Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics How many have blown a shot because of Leupold ?

Sure is alot of talk about Leupold lately .Some lovers of, some haters of, seems like Leupold has been getting a bad rap. My question is this: Who here has actually missed a shot or couldn't get a good early morning/late evening sight picture on a game animal because they were using a Leupold scope? Sometimes I wonder if we get on the hatin' bandwagon and really have no reason to. If there are any, let's here your Leupold disaster stories.

How about driving to an out of state hunt and when you get there you go to check zero and find out your rifle now shoots 18" groups. Because I was a dumbass and didn't have a backup rifle with me it cost me a day of hunting.

If I hadn't gone to check zero ( or the scope held together for 3 more shots), it would have likely cost me animal or at the very least caused me to put a very bad shot on one.

The scope was a 2.5-8 with just some load development on it and a little practice.. say 100 shots of 308 win. Had been flawless until it crapped out.

Leupold fixed it up quick and free, Erector assembly they said. I never felt that comfortable with it and it went in a trade. I did buy a new 2.5-8 tho.

Frankly because I shoot 100x more at the range than I do at animals the odds of a scope loosing an animal are low

I think this forum is already filled with enough venom that a post like this is not necessary or will not accomplish anything except encourage more childlike behavior.

Yeah, this was a fairly civil forum for a while, no more. I may finally start using the ignore feature. Or I may just quit reading this one.

It's amazing how people can agree to disagree on, say, the Handguns forum and not resort to jr. high name calling.

The intent is not to "stir the pot" in anyway, just curious if there is any "real world fact" to back up the "venom" that is already out there. If there aren't scores of examples on Leupold failures, then it kind of acts as an "anti-venom"

...Just for the record, I consider myself a Leupold and Zeiss Conquest kinda guy, love them equally.

In my earlier days of hunting whitetails I was using an old Leupold 4x28 with a standard duplex reticle. On early morning shots on overcast days, I could not see the reticle well enough to take a shot with confidence. I don't know if that qualifies as a blown opportunity or not, but I can tell you that I could see plenty well through the Steiner 7x50 Whitetail's I was using at the time.

Nope, not once have I blown a shot due to a Leupold scope. Being a varmint hunter, and using some higher powered cartridges such as the .257 Ackley, 6mm Remington, etc., my scopes have been subject to hundreds of shots per day and a thousand or so over a season per rifle. These same scopes have been switched back and forth on .30-06, 7mm Mauser, and 7mm Remington Magnum rifles, up to .375 Magnum and .45-70 bolt rifles with no failures. I only had to send one Leupold back for repairs, and that one was 30 years old, and it became suspect during load development at the range.

Many scope failures are due to yahoo's that don't know how to mount a scope, over tighten rings, don't check alignment of rings, and drop or otherwise damage their scopes. Indeed I haven't had any failures from Bushnell's Elite series scopes, Nikon Monarchs, Weavers, or most Burris scopes. One Burris pistol scope that disassembled was on a .480 Ruger, that's the only failure I've had in decades. Burris repaired it and it has never reoccurred.

The U.S. military is killing bad guys everyday with Leupold's on their rifles. IMO, 'nuff said.

A better question would be: How many people have killed animals with a Leopold scope? We could crash this forum by hanging all those pics....

Perhaps someone will post a picture of a doe they killed with a 2k scope to give us all a good laugh.

No, I never missed a shot that I could blame on any scope or rifle. I guess that leaves yours truly as the reason.

We were hunting black bear on Vancouver Island and I had a Leupold 3.5X10 really let me down. I was really disappointed in the performance of the scope. We were side skirting on a large shale slide and I slipped. When I tried to catch my balance I dropped my rifle. The rifle fell down over a small cliff and landed about 35 or 40 feet below me. And the darn scope lost its zero, and fogged up. Can you believe that. Two problems with the same scope, and it only hit one measly little rock. That scope should have held up to that fall!! And then what did the idiots at Leupold do?? They fixed it, but it took them almost two weeks from the day I shipped it back to them(at no charge). Can you believe the nerve of Leupold!! They should have at least over nighted it back to me!! Tom.

I feel your pain. Prayers sent.

Tom did you get a Canuck black bear for all your trouble and pain.

Best Alan.

Unforgivable. They should be able to survive at least a 100' fall and cushion the fall of the rifle and hunter. Leupold should have bought you a new hunt.

My partner and I lost enough points during a Sniper Match to put out us out of the top 3 overall standings because of tracking issues, but during the same match the Marine Corps teams competing had problems with their S&B scopes also. Stuff happens.

I have, numerous times. However, on all occasions it was well after normal hunting time.

I hunt feral hogs at night (legal in Texas), and I've found that a S&B Zenith with the flash dot is the best rifle scope aside from going all out with Gen 3 night vision.

Within normal hunting time (30 minutes before/after sunrise/sunset) Leupold has work just fine for me (with either the HD or P&D reticle).

A better question might me how many hours of hunting time have you lost because of inferior chi-com loopie glass and coatings.


dave

ahhh springtime on the optics forum! Soap lets let this go for a while, they all work within reason, some better than others some worse.

Dave can we really know where B&S sorry S&B get all there glass made I read some where China may be the only place left with lax enough environmental laws to make some of this glass but reading stuff on the web dose not make it so.

Best Alan