s hard to believe that everyone is impact testing, as you state.
It doesn’t have to be that elaborate, but I find it shocking that the vast majority of scope manufacturers show no demonstration of durability at all in their marketing materials. If, as you say, “All the major manufacturers I have talked to in any sort of a detail do side impact tests” yet they are not showing us, they are doing themselves a disservice as it creates a perception that they are doing nothing. Only Trijicon, NF and kinda March (that I am aware of) show or make any claim at all of performing any sort of impact testing. Their loss.
There may well be other videos from other companies out there but I saw this one a while back. Not sure if this procedure adequately tests the long-term durability of their scopes but if March does this to every scope they build and sell then that's something I guess.
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.
I missed this one earlier.
All the major manufacturers I have talked to in any sort of a detail do side impact tests in addition to the recoil test. Some have the equipment to do it. Some rig things up out of what they have. It is a tricky thing to do in a repeatable manner without fairly expensive equipment. I obviously have not talked to all of the riflescope manufacturers, so I can not tell if they all do it or do not do it. I have not done an exhaustive survey of that.
I am not aware of Nightforce demonstrating anything. They talk about it in their marketing literature and do an occasional publicity stunt or two. It is mostly nonsense, but it looks impressive and seems to be a successful marketing technique for them. It is hard to estimate exactly, but I suspect Nightforce spends more marketing money per scope than anyone else and it has worked well for them. They seem to be falling a little behind on product development at the moment. Hopefully, they will start releasing something new soon or they will Leupold themselves into a tricky situation.
Back when Nightforce was a fairly new company and they were working on NXS scopes, they did a significant amount of work with their OEM on enhancing the reliability of their designs. I think they were one of the first companies or the first to work that closely with the OEM during the design process. It is a good bit more common now. In many ways, Nightforce is probably responsible for how robust many of LOW's designs are. You can design for reliability and that acquired knowledge went into LOW's designs that they do for other customers as well.
None of the marketing departments show you any torture testing. Actual testing is a very different thing from marketing stunts. Why marketing departments of optics companies do or do not focus on certain aspects of their products is not a question I can answer. I do not do marketing for anyone and I have no clue how they make marketing decisions.
ILya
Interesting. If I were involved with marketing of a riflescope, I would beat on them, and show them holding zero. That would be the basis of my marketing campaign. If you don’t have durability and zero retention in a scope, nothing else matters. At least not to me.
Stunt or not, that NF video where they freeze the scope in a block of ice, shoot the scope with a shotgun, pound a big nail into a stump with it, and then put it back on the rifle and shoot is a powerful and convincing video. There’s also the video of the NF guy beating the scope on its side and putting it back on a collimator. Despite your claim of NF not demonstrating anything, that sure demonstrates something to me — that the manufacturer has confidence in their product. I’d love to see Swaro or Zeiss or Leica, for example, do something similar. The fact that they don’t speaks volumes. Pretty glass, questionable construction.
It doesn’t have to be that elaborate, but I find it shocking that the vast majority of scope manufacturers show no demonstration of durability at all in their marketing materials. If, as you say, “All the major manufacturers I have talked to in any sort of a detail do side impact tests” yet they are not showing us, they are doing themselves a disservice as it creates a perception that they are doing nothing. Only Trijicon, NF and kinda March (that I am aware of) show or make any claim at all of performing any sort of impact testing. Their loss.
I suppose that confirms my earlier statement that Nightforce's marketing is very effective.
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.
I missed this one earlier.
All the major manufacturers I have talked to in any sort of a detail do side impact tests in addition to the recoil test. Some have the equipment to do it. Some rig things up out of what they have. It is a tricky thing to do in a repeatable manner without fairly expensive equipment. I obviously have not talked to all of the riflescope manufacturers, so I can not tell if they all do it or do not do it. I have not done an exhaustive survey of that.
