Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics I am going to lose my scheit on Leupold....

Leupold hasn't had a Flagship product for nearly 20 years.

When you call. ask to speak to Bruce Pettit - CEO of Leupold Stevens. That ought to tighten up a few butt cheeks.

All this Leupold love made me feel a little sentimental, so I went and bought their best scope to date! A M-8 4x28 with friction adjustments. A little more ammo to zero, but the half dozen that have been through my hands always stayed there once put. Beautiful eye box, lightweight, long enough for a long action. Might have to grab another for a spare as they dont make them like this anymore.

Most if not all of my scopes are Leupolds and I just haven't had any issues with them.

Those of you who have lost or never had faith, are there any models in their lineup you think are solid i.e. MK4s, VX3i, etc? And that is a genuine question... I've been thinking about picking up a few more but am a little concerned on their newer models based on all the negative reviews.

My MK4s are definitely more solid than my VX3s. But who the heck wants a 30mm scope on a cruising around deer rifle?

And I don't shoot daily but shoot a good amount. The MK4s we had in the military were thought of highly as well.

My only complaint with them is that stupid gold ring on the objective bell. I hate that thing, especially on my more modern rifles, but can't even get their custom shop to swap them out with a subdued ring. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.... it's a petty complaint but damn they look stupid.

I have 10 Leupold scopes. 4 Redfield Revolutions and 6 VX's. My only complaint? You guessed it. They don't adjust as they should. I am not inclined to buy any more. My last 4 have not been Leupold.

FWIW Leupold never responded to the email I sent them.

It takes only a minute to remove the front housing and the gold ring, paint to match.

Well, I tried / tested that on an older Leupold scope passed down and could stand to lose. I could not get that thing to come off... even tried a rubber strap wrench. I've been too scared to try it out on my newer more expensive models after that.

One word "SHARPIE"

No. The $4k Mark 8's are the best they make and about 20% still have issues.



Everyone I hunt with has 30mm scope on hunting rifles. It's an aiming device, not a Rembrandt.

Your scope is canted.

You need about 7.5-8.5 Mils of elevation (25 +/- moa) to get to 800 with most rigs. You can get that from a one inch tube in standard mount without having to go to a compensated base. That makes it harder for me to justify a 30mm scope on a light hunting rifle. No reason in the world someone can’t make a 16-18oz 1” 6x36, 10x40, 2-7x36, and or 2.5x10x40 mil/mil scope with bold enough reticle for hunting and a durable repeatable erector that provides enough travel to take most rigs to 800 in 2 turns. Just isn’t the priority. It wouldn’t be cool or fancy enough. And I know everyone gets juiced about ffp reticles now- but I still like the convenience of using a sfp reticle in a variable for quick easy ranging of targets of known size.

Just used my Leupy VX3 (I don't dial this particular one much) to dump a big muley buck at a whopping 40 yds. Figured I had to get real close in order for the L to work.

? That would be a FFP's strong suit, not SFP.

Yes The FFP subtenssions are the same at every magnification, so they will measure the angle accurately at any magnification - allowing for accurate ranging at any magnification But with your 10x variable SFP which is accurate only at 10x the easy way to range is like this- a 1 meter target ie the ground to the belly or withers or length of belly line etc etc whatever your reference points given your game, you simply zoom in until you match that to 1 mil- check your magnification that’s your range- dial in your dope for that range, hold for wind and shoot. Same way you would use 2 Mils for a 2 meter target. Like a guy. I know you know what I’m talking about with this method, or will be surprised to find out you haven’t.


Edit. You aren’t going to hit a 1 moa Target first shot using that method to range it necessarily I won’t try to argue that it is precise But no methods based on a presumed size of a target are. I will not argue that an sfp mil reticle calibrated at 10x is the most useful configuration, but i have used it enough to know how effective and useful and fast it is in the field. No guess no lie.


Edit: just a brief expansion on what I’m talking about- with a vairiable ffp your Mils are always a mil, so you can alwys count how many Mils your target subtends, and convert to meters. With a sfp variable calibrated at 10x your magnification tells you what percentage of the way you are to 1000 meters. Just expanding your use of the metric system and your scope (protractor) as a slide rule.


Edit: this only works with an sfp reticle calibrated at 10x and I note that made no mention of that in my initial post- probably the source of confusion.

Wow, one out of every five is a pretty significant defect rate. Where did you find that stat?

And just to be clear, when I said 30mm, I was talking about tube diameter. They're bulkier / heavier... my comment was less about being a "Rembrandt" and more about weight.

I bet the new Leup hunting scopes fail at higher than 50%.

Do you have any data, references, or anything grounded to back that up? Companies go through periods of poor quality control, no doubt about that. But claims that half of their products are defective, particularly from a company with a solid track record, should be substantiated. That is if we're to actually give the claim any consideration.

Somewhere around 2 dozen Vari-X III, VX-III and VX-3's over the past 30 plus years. Never a failure of any kind.
Maybe the 3i is not up to par, never held one. When they came out and the price went down $100, I stocked up on 3's.

But ya know, it's the internet, so if 9 people have had a problem with a Leupold in the past few years and ran to the fire to whine and moan about it, I guess every dam one of the millions they've ever made have been bad.

Dude - you're seriously over-driving your headlights.
Fail at what? Dialing? Or just in-general?