Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics What happened to Leupold?

About 15 years ago, a young soldier at a base near me was issued a rifle with a Leupold that quit working days before he was to deploy. He put out a call for help and I lent him my extra Nightforce 5.5-22. While he was deployed, he was riding in a Humvee which hit an IED and rolled over. He was thrown against his rifle, a M24 which is a R700 in a synthetic stock. His full body weight landed on the rifle and bent the rifle from the stock. He spent a few days recovering, but made sure the scope came back to him. He had it mounted on his replacement rifle. It worked perfectly and he finished his deployment with it working correctly and reliably. When he was back home, he came to bring it back to me, but asked if he could buy it from me since it served him well. He was an E4 if I remember correctly, so even at a discount to him, he was spending a major piece of his pay.

That convinced me of their durability.

Nightforce designs a scope right, builds it right, and QC’s it before it goes out the door so it does not come back. To me, that is the best customer service.

fwiw - I have purchased most of my Nightforces gently used, when guys need the newest, latest, greatest reticle they saw a match. They all have worked perfectly.

Jeff, your post says a lot more about your quality as a person than the NF. Both are impressive. 😎

Well done Beaver.....and I agree. Nice work Jeff. Hope the good deed comes back around to 'ya.

Yes for sure... That's the reports like to hear right there...

I've had multiple Leupolds not hold zero, not track properly or not return to zero over the years. All were variables though. I switched most everything I had to fixed powers and this issue went away. The straight 6Xs, whether x36 or x42 have been great for me. One would throw an occasional round about 6 inches to the right at 100 yards, but I am still trying to figure out if it is the scope, the rifle or me.

Then the Leupold scope would weigh 20+ ounces. They probably do not want a heavy scope or they want to save money or they don't know how to understand feedback from shooters. Has to be one or more of those reasons.

I think there are lots of people who prefer a relatively light scope. Most of these people are hunters who carry their rifles a good deal but don't put a lot of rounds downrange. They are a good portion of Leupold's customer base. If Leupold beefs up the erectors and their scopes generally, the scopes are going to weigh a lot more and may not satisfy their customer base because of weight and bulk. This might be why we don't see major changes in Leupold scopes to address the issues in this thread. They have a good customer base and don't want to mess with success.

I have used a lot of Leupold scopes and have had few problems in a set and forget mode. However, I would also like to see better erector assemblies in Leupold scopes, but I don't want 20+ oz. scopes on most of my hunting rifles. So there is a trade off between robustness and weight. It would be nice if Leupold could find a good compromise.

I’ve got a question, probably a stupid one , but I’m not a turret spinner. It seems that when you are dialing for 800 or 1000 or 1200 yards, we are talking about very minute, precise adjustments. I use mostly Leupolds, and I like them fine when they are sighted in, I like them a lot on my rifles, but sometimes it seems like it takes a bit for the adjustments to “settle”. Or maybe I just can’t count. Realistically though, dialing takes very precise adjustments. There must be some very fine hardware in there. Even on the best scopes, how much can you dial before you start to lose precision through wear and use?

I figured you didn't. Thats the way it works. I didn't give up on Leupold until it happened to me (and more than once). If I'd never been bit, I'd still be using them, despite all the smoke.

Was not my intent to shine a light on myself, but thank you for the kind words gentlemen.

HEAVY, tough as hell (survive IED) ,works perfectly= Nightforce

LIGHT , medium duty, works “good” for most big game hunting = Leupold

Most if not all of your good scopes will have brass mechanicals inside. I know my swfa scopes do. They are resistant to moisture and temp. My old vari x II leupolds that I dialed had some nylon mechanical parts in them. They were not as precise in adjustment as my scopes with brass internals.

atse

I think you have a good point here. Different materials have different friction coefficients which would effect adjustments. Even if you have a flawless working erector spring system, if the detent ring is not perfectly machined ( I hope they are not cast or stamped ) or is not hard enough to take repeated adjusting, then you won't get reliable tracking.

All of this is just speculation on my part, as, I am just an old man on a fixed income, like Pappy (but probably older) and I cannot afford to tear apart one of each to find out for sure what their erectors are made of. But I sure would like to. RJ

Brass is cheap and easy to machine. Pretty easy formula that SWFA is using , thick tubes, brass turretts and built by people with pride of workmanship, its not rocket science. NF has some more exotic materials they use , Titanium leaf springs and at least on the SHV i own brass internals, not sure what they use on their high end stuff. I think that along with attention to detail when assembling the scopes makes that difference. They can find the Duds before they hit the streets with their QA process as well.


Maybe someone can get a Leupold scope and a SWFA scope and have them cut lengthwise down the middle with a water jet to see the differences.

I am pretty sure that if a scope has nylon internals, those parts will be more prone to contraction and expansion with temperatures. They would be more subject to wear over the long haul as well. I am not sure if Leopold high end scopes still use nylon, or if they are metal. I don't have one to look at.

The only thing nylon in the Leupold is the little toothed "gear" that provides the little ball bearing with detents to click in. It aint got a goddam thing else to do but to provide "clicks" that's it and that's all. The old friction adjustment scopes didn't have the little gear so had no "clicks". The clicks don't really have anything at all to do with whether the scope adjusts correctly or holds zero.

So did the Tasco I tore apart. No nylon parts in a Tasco. Must be good scopes.

Me either, this morning after a fine breakfast of 5 farm eggs dropped on top of a big slice of homemade wheat bread toast covered with apple butter, I was standing at the back doors with a fresh mug of coffee peering up and across the North pasture, out walked two black Russian hogs, grabbed the a heavy barreled 300 win mag I keep leaned in a corner, grabbed the Nikon range-x and a pair of ear plugs, slung the bipod out on an old farm truck flat bed just out the back door.

Ranged the hogs at 509 yards, spun the well used 6.5-20x50 30mm long range Leupold for elevation and a bit of left wind, BOOM!.............rode the atv up to look at the hog, bullet right in the shoulder and out the ribs on the off side, the old chitty leupold is spun back to zeros leaning back up in the corner patiently awaiting to do it's next job the right way too.

Nice work on the vermin gunner. About those 5 eggs........were you eating alone or were there another couple of folks helping?

LOL, Thanks JG, these are eggs from young hens, they're pretty small, i'll cut back to four when the eggs get bigger. there is a little more to the story of the leupold on this rifle, not three weeks ago Wife's little Rottweiler puppy got tangled between my legs, instead of falling on and possibly breaking the pups back or killing her, I threw this 300 win mag rifle that wears the scope I just killed another hog with.

I threw the rifle so I could leap out then catch myself in a pushup position on the ground without falling on the puppy, the rifle hit rock gravel driveway hard, and rolled, has some really nice scars on the scope, caps, recessed muzzle crown and stock, cursed a little bit, put the puppy up, took the rifle to the bench to check zero, all good, have killed two wild hogs in less than a week in excess of 500 yards, think i'll keep it.