Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics The Best Scope Money Can Buy

Leupold....pay any more,spent too much
Pay any less,well that's what you will get.....

Leupold....pay any more,spent too much - but you got a better scope if you bought a Zeiss/S&B/Swarovski
Pay any less,well that's what you will get. -more money in your pocket and a better scope if you bought a Zeiss Conquest or Elite 4200....

If you are using that Sako for Hunting and ever expect to use it in severe conditions then you are MUCH better off with a Leupold 3.5x10!

Buried with in the words "Best Scope Money Can buy" is the word application. It's all through this thread with guys discussing what is best, for their use. And, they are right, for their application.
No way would I use a S&B 4x36 at a centerfire benchrest match. Nor would I use a March scope on a Cape Buffalo hunt in Africa.
I had an interesting experience last week shooting a Rem 722 in 222 at the range. I installed a Swarovski PF 6x42 scope on the rifle as it was one HOT shooter, delivering benchrest quality groups from a 55 year old sporter. I was using a 20x scope for that testing. When shooting groups at 100 yards, I actually saw 22 caliber bullet holes in the target with a 6x scope. Never before have I seen 22 bullet holes in a target 100 yards away using any other fixed 6x, or variable scope set at 6x. I was blow away.
Answer: HIGH quality optics.

That is impressive DMB. What I've noticed is that scopes that do that also have pretty small eye boxes (although I've never even seen the one you're talking about, so I really don't have a f'n clue if the eyebox is small). So, as someone else has said, it's a matter of picking trade offs. E

Iflyguns: If you are using that Sako for Hunting and ever expect to use it in severe conditions then you are MUCH better off with a Leupold 3.5x10!
I have been using these scopes for a LONG time and have as yet to encounter ANY problem or shortcoming with any of them.
Someone may have already pointed out that - nothing is perfect, but in my extensive experience the Leupolds come real close.
And they come in the silver matte finish also.
No "flak" - just fact!
Buy reliability - buy American - buy LEUPOLD!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I have always been a huge, huge Leupold advocate. They were always my benchmark for quality, innovation and U.S. workmanship. I own an awful lot of their product and continue to use it regularly.

However. . . . In the last few years, I have seen a change in the way Leupold does business and delivers product to the market. As they have grown, they have embraced many less than admirable traits that seem to define too many parts of American businesses. While their pricing has been steadily increasing at a faster rate than inflation, their quality has dropped. They are still capable of producing a sharp, repeatable optic but not as dependably.

My biggest aggravation with Leupold is the fact that less than 5% of their product line that can be legally stamped "Made in U.S.A." and I'm not even sure that those few are !!! What started out with a few of their Wind River imports has blown into an all out effort to prostitute their name brand for a dollar.

I just received 18 RX-4 range finders, 18 Tactical 10x50 Patrol Binoculars and 18 Mk 4 LR/T 4.5-14x50mm TMR Illum. scopes for a package deal I have to ship. This is pretty much suppossed to be their better gear. Guess what? Range finders "Made In CHINA". Binoculars "Made In China". Scopes have no country of origin marked on the packaging, instructions or product. Call back from Leupold informs me that the scopes are assembled in Oregon but so many of the parts and sub-assemblies are made over-seas (mostly China except for some of their lenses)that they do not qualify for the Made in USA stamp!

I can assure you that sourcing their components and products from China has dropped their costs very, very dramatically while they have continued to raise market prices. You know, honestly, it isn't even the price/profit thing that burns me. It is the fact that they chose to move their sourcing and manufacturing (I do consider "manufacturing" and "assembly" two different beasts in this instance) out of the country and specifically China. Why couldn't they keep most of their production here and just up their pricing 10%? Jesus, I could drop my selling price and triple my profit on freakin Pod-Loc kits if I used components from outside the U.S., but I refuse to go there. Guess that is why I still drive a 10 year old truck.

While they may still have satisfactory product performance and at least attempt innovative ideas occaisionally, I believe that they are straying from their roots, pumping a ton of money into foreign factories and putting yet another hole in the bottom of the lifeboat that retains at least a small fraction of our ability to domestically support our police and military logistics in the event of any serious conflict. I remain firmly convinced that we shall sorely curse the day that we wake up and realize that we need to raise our military to a task only to find out we have cut off our own legs. I aim this statement not only at Leupold but other textile, steel, electronics and molding industries based in the U.S. You don't just start that [bleep] back up inside the U.S. borders overnight.

I will continue to use my original Leupold products but I shall migrate away from giving their company blanket support. I will, instead continue to give more and more support to companies that take risks, accept slightly lower margins and consciously make the effort to strengthen our own economy and workforce. As you purchase your gear or spec out the equipment for your agency bids, please consider more than F.O.V. and click value.

I would seriously love to debate the execs at Leupold in front of their Board about some of this.

DISCLAIMER: I know that some out there will have personal budgets at home that restrict your choices to imports and I totally respect that. A non-US product is better than no product at all in some cases.

DISCLAIMER #2: Yeah, that was more than a second. Sorry.
TC

Leupold was the pinnacle of tactical rifle scopes.....in 1989. Not much has been improved over the last 20 years, except the prices have gotten higher; and therein lies the problem with Leupold.

Great Customer service, Great Custom shop, and operational features that were the cutting edge 20 years ago.

Wish they would get a clue. Used to love their stuff. But the world has moved on, and Leupold has stood rigidly still.

That is not bashing Leupold, it's a realization that previously well thought of US company, is on the decline. There is no good reason for this to be so. Insipid management, resting on it's past laurels, are dooming a fine (MK4) product line to an also-ran, laughing stock status.

The only rational that prevents Leupold from fully competing with S&B, USO, Premier Hertiage, Nightforce, IOR, Vortex, Sightron, Falcon and even SWFA's Super Sniper lines, is that they (Leupold) chose not to do so. So they peddle the exact same products as they did in 1999, but change the packaging, and increase the price.

If Leupold choses not the compete and provide me as a shooter with a product that is competitive, both functionally and price wise, with the competition; then I chose not to buy their product.

But as a company who at one time lead the world in production and design of tactical scopes, Leupold's fall has been profound and stunning.

Maybe there is more money to be made for Leupold, by peddling DogShit Optics from China, and selling it as America's finest. But count me off of that bandwagon.
Bob

Second, face it, it�s a better scope in every way than the loopy 6x42.

dj,

It's not conventional wisdom, it's medical fact. I've read it in many places where big objectives were being discussed, and I've seen Barsness reference it. However, I also asked my eye surgeon. He confirmed what I had read. I'm out on the edge of the curve with you; my pupils dilate to 8mm in a dim/darkened room. That's the reason I was speaking with a surgeon. Before they would do my Refractive Laser surgery I had to have prosthetic lenses put in both eyes. The prosthetic lenses have an anti-reflective coating. Additionally, the prosthetic lenses improved my vision to augment the laser surgery.

So, generally speaking, when a person's eyes are young their pupils can dilate to around 7mm. By age 40, in general, a person's pupils cannot dilate much past 5mm.

PS - I do have good night vision, but I've never gotten a group together and tested how I compare to a group. In a group of 10 men, ages 45 - 55, I'm sure some of them, in fact, most of the them, should have average night vision with a pupil dilation of 4~5mm.

Magnum,

Powerful posting, and right on, as are all of your posts.
I'm questioning now if my pupils will even open up to 5mm. I doubt it. So, I've been using 5mm to size all of my optics in the last few years. I know I can't use anything higher than 5mm.
Hang in there.
Don