Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Has Leupold fixed tracking & zero retention?

When writers go on a tour, do any ask for clarification on statements such as the toughest or ask the hard questions? Or is it mainly a PR tour and everybody smiles throughout the event, and then all go and have lunch?

Same around here. I bet more deer are killed with Bushnell Banners and Nikon pro staffs by a factor of at least 10 to 1 over Leupolds and 1000 to one over Nightforce or SWFA here in NY and we kill over 200,000 deer per year. This aught to be common sense anyway as economy rifles like Ruger Americans and Savage's Wal- Mart specials outnumber high end and customs by 1000 to 1 too. Remember, according to IRS statistics 60% of the entire American workforce earns less than 20.00 per hour and it's less than that in rural areas. Average Joe hunter simply can't afford $1500.00 plus rifles topped with $1000.00 plus glassware.

When you're right you're right.

Same thing at a local gun store up the road. Have known the girl who owns it for years and I stopped in to buy a set of dies. Also wanted some .270 shells. Nothing but basic Remington and Winchester on the shelf. I asked if she had any Nosler or Hornaday and she replied I can't sell those. They buy what costs the least. Rural and almost all hunt. However, she does a better than good business in top of the line bows which I find interesting.

Yeah well I've worked for a couple different firearms manufacturers over the years and seen more than a couple outright lies told to writers and such who came to go on "tours" of the works too.
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It's a PR tour with lots of good "tales" told to the visitors. Been there and seen it and heard it plenty of times.

Remember too that high end equipment doesn't mean squat as to hunting or shooting skills. Some of the best deer hunters anywhere use comparatively "cheap" wares. I dare say the Benoit family could outdo most here when it comes to deer hunting and they used nothing but Remington 760's with iron sights for decades.

I bet the average campfire member with a precision rifle and scope would kick the Benoit's and their 760 butt on the Wyoming plains!

Benoits have been using scope's for a few years now.

I doubt they care and neither do I. Those precision rifles and scopes wouldn't amount to much if any advantage if you were competing against them in the Maine woods. Same for here in the Catskill's where I do my hunting. What you and your rifle can do at 600 yards from a rest is of no importance whatsoever here. What you and your rifle can do at 25-100 yards offhand in the blink of an eye is.

I'm aware of that but that doesn't change the fact that they still use Remington pumps or that they were incredibly successful with iron sights for many years.

Most definitely with their 760, but when they got serious, I'm thinking they would show up and be competitive with something else. One of them set his mind to it and became a State Skeet Champion. They had the mental toughness to excel.

I don't think it exists. The NF reticles despite anyone's claim to the contrary are not that good for where I hunt.

I think its a bunch of stuff with L, and there are many here who just do not know what they don't know. If your taking more than 2-3 cartridges to get your desired zero in a rifle off the bags at 100, then odds are you have a brand new Leupold. Its really that simple.

Ted Williams could hit the schitt out of a baseball..... does that mean he could also hit the schitt out of a golf ball.... or tennis ball, or hit a 100 mph slap shot? Hell no....

I bet the Benoit Boys would be sucking wind and looking for some better equipment on a Colorado Elk hunt.... or Wyoming Pronghorn hunt.... or high-country Nevada Mule Deer pack trip.

Taking highly provincial examples.... then applying those examples broad-base.... is the acme of foolishness.

Scopes HAVE to retain zero..... it's a MUST.... period.... end of story. For SOME folks..... they also HAVE to track correctly.... and HAVE to return to zero. If you don't need any of the three.... then I suggest you buy a new Leupold.

I have an even dozen Leupold 'scopes mounted on rifles chambered from 22 LR through 375 H&H. Some I dial, some are set and forget.

Zero issues so far.

No complaints. And yes I have a few of the other brands - Zeiss, Nightforce, Falcon, Hawke, SWFA Super Sniper, and Sightron mounted at this time.

The NF and SWFA Super Sniper turrets might spoil you if you are a dialer but - so far, everything I have wanted to do with the Leupolds has worked out fine.

I realize that my experience is anecdotal - and nothing more than that.

Best

Ask JB to correct me if I'm wrong, but Melvin Forbes says if he takes a new Leupold out of the box and mounts it on his rifle, he will only be a couple clicks off dead nuts at 100. And I think he has proved it more than once.

battue,

First, let me answer your previous question about factory tours.

Questions and answers depend on the tour, the writers, and what the factory people tell 'em. Not everybody believed the "toughest scopes in the world" line, but nobody tried to argue with the guy, because he wasn't going to change his line. But his repeated claim was discussed later that evening by several writers while they sat around partaking in some adult beverages.

Went on another several-day tour around Germany a number of years ago to visit the three factories a major optics company then had operating. You'd all recognize the name, but at the time the company wasn't selling many scopes in the U.S., and the tour was primarily intended to tell the writers what wonderful scopes they made, so we'd all go home and tell stupid American hunters how they were missing out on the best hunting scopes in the world.

