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Prior to their divorce from Leupold I was under the impression they were held in high regard across the board. Didn't Premier spruce up the Loopies and get them some respect among bench resters way back when???

When Premier and Loopie split up I took an adverse opinion towards loopie. After Premier started marketing their own scope and I saw how much it cost I figured they were not very interested in working white trash like me so I lost interest. I understand they were trying to compete at that end of the market; more power to them

These comments on the other thread that they may have sand bagged the S&B's on purpose seems harsh and slanderous at worst.

What is the real true story?

Not trying to stir up controversy at all whatsoever, but I kinda liked those folks what little I had dealings with them.


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I can't see how in the world they expected to build a company with a product line that was that expensive. when a scope costs $3500 why would you not buy something from S&B or maybe hensoldt OR some other established company. The price is roughly the same. why not buy name brand. I think they would have been far better off offering a rugged reliable scope in the nighforce or less price range.

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Me either, that certainly limits their potential customer base. I have a Leupold with their no. 4 reticle that has spent years on a .416 Rigby. Still working well.

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From Terry Cross on Snipers Hide.

I apologize in advance but I have to rant for a second.

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

Answer from Lowlight on Snipers Hide.

Amen,

Every year they seem to get farther and farther away from what made them the company worthy of the reputation they have, which I personally feel is no longer warranted.

The shear number of them we see problems with is staggering, on military weapons systems no less. They seem to be completely out of touch with the shooter, all shooters, Civilian, Law Enforcement, and Military.

Unfortunately people still flock to their products based on the past reputation, regardless of the fact their current products don't hold up to that standard.
LL

Catshooter
About the mess between Premier Reticles and Leupold.
From Snipers Hide from Catshooter
Originally posted by kgunz11:

Why did Leupold ever support Premier in the first place? It is not like Premier kept Leupold in business or anything. Premier is a TINY fish in the scope pond. I think someone should call Leupold and find out if what Premier said was true, and when the truth comes out I think you will see that Premier just dont want to do Leupold work anymore, they have enough business in assembling S&B scopes that they are turning their back on the shooters. Which that don't bother me, they are building scopes for our troops. I do have a problem with the fact that Premier is not loyal to us the shooters and I will have a hard time doing business with them ever again.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And this gem... (that could only come from a know nothing dork that's all mouth and no brains!)


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by kgunz11:
Funny how Leupold can become the enemy but Premier will always be the friend... no matter how much they shi t on you.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sir kgunz11...
You could not be more wrong if you tried - it is safe to say that you know nothing about the history of the scope industry in this country, and less than nothing about scopes in general.

I have been shooting long enough that I do not suffer the ignorances of young fools very well, especially when it comes to slights against personal friends of mine.

I am catshooter (aka KittyWacker, CatMan, and 'lito).

I had known Dick Thomas for a long time - when the patent office refused to patent the Gen-II reticle, Dick asked me to help, and I was the person that wrote the technical documents that caused the patent office to reverse their position and grant the patent for the Gen-II... in case you doubt my qualifications.

Premier Reticles is NOT a tiny fish, and Premiere Reticle is the company that is greatly responsible for where Leupold is now.

So... listen up, little puppy, here's a history lesson.

Back in the early days when you were riding a tricycle (or maybe before that), Leupold was a smallish scope company (A LITTLE FISH), - a family owned company that made good hunting scopes, but they were among a bunch of other larger companies like Redfield (a King), and Weaver (damn big), and B&L (top dawg) and Unertl (THE best target scopes, and the only maker of US sniper scopes), and Lyman (second best target scopes)... Leupold was a real "little fish".

Their scopes were nice, but not the best, but they were getting better.

Premier Reticles was a company that made reticles for military instruments... artillery sights, sextants, bomb sights, mortar sights, you name it, they made it - they had tons of patents in the reticle business, and they were THE company to go to.

