Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Are todays Leupold Variable Scopes Reliable?

None of my Leupold scopes are especially new. Usually my only complaint is that when being sighted in the adjustments seem to take 2 or 3 or more shots before settling down. Sometimes this can result in a lot of shots being required in order to set the scope up. Once they have settled in they seem to hold their zero permanently.

Due the increasingly high price of Leupold scopes here in Canada I have been buying more Bushnell and Burris products. They may not be the equal of Leupolds but for the price difference they are more than satisfactory for my purposes.

I have a new Browning X-bolt in .223 coming in a few days and am not sure whether to buy a new scope or to start with a very old 4-12x Redfield scope. I have a couple of much newer 2-7x scopes laying around (in fact one may be 5-7 years old but unused yet)but this may not be enough magnification for my old eyes.

Jim

Some of the problems with scopes that are written here can be attributed to shooting from a rest that grips the gun and doesn't allow recoil to happen normally.

Even the lead weighted bags that have a deep groove for the rifle to rest in can cause the same problems and damage scopes, especially with rifles with synthetic stocks that grip firmly in that groove and don't move normally on recoil.

Of course, that's just some of the problems.....but it's there.

I may have given the impression at times that I'm a Leupold fanboy of sorts, but that's simply a reflection of my own experience. So far, so good.

Given that in general, Leupold has upgraded its products, pretty much throughout the low and middle range, with regard to optics and coatings, etc, it seems unlikely that they would be deliberately letting mechanical quality slip. It's possible that they simply have too many irons in the fire and the sheer number of products make it hard for the assemblers and others to keep pace and do their best work.

It's also a possibility that the bean counters have won the day and decided that it's more cost effective to cut QC and fix the mistakes rather than keep them in house. During my career, I experienced several cycles of management cutting costs and personnel until things went to hell, and then taking credit for fixing the resultant mess. Corporate churn, I guess you might call it. At my age, I don't know how many more scopes I'll be buying, but I have no reservations about switching if they start futzing up. Ask General Motors.

Anything can break due to all kinds of differing reasons. Some have been mentioned here. The question was are today's Leupold Variable scopes reliable? An adjunct inference question was are fixed power scopes more reliable? I think it is pretty safe to state that as a rule, any fixed power scope is more reliable than a variable one. I suspect the answer to the latter question is yes as there are simply more things that can and sometimes do go wrong in a variable scope than a fixed one. Having said that, perhaps a better question would be how reliable is reliable enough?

At one time or another, I've used just about every scope available, from the glamour European scopes to the bargain basement models and about everything in-between those extremes. I've had a few that didn't last long, usually one of the lower price models. Mostly though, they have all done pretty well. I have more experience with Leupold scopes than all other makes combined. I haven't counted lately but I'd guess that in my safe at this moment there are about twenty-five rifles with Leupold scopes mounted on them. One of them is a FX-6X and the rest are variables of one type or another, mostly in the 2-7 or 3-9 power range. In addition I have a couple Zeiss variables , perhaps a half dozen Denver Redfield scopes, all variables, two Schmidt & Bender fixed 6X scopes, a US Optics variable, A Bushnell variable, and probably another make or two mounted. I've used Swarovski variables, Meopta variables and naturally Weaver scopes both fixed and variable, Nightforce variables, and one Kahles 3x9 variable I just remembered.

I don't recall ever having a failure with a fixed power scope, and off the top of my head, I can't recall ever having a variable scope fail that could be attributed to the fact that it was a variable and not fixed power scopes.

All in all, it seems to me that the scope manufacturers and particularly Leupold do an amazing job producing reliable scopes. If I had to answer the question, is a fixed power scope more reliable than a variable power one, I have to answer yes, it is. However my experience tells me that we'd be picking nits to the extreme. TT

A little birdy, close to Leupold insiders, said that their QC seemed to start slipping around the mid- 2000's. Anyone interested in that little birdy's qualifications can send me a PM.

All of my Leupolds except my new VXR are at least 10 years old are older. I've never had an issue of any kind with any of them.

I'm extremely impressed with my new VXR 4x12 variable I put on one of my heavy barrel AR's. I'll be buying another just like it soon, to put on my old Remington Classic 700 in .264 Win Mag.

chilin; any issues with not having AO on that VX-R? I like every factor of the scope but the fact it lacks AO is keeping me from buying one...

whats the longest range you have used it?

Not interested in who the birdy is, but I was wondering if the slip was by accident or by design.

PM sent Pappy348.

Please post the info here so all the members of the fire will have it.