I am not aware of Nightforce demonstrating anything. They talk about it in their marketing literature and do an occasional publicity stunt or two. It is mostly nonsense, but it looks impressive and seems to be a successful marketing technique for them. It is hard to estimate exactly, but I suspect Nightforce spends more marketing money per scope than anyone else and it has worked well for them. They seem to be falling a little behind on product development at the moment. Hopefully, they will start releasing something new soon or they will Leupold themselves into a tricky situation.
Back when Nightforce was a fairly new company and they were working on NXS scopes, they did a significant amount of work with their OEM on enhancing the reliability of their designs. I think they were one of the first companies or the first to work that closely with the OEM during the design process. It is a good bit more common now. In many ways, Nightforce is probably responsible for how robust many of LOW's designs are. You can design for reliability and that acquired knowledge went into LOW's designs that they do for other customers as well.
None of the marketing departments show you any torture testing. Actual testing is a very different thing from marketing stunts. Why marketing departments of optics companies do or do not focus on certain aspects of their products is not a question I can answer. I do not do marketing for anyone and I have no clue how they make marketing decisions.
ILya
Interesting. If I were involved with marketing of a riflescope, I would beat on them, and show them holding zero. That would be the basis of my marketing campaign. If you don’t have durability and zero retention in a scope, nothing else matters. At least not to me.
Stunt or not, that NF video where they freeze the scope in a block of ice, shoot the scope with a shotgun, pound a big nail into a stump with it, and then put it back on the rifle and shoot is a powerful and convincing video. There’s also the video of the NF guy beating the scope on its side and putting it back on a collimator. Despite your claim of NF not demonstrating anything, that sure demonstrates something to me — that the manufacturer has confidence in their product. I’d love to see Swaro or Zeiss or Leica, for example, do something similar. The fact that they don’t speaks volumes. Pretty glass, questionable construction.
It doesn’t have to be that elaborate, but I find it shocking that the vast majority of scope manufacturers show no demonstration of durability at all in their marketing materials. If, as you say, “All the major manufacturers I have talked to in any sort of a detail do side impact tests” yet they are not showing us, they are doing themselves a disservice as it creates a perception that they are doing nothing. Only Trijicon, NF and kinda March (that I am aware of) show or make any claim at all of performing any sort of impact testing. Their loss.
I suppose that confirms my earlier statement that Nightforce's marketing is very effective.
There may well be other videos from other companies out there but I saw this one a while back. Not sure if this procedure adequately tests the long-term durability of their scopes but if March does this to every scope they build and sell then that's something I guess.
Yes, that’s something. Which is why I listed March in the three I’m aware of that actually market the fact that they do some impact (not just recoil) testing. Some live fire testing included in that video would be helpful too, but that’s better than nothing - which is what I remain convinced is what most manufacturers are doing. I’d love to be convinced otherwise, but alas, despite claims to the contrary here, I remain skeptical.
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.
I missed this one earlier.
All the major manufacturers I have talked to in any sort of a detail do side impact tests in addition to the recoil test. Some have the equipment to do it. Some rig things up out of what they have. It is a tricky thing to do in a repeatable manner without fairly expensive equipment. I obviously have not talked to all of the riflescope manufacturers, so I can not tell if they all do it or do not do it. I have not done an exhaustive survey of that.
I am not aware of Nightforce demonstrating anything. They talk about it in their marketing literature and do an occasional publicity stunt or two. It is mostly nonsense, but it looks impressive and seems to be a successful marketing technique for them. It is hard to estimate exactly, but I suspect Nightforce spends more marketing money per scope than anyone else and it has worked well for them. They seem to be falling a little behind on product development at the moment. Hopefully, they will start releasing something new soon or they will Leupold themselves into a tricky situation.
Back when Nightforce was a fairly new company and they were working on NXS scopes, they did a significant amount of work with their OEM on enhancing the reliability of their designs. I think they were one of the first companies or the first to work that closely with the OEM during the design process. It is a good bit more common now. In many ways, Nightforce is probably responsible for how robust many of LOW's designs are. You can design for reliability and that acquired knowledge went into LOW's designs that they do for other customers as well.