Leupold wanted to sell sniper sights to the military... Unertl had that market locked up solid, but Unertl was a small company and delivery was slow... plus old man John Unertl (also a personal friend, so careful what you say about him), John would only sell to the Marines.
He would NOT sell to the Army - he thought the army snipers were a bunch of xxx xxxxx, which at the time, was probably true.

Leupold wanted the army contract, but the army would not buy Leupold's "Ultra" scope (precursor to the Mk4-M3), because it had a glass reticle. At the same time, Premier was fitting wire reticles to many other shooting scopes, as was T.K. Lee company.

Leupold got Premier to retrofit and continue to fit, all their sniper scopes with wire reticles with "Football" mil dots... for those of you that care - T.K. Lee used little dots glued on to the wires, and they would shoot off after a while... Premier used a process that had the dot wrap itself around the wire, so it could NEVER ever fall off.

Leupold got the contract, Premier and Leupold made an agreement to work together... Leupold got very fat, and for a while Premier got a little fat. Premier turned away a lot of other companies work because of the relationship with Leupold.

That was the first part.

The second part is this... when Bench Rest got started, Unertl was THE scope to own... but they were heavy. There were two bench rest organizations in place, and the larger organization's rules allowed for the weight... but when they merged, the rules were re-written, and scope weight became a BIG deal over night.

Everyone wanted lighter BR scopes... Weaver pretty much owned the early BR market, but their glass was just so-so.

Leupold had better glass, but their scopes were low power.

So, Ta-Ta, Premier came to the rescue and started to "bump" the standard Leupold scopes up to 16x, 20x and 25x, (a big deal in those days).

Now the world turned around over night, cuz Weavers were made of steel, and Leupolds were made out of that Aluminum stuffie... so a riffle with a Leupold/Premier conversion could have a fatter barrel for the same weight class... to those anal-retentive BR shooters, this was a 180 turn in market share, and Leupold became KING over night (well... probably took 6 months), and it killed Weaver, which became a third class scope company in a year or two.

All of this was all under the old man, Mr. Leupold, who's ethics were beyond reproach.

But after ol' man Leupold went TU, the company got run by Harvard School of Business bean counters.. and their attitude is "What's this loyalty shi t, fuc k Premier!", and that started about 5/6 years ago, and when Dick Thomas died, the last strings died with him.

If you look at the current Leupold catalogue, you see scopes that were designed by a Madison Avenue art designers. They're probably the same guys that design packaging for Game Boys, dashboards for Hondas, and boxes for Krispy Puffs.

dave


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Dave7mm

Thanks for digging that up. What was it exactly that drowned them in recent years?

Are the core folks going to re-group and start over?


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Optical sighting devices for the military today are digital/electronic instead of the true optical.
A Periscope tube on a sub today is electronic/camera based.Not the optical stuff of WWII.
No reticle required.
The Premier rifle scope had some excellent features.But they were never set up as a scope maker and had to farm out to much of the product.Quality issues followed.Thats what happens with farmed out work.
I have no idea if they will ever re-group.


dave


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Dave,
Pretty interesting read - thanks for posting.


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+1 to all of the above.

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Dave, that post is pretty old is it not? I think I've seen Frank post more positive stuff about Leupold as of late, but I could be wrong.

As to Premier, I have one of their Premier Heritage Light Tactical scopes. I really like it, and it has been a good scope thus far. They have now folded shop and were bought out by Tangent Theta out of Canada. http://www.tangenttheta.com

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Yes its older.
The guy did ask for the history..
Leupold could very well be the just dandy now.
But I gave up years ago trying to follow the Alphabet Soup product lineup.
Be interesting to see how the Tangent Theta thing works out over time.
Only time will tell.



dave


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Originally Posted by Robert_White
Prior to their divorce from Leupold I was under the impression they were held in high regard across the board. Didn't Premier spruce up the Loopies and get them some respect among bench resters way back when???


I dont think I have ever seen one of their scopes on a benchrest rifle, but when I was getting into the long range game I put a Premier (Leupold) boosted 14.5x35 on my longest range rifle. still have the scope it is fantastic.


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