If you turn the pages of history back a bit you will find that when magazines dominated most of the shooting info we absorbed the covers often featured customized Mod. 70's and 98 Mausers and most of the time they had a Leupold scope with the gold ring on top of the rifle. For the most part Leupold has always had glass quality that would meet the needs of about any North American hunter. Combine that with light weight and great eye relief and many gun writers using them American hunters naturally followed suit.
Then the long range shooting crowd and shooting games showed up about the time several movies featuring our military snipers showed up. Suddenly everyone wanted to twist turrets and dial elevation and Leupold scopes did not prove to be very reliable if you wanted to dial with them. I'm and old Alaskan moose and caribou and occasional bear hunter for going on 55 years and have never dialed a scope to make a shot. The guys I know prefer to get close, which is well under 200 yards and moose often closer. Even at 400 yards dialing on a moose is not needed. I did put a SWFA 3-9x42HD on a Tikka Superlite in 6.5 Creed and plan on some day shooting to 1,000 yards at the range.
I have a Leupold on a couple of rifles and they have the Boone & Crockett reticle in them. The little Mod. 94 .356 Win. has a Leupy 1.5-5x20 with a German #4 and the old Mod. 70 Featherweight 30-06 has a Leupy 3.5-10x40 and I keep a Leupy 2.5-8x36 in a set of Talley rings as a back up scope. The only time I touch the turrets on a Leupold is when zeroing the scope, the only time. I have a Nightforce SHV 3-10 and the SWFA 3-9 that I am ok dialing with if needed.
I do admire the guys that are confident in first shot hits at 500 yards and beyond, I'm not that guy and doubt I will ever be that shooter. But, like I said, in 55 years of making gut piles in Alaska I have never had to shoot at those ranges.
In a nut shell, Leupold does not have a reputable dialing reputation, which is a shame because a sighting instrument should have good repeatable adjustments, right?
