Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Leupold CDS surprise

Friday night had a rifle with a Leupold 3x take a wall slide tumble onto a tile floor. The impact was directly onto the top of the elevation dial. Shot it again at a target for assurance.. Nothing changed.

It has nothing to do with growing up. My Leupolds, save for the mysterious adjustments in the zero process, have been very good for me. I have read enough here and elsewhere to know that Leupold's fail at a rate with which I am no longer comfortable. Just look at the comments in this one thread. I think the frustration is 2 fold. We want to love this once revered American company. Couple that with Leupold's absolute refusal to address the known issue, and you have the makings for an ugly divorce. People feel betrayed, and in my mind rightfully so.

No more Rugers or Leupolds for me, and that bothers me because it brought me special pleasure to pop a Leupold on top of a Ruger product.

I've got the VXR 3x9 Patrol on my Remington Ultimate Muzzleloader. It is a pretty decent scope there. Has mil dial and a mil reticle. Pretty useful for the ML, but I really like the lit reticle. I am sure Big L will square you away Gunner. Sucks you can't buy stuff right outta the box that works with regularity anymore.

LMAO

Beretzs,

I put a SWFA HD 1-6 on my Rem Ultimate muzzleloader. Mil/mil with illuminated reticle. There is a tiny dot in center that helps to find center of a target even at 200 yds.
When your Leupold quits I highly recommend this scope.

Ah some will say when the Leupold quits. I had two Leupolds fail when it greatly affected me. One while shooting at a decent coues wt and the other the week before another coues hunt. I don't bother to mention the other ones that failed to adjust properly because they did that on paper which is no big deal, I just send it back for repairs did that for years.

When the scope fails on a hunt that is another matter. I keep thinking of my friends that are still using Leupolds on their hunting rifles and when they will encounter a failure.

I no longer have ANY Leupolds on a rifle that requires a tag, life is too short to hunt with a scope that might fail.

Thanks AZ. That's why it's on the ML right now. I only use the rifle for local deer hunting so far, but your SS 1-6 idea is EXCELLENT. I like their optics and haven't had one make a blip. I still have some 6x36's that give solid service, but I am not numb to the fact they are all on limited lives. But I hedge my bets with rock solid mounts and rings and don't go hammering on the dials daily.

You can Scotty, but that box says Nightforce on it...

Rollin here... Yeah, he probably doesn't want to even go there...

I shoot a lot, so I always find my Leupold failures at the range. Never on a hunt. The laughable part about that is I have older American made (and even the newer ones) Burris FFII 3-9x40 with ballistic plex reticles on the majority of my "hunting" rifles. They don't even track "perfectly", but they hold zero very well. I don't dial these scopes, but do use the ballistic plex reticle if the need arises. I wish Leupold would get their chit straight, but they have their heads stuffed so far up that they will never see the light of day. That is sad because I'd love to support a local company, if they had a product you could depend on... What is really sad is the amount of Leupold lovers out there, that are pretty clueless. I am going to list a scope on ebay that I pulled off of a used rifle. It will bring good money (approx $325.00, maybe more), just because it's a pretty Leupold rifle scope...and there are guys out there that just got to have a pretty Leupold on top of their rifle. A lot of those guys don't shoot much, if any at all... I'm glad they are out there though, makes selling old Leupolds easier...

What ever! lol
But also seriously, what ever happened with all that ?

Why is there a refusal to fix the issue? How many more scopes would they sell if positive tracking was addressed??

I have many leupold scopes, and I love the eye relief and warrenty, not to mention the fact that they are made in America, but I am not blind to the fact that they have a problem. What I do not understand is why they don't address it? Not only would they sell allot of scopes but I am sure it would save them in repair cost. Doesn't make allot of sense to me why they continue to make scopes with known issues?

HeavyBarrel

My guess is the failure rate percentage is acceptable to their business model.

Or they are too stubborn to admit they have a problem at all.

Guess I'm just lucky, I've got 2 CDS's and they always work. Just use them for fun target work, fixed 6X for hunting. