Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles HELP!! Leupold problems?

Does make me wonder why they completely rebuilt a scope if there was no problem with it.

This is probably like jumping into a tank full of Piranha's, but my NightForce tracks well and hold's zero, and return's to zero after a day of knob spinning....it does say "Made in Japan" though...

Probably on to somethin

Could be....how many "NightForce sucks" post's have we seen....

Only Lee24 could google that kind of info.

Stubb,
Lot's of good points but for the sake of more conversation I wonder about the sales figures. How many Leupold scopes have been sold compared to the Euro scopes?? The reason I make this point is fairly obvious. I would think that Leupold probably sells more scopes than all of the Euro companies combined which would make them a little more susceptable to having issues not to mention that a guy can normally buy at least 2 Leupolds of comparible magnification and objective size for the price of one of the Euro's with the exception of the American line of Euro scopes.
Leupold is a pretty good value in most cases but like anything else when there is so much market exposure there are more issues. It would be interesting to know what percentage of scopes of all brands fail and require warranty work.
NF scopes are super nice as are all the Euro scopes. Leupold makes (IMO) a high quality affordable scope that does the job and that a lot of us are proud to have on our rifles, pistols, muzzleloaders, and shotguns. Anyone lucky enough to have a Swaro, Zeiss, or S&B is equally as proud but I would think would have much higher expectations due to the perceived quality and the cost.
I have had the same tracking issues with one Leupold scope in the past 35 years as experienced by the gentleman that started this thread. I have also had the same experience with a Swaro scope mounted in a set of George's Conetrol rings and bases. In all fairness it was the base screws tightened into the rings too tight that caused the horizontal tracking issues. Cracked the tapered screw seats in the rings.
This illustrates the point I am making in that there are at least a dozen Leupolds on everything from a .223 to a .338WM in my safe and it's been that way for a long time. Two failures that required trips back to Leupold in 35 years. Not bad.
The warranty work was outstanding and extremely quick in both cases.

Dave

In over 35 years of shooting,I have owned over a dozen Leupolds,seven Swarovskis,four Zeiss scopes,eight bushnells,a weaver,a nightforce,and to date not one outright failure,as in not holding zero,or parts breaking.That being said,there was a great deal of difference in optical quality,brightness and tracking precision between the various scopes.The only scope that ever outright failed on me was a Simmons that I bought on a rifle at a gunshow.

Stubb,
My point exactly. I think my failures had a lot to do with shooting very hot loads in 8# magnum rifles. In both cases Leupold sent the scopes back to me with no explaination regarding anything being wrong. I had a Bushnell Banner years ago go haywire and a Redfield that couldn't figure out where zero was as well.

Dave

RE: rear windage screw slipage... dial in the windage using the rear screws and do it with the scope at its optical center. Also do it without denting the scope. Then remove the top half of the rings and remove the scope. Have the rear windage screws reasonably tight. Over tighten and sometimes the screw heads will pop off. Then, have your gunmaker sink an 8x40 screw down thru the rear ring and into the base. End of slippage issue.

Be careful not to over tighten the rings. You can easily compress the tube. All you are trying to do is keep the scope from slipping. Use a little piece of masking tape in the bottom rings. Try and remove it a few years later and you will see how well it works.

I have had a screw break on a redfield base,but never on a leupold base,and I have tightened them very tight.