If Leupold doesn’t fix their issues, and earn the trust of their customer base back, they will eventually head in the direction of Remington (which has a similar amount of earned distrust from their previously rabid fan base). If/when someone like Nightforce puts out a 1”, duplex reticle, lightweight 3-10ish powered scope in the $500 or less category with similar reliability to their higher priced scopes, Leupold will lose most of the remainder of their market share, great warranty or not. Look how well Zeiss and Meopta have done in that space as an alternative to Leupold. Also, if a company like SWFA would minimize their giant turrets, and slim the weight of their scopes a bit, traditional scope users will look to them as a Leupold alternative as well.
Currently the trend is toward large, heavy, relatively high powered scopes, even on lightweight rifles, following similar trends from the PRS/Tactical shooting crowd. A scope with similar attributes that would have been laughed at 10 years ago on a rifle like the Kimber Montana for example, now looks almost normal and common. If that continues to be the trend, the “lightweight and compact” features which made Leupold so desirable at one time, will be a non issue, and Leupold will become a dinosaur. Hopefully someone from Leupold reads this and takes note.
