Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics The way it supposed to happen!

A guy at work asked me to sight in his old rifle. It has an old Leupold on it. I bore sighted it at 100 and fired three shots. It was slightly up and left. I made an adjustment as if the old Leupold would cooperate. It did.

No surprise.

Ringman: According to my source your co-workers Leupold is old - it was made in 1973 or before that even!
So its at least 45 years old.
I have been a "Leupold kind of guy" for 49 years or so now.
I have as yet to have a Leupold scope fail me!
And I have have Hunted them hard and under every manner of harsh climate and circumstance - from horseback Hunts, to ATV Hunts, to rainforests in two different states to 30 degrees below zero to 100 degrees above!
In dust, rain, sleet, snow, torrential rain nothing seems to interfere with what I ask of my Leupolds.
I currently have 53 Leupold scopes mounted on Rifles and a couple on pistols - and in the past I have had a few dozen more go through my shooting hands.
Again... I am still waiting for the first one to fail me!
I have numerous other brands of scopes on many different Rifles but the trust factor rests with Leupold.
When the chips are down and the weather or travel conditions are expected to be harsh - I rely on Leupold!
This is a learned opinion/policy.
Long live Leupold & Stevens - a proud American company.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

The only Leupold I know of to begin to fail was when I was breaking every scope put on my Freedom Arms .454. That was from 1989 till I got the second Leupold. Like a few of the others the field of view started shrink at about the 300 round count.
From experience I knkew once that happened thing went south in a hurry. That first Leupold was a Vari-X 2 1/2-8X32. I called to see if they wanted me to go ahead and destroy it or would they like to see was happening. They wanted it right then.

They replaced it with the second generation Vari-X 2 1/2-8X32. The round count is probably in the thousands now. To my delight the second generation has even better glass than the first one did.

One of the scopes didn't last even one five shot cylendar full. In fact it was the worst in that it sounded like a baby rattle. Burris was the worst as far as companies went. They told me there was nothing wrong with the scope, despite it being totally blurry. Finally I got a hold of an executive who new something about the product. He replaced it. Same thing happened and he replaced it again. I sold the replacement. Same thing happend with three 8-32X Signature scope. He said, "You must be getting ever reject we ever made." Back then I used Burris exclusively.

Thomson/Center made what they called The Recoil Proof pistol scope. I called and asked if they tried it on a .454 Cassul. "No, but we sure would like to find out how it would hold up," was the answer. I bought one and it started coming apart. I called them to see if they wanted to see the first thing to go wrong. "Yes." They sent me a new one. It started messing up so they sent me another; which I sold to a guy who put it on a XP100 7BR. It is still going fine.

The only fixed power was a Bosh&Lomb 4X. It didn't break per say. I started to blow the dust off the lens one day in the desert while hunting jack rabbits. The dust was on the inside. They were the slowest of the customer service. While I was waiting I purchased another brand scope, and then another. Nine months later the reburbished fixed 4X arrived. I traded it for a Nichols. It was definitely the brightest, next to the second Leupold.

In all that .454 went through eleven before the second Leupold, which makes twelve. The second generation Vari-X 2 1/2-8X32 leaves nothing to be desired in a hand gun scope.

Dangerous game those jacks.

I too have been a Leupold guy for more than 40 yrs. now trusting in no other scope maker. Leupold scopes have never let me down, can't say the same of Weaver or Redfield. I purchased a new Redfield 4x to put on my backup rifle in advance of a elk/muley hunt several years ago. Took it to the range to sight in and after a few shots, fire one and heard this clunk and rolling noise on the bench top. Imagine my astonishment when I saw the cause of the noise, the entire front end of the scope had come unscrewed and was rolling across the bench top. I've had Weaver scope that fogged and one whose adjustments became unresponsive or responded erratically. So based upon those experiences it has been nothing but Leupold for me. I especially like the earlier ones like on the OP buddy's rifle, I have a couple on my pre'64 M/70's. They just look right on vintage rifles.

Leupolds are great as big game scopes but turret turners they are not. I've sent a MKIV 3.5-10x40 M1 back twice; once b/c the side parallax knob didn't adjust and a second time due to come ups being off as much as 1.5 MOA @ 400 yards.

If you adjust them for a zero and leave them, they work. However, Leupold doesn't know MOA = 1.047 and you see the error stack the more come ups you need for distance.

Here's Leupold compared to others:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICSX_SOlGew
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgpqpT0VYgo