None of the marketing departments show you any torture testing. Actual testing is a very different thing from marketing stunts. Why marketing departments of optics companies do or do not focus on certain aspects of their products is not a question I can answer. I do not do marketing for anyone and I have no clue how they make marketing decisions.
ILya
Curious, if you are able to provide more detail, when you do work for a company around which aspect specifically does it typically involve? For those of us who aren’t as familiar with your work, could you please expound on exactly what it is you do? If not marketing, then what exactly? Are we talking about engineering of the optical appearance or function of the glass specifically? As in maximizing the image quality? Or does your experience involve engineering of the mechanical parts and construction of the scope?
Interesting. If I were involved with marketing of a riflescope, I would beat on them, and show them holding zero. That would be the basis of my marketing campaign. If you don’t have durability and zero retention in a scope, nothing else matters. At least not to me.
Stunt or not, that NF video where they freeze the scope in a block of ice, shoot the scope with a shotgun, pound a big nail into a stump with it, and then put it back on the rifle and shoot is a powerful and convincing video. There’s also the video of the NF guy beating the scope on its side and putting it back on a collimator. Despite your claim of NF not demonstrating anything, that sure demonstrates something to me — that the manufacturer has confidence in their product. I’d love to see Swaro or Zeiss or Leica, for example, do something similar. The fact that they don’t speaks volumes. Pretty glass, questionable construction. It’s only reasonable to surmise that if a manufacturer were actually building demonstrably durable scopes, they would be marketing such. I’m in no position to question your knowledge of the industry, but as a consumer it’s hard to believe that everyone is impact testing, as you state.
It doesn’t have to be that elaborate, but I find it shocking that the vast majority of scope manufacturers show no demonstration of durability at all in their marketing materials. If, as you say, “All the major manufacturers I have talked to in any sort of a detail do side impact tests” yet they are not showing us, they are doing themselves a disservice as it creates a perception that they are doing nothing. Only Trijicon, NF and kinda March (that I am aware of) show or make any claim at all of performing any sort of impact testing. Their loss.[/quote]
This...exactly. I'm not necessarily drinking the Form koolaid, but anyone that is questioning the mechanical reliability of Nightforce is simply wrong...or revealing their own biases. It's not just "marketing" if it's true. I won't argue other scope manufacturers have more "features", but if dialing values, RTZ, and zero retention are the primary goal (and they certainly are for me)...I'd sure like to know what scope manufacturer does that better.
That last part isn't rhetorical btw. If anyone believes there is a more reliable scope lineup than NF for tracking, return to zero, and zero retention as the primary goals then I'm all ears.
Last edited by iddave; 03/05/24.
If you're not burning through batteries in your headlamp,...you're doing it wrong.
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.
I missed this one earlier.
All the major manufacturers I have talked to in any sort of a detail do side impact tests in addition to the recoil test. Some have the equipment to do it. Some rig things up out of what they have. It is a tricky thing to do in a repeatable manner without fairly expensive equipment. I obviously have not talked to all of the riflescope manufacturers, so I can not tell if they all do it or do not do it. I have not done an exhaustive survey of that.
I am not aware of Nightforce demonstrating anything. They talk about it in their marketing literature and do an occasional publicity stunt or two. It is mostly nonsense, but it looks impressive and seems to be a successful marketing technique for them. It is hard to estimate exactly, but I suspect Nightforce spends more marketing money per scope than anyone else and it has worked well for them. They seem to be falling a little behind on product development at the moment. Hopefully, they will start releasing something new soon or they will Leupold themselves into a tricky situation.