But some of us did have serious questions. One was why the company didn't seal their adjustment turrets against moisture, when all American companies did. This company never had, which often caused their "best hunting scopes in the world" to fog inside, especially when a hunter took the turret caps off to adjust the scope after flying someplace pretty damp, such as coastal Alaska.

When we asked this question, the Germans got somewhat confused. One finally asked, "Vy vould you effer takes the caps off?" It turned out we were having a cultural conflict. Many Germans, it turned out, never adjust their own scopes. Since hunting's very expensive over there, the average German hunter makes quite a bit of money, and often has their local shop/gunsmith sight in their rifle for them, often on an indoor range where weather's never a problem.

Some of us also had questions about their scopes' ruggedness, since we'd had personal experiences with their scopes failing. This happened because, as noted, this company didn't sell many scopes outside Europe, where not nearly as many hunters put scopes on hard-kicking rifles, because most of their game isn't big or tough enough to require hard-kicking rifles.

Most of their scopes had pretty short eye relief, because so much of central Europe allowed night-hunting, or at least hunting longer before sunrise and sunset than most of North America. Short eye relief reduces the amount of "stray" light coming between the scope's ocular lens and the shooter's eye, so makes the image appear brighter--but isn't a problem on lighter-kicking rifles.

So the German company, during one of the two instances where we did some range-shooting, had a .416 Rigby with one of their scopes mounted, and asked us to shoot it to "prove" how tough their scopes were. Most of us refused, knowing the damn eye relief was too short, but one guy eagerly volunteered, apparently because he didn't have much shooting experience. Predictably, he got whacked twice in the forehead by the scope, the second time enough to bleed some, and the experiment was stopped before it proved anything.

However, some of the Germans did listen to some of the American writers, and not long afterward they started offering scopes that not only had sealed turrets, but longer eye relief. Now they sell quite a few in America.

So yes, some hard questions are sometimes asked during writer tours, and even if not, often the writers get together in the evenings when none of the company people are around and discuss many aspects of the tour themselves. Some writers have been around long enough that they don't swallow everything they're told, so don't repeat it in print. But some do, enough for some publicity to get out there and help sell whatever product the company makes.

Sometimes even the factories don't want writers mentioning some stuff. On several tours, writers have been told that certain parts of a factory are off-limits to photography, and on one tour NO photography was allowed in any part of the factory. That company had by far the most sophisticated robotics I've ever seen in any firearms-related factory of any kind, and there's some pretty fancy stuff out there these days.

On a tour of one bullet factory, the guy who showed us around mentioned that all the company's bullets featured the same lead alloy in their cores. He was from the production side, not the promotion side, and when a couple months later I called the head writer-contact at the company (a good friend) when starting an article, I mentioned the lead-alloy comment--and was told very firmly that was "confidential" information and should not be published. So I didn't publish it, even though I found the information very interesting--and there were other ways to test it.

On some occasions we're flat lied to, but often that's way too obvious. One executive at another bullet company is well-known in the business for trying to manipulate writers, just like some politicians. While having a long phone conversation with one of my editors, we discovered the bullet company executive had told us exactly the opposite thing about a recent change in one of their bullets. Neither of us was surprised--but that's another reason many writers don't swallow everything whole.

So no, writer factory tours are not just show-and-tells where we happily repeat everything we're told to the public. In fact some magazine editors rarely run articles about factory tours, because they believe most writers can't make them interesting enough for their readers. And from what I've read, they're correct.

As for Melvin and mounting scopes, yes, I've seen him get his rifles close to point-of-aim using that technique, because Leupold scopes (like most) have their adjustments centered when they leave the factory. But whether that has anything to do with the subject of this thread is another question.

Actually I don't "HAVE" to use a scope at all. I've killed many deer with iron sights over the years and still do when I feel like it. I filled my buck tag with an aperture sighted 94 Winchester just last season.The Benoit's have hunted in wide open spaces with their beloved 760's and by all accounts did very well with them, iron sights and all, at some pretty extended distances. I don't find that terribly hard to believe as I've killed several deer over 200 yards and one at 314 with irons myself when I hunted in farm country. One at just over 200 was an offhand shot with a witness and the one at 314 was taken from a kneeling position rested alongside a sapling with a witness. I had little doubt as to the outcome of either when I fired. You fella's out West spend alot of time and cartridges practicing at long range, doping wind, verifying your come up's etc.. Those things are useless to me here. I exppend several thousand rounds per year practicing too. Almost all of it offhand because that matters here to me and is important to my success.

Interesting and thanks for putting it together along with the stories. (Anecdotes )

It would be a tough find for sure, not sure who makes one either.