Thanks

+1

a good friend of mine who works for a sporting goods wholesaler just returned from 2-3 days of training at Leupold. I talked with her for an hour or so, largely because of all the posts I see from time to time on the "fire" regarding supposed un-reliability of Leupold variables. Unlike most of you, I don't have lots of scopes. I do 100% of my hunting with 2 old Leupold variables: a 2-7 vari-x II I bought new and a 2.5-8 vari-x III I bought used. I'm more of a hunter than a shooter, so I don't shoot a lot. Mostly .270 Win. and the last few years a .300 Win. Mag. All this talk of Leupold failures has me wondering if its only a matter of time. I'm going on another wilderness hunt in Sept. and plan on using the 2.5-8 again and don't want a problem.

Some of things she learned on her training and shared with me, you'd probably not believe if I stated them here. One example is the percent of scopes that come back to Leupold for supposed failure that they can find no problems with. They keep close stats on this and know the percent in detail. All I will say is that it is far more than 90%. And that is after shooting extensively with THAT scope.

Another interesting stat is that they ship more new scopes in ONE DAY than the combined scope manufacturers in all of Europe do for a LONG TIME. So there's a fair number out in the market-place.

Another issue she mentioned was the re-coil pounding test they put on their scopes. In an experiment some time back, they upped the amount of pounding the machine exerted on the test scope by a huge margin and just let it run for much longer than you'd believe. After quite a spell, the machine actually broke.


I could go on and on. In a somewhat un-related but interesting experience this same gal had was with an old Leupold on a .375 that was accidentally dropped out of a bush-plane but found. No apparent damages. She used it a couple years ago on a moose.

Go ahead and question this info if you want. The credibility of this person along with her experience made her proud to sell the Leupold product-made in America.

At her suggestion, I'm going to send in my old vari-x III just to have them go over it. Its never given me problems, but they can determine if there is anything out of order that I'm not noticing.

My experience as well. I did buy a VXII used that I had to send back to Leupold for repair. They did so at N/C. I have yet to experience unacceptable quality or C/S out of Leupold in over 25 years. I currently own 12 of them. They are my favorite, despite favoring Redfields back when Redfield was made in Co. (the new Redfields are a good value now that Leupold owns/manufactures them). Nothing wrong with Burris or Bushnell Elites, or Swarovski, or Zeiss (I own them all), but I still say Leupold is the best overall for the $.

I have a new VX6 waiting on a Custom 300WM build that should be done soon. That scope is as bright as a Swarovski Z5, and ~5 bills cheaper for a comparable scope. I have full confidence it will serve me as well as the other Leupolds I've owned for years.

Which VX-6?

I have often wondered how many scopes get blamed for other problems in the rifle or shooter. Probably quite a few. I did have an interesting thing happen a year ago with Leupold customer service with one of the afore mentioned vx II 6x18s. It was having a point of impact variance with a change of power. At 200yds dead on at 6x, 1.5 inches higher at 12x, and 1.5 inches higher than that at 18x. (3" total.) I shot 2 shots for each 6x, 12x, and 18x to illustrate, and sent the target in with the scope explaining the problem. A while later it came back "fixed". I remounted it,sighted in and tested it. It did the exact same thing. I redid the target again, and sent it back in. The second time it came back the problem was indeed fixed. No POI change when switching powers. Not sure why it didn't get fixed the first time though.

Every business has some folks that are better at their jobs than others. On the second try, you got a good one.

I sent my Bearcat back to Ruger because the timing and lockup were off and it came back worse than before. The second time, they got it right.

3-18x44 CDS Firedot reticle.

I was told what was a professional opinion by a person's confidence I will not betray. If you want to know why this person has the opinion, I'll share it through a PM. I will not compromise this person's livelihood.

I can only speak from my personal experiences using various 3.5-10x40's, 2..5-8x32's, and more lately a 2-12 and 3-18 VX6, but Imwill also include the feedback I've gotten from the approximately 80 hunters we've had in camp using various Leupy variables .because all results are the same.........zer, nada, no problems whatsoever. Bear in mind I'm a very very casual spinner of a CDs dial, and have only had one hunter ever show up with a cds dial (antelope hunter). I find them to be great hunting scopes.


I find a couple of things very interesting, at least to me. Approximately 70-80% of our hunters since 2002 show up with Swarovski binoculars and Leupold scopes of some sort, the vast majority of whom can buy whatever they want.

That being said, I have no doubt a L variable can have problems, but so can and do every other brand on the planet, period.

JG, this is not directed at you. Me and you are on the same page.

My experience is that Leupold VXIII variables shift zero on a regular basis. This isn't speculation. I have a range at my back door and shoot often, I know they move. I will qualify this by saying that in nearly every case the scope has been subjected to redneck abuse; rough unprotected atv rides, bouncing around unprotected in a truck, etc. In previous threads the question has become should they be expected to handle such abuse, but my experience is what it is, with such abuse, they move.

Also, I see someone posted that most scopes returned to Leupold check out okay. Realize that a shift in zero is not considered a failure. The scope is in spec, and will do it again!