Back when Nightforce was a fairly new company and they were working on NXS scopes, they did a significant amount of work with their OEM on enhancing the reliability of their designs. I think they were one of the first companies or the first to work that closely with the OEM during the design process. It is a good bit more common now. In many ways, Nightforce is probably responsible for how robust many of LOW's designs are. You can design for reliability and that acquired knowledge went into LOW's designs that they do for other customers as well.
None of the marketing departments show you any torture testing. Actual testing is a very different thing from marketing stunts. Why marketing departments of optics companies do or do not focus on certain aspects of their products is not a question I can answer. I do not do marketing for anyone and I have no clue how they make marketing decisions.
ILya
Curious, if you are able to provide more detail, when you do work for a company around which aspect specifically does it typically involve? For those of us who aren’t as familiar with your work, could you please expound on exactly what it is you do? If not marketing, then what exactly? Are we talking about engineering of the optical appearance or function of the glass specifically? As in maximizing the image quality? Or does your experience involve engineering of the mechanical parts and construction of the scope?
On my own, I do some general consulting and occasionally design reticles for different companies. I am seldom involved in the engineering process. Sometimes I help with concept origination, figuring out what is important and what isn't, etc.
For my dayjob, the company I work for makes test equipment for all sorts of things including DVOs. www.ci-systems.com
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.
I missed this one earlier.
All the major manufacturers I have talked to in any sort of a detail do side impact tests in addition to the recoil test. Some have the equipment to do it. Some rig things up out of what they have. It is a tricky thing to do in a repeatable manner without fairly expensive equipment. I obviously have not talked to all of the riflescope manufacturers, so I can not tell if they all do it or do not do it. I have not done an exhaustive survey of that.
I am not aware of Nightforce demonstrating anything. They talk about it in their marketing literature and do an occasional publicity stunt or two. It is mostly nonsense, but it looks impressive and seems to be a successful marketing technique for them. It is hard to estimate exactly, but I suspect Nightforce spends more marketing money per scope than anyone else and it has worked well for them. They seem to be falling a little behind on product development at the moment. Hopefully, they will start releasing something new soon or they will Leupold themselves into a tricky situation.
Back when Nightforce was a fairly new company and they were working on NXS scopes, they did a significant amount of work with their OEM on enhancing the reliability of their designs. I think they were one of the first companies or the first to work that closely with the OEM during the design process. It is a good bit more common now. In many ways, Nightforce is probably responsible for how robust many of LOW's designs are. You can design for reliability and that acquired knowledge went into LOW's designs that they do for other customers as well.
None of the marketing departments show you any torture testing. Actual testing is a very different thing from marketing stunts. Why marketing departments of optics companies do or do not focus on certain aspects of their products is not a question I can answer. I do not do marketing for anyone and I have no clue how they make marketing decisions.
ILya
Curious, if you are able to provide more detail, when you do work for a company around which aspect specifically does it typically involve? For those of us who aren’t as familiar with your work, could you please expound on exactly what it is you do? If not marketing, then what exactly? Are we talking about engineering of the optical appearance or function of the glass specifically? As in maximizing the image quality? Or does your experience involve engineering of the mechanical parts and construction of the scope?
On my own, I do some general consulting and occasionally design reticles for different companies. I am seldom involved in the engineering process. Sometimes I help with concept origination I, figuring out what is important and what isn't, etc.
For my dayjob, the company I work for makes test equipment for all sorts of things including DVOs. www.ci-systems.com
ILya
Interesting, sounds like a fun job. Please communicate that durability is MOST important. I’m glad some companies are starting to take notice and build better stuff, because all the features in the world mean nothing if the scope fails to work. IMO, we don’t need more scope options with more features. We do need more scope options that hold zero reliably and continue to do so after reasonable impact.
![[Linked Image from i.postimg.cc]](https://i.postimg.cc/dVpScPGH/IMG-5420.jpg)
![[Linked Image from i.postimg.cc]](https://i.postimg.cc/xCSxqvxL/IMG-5421.png)
is tested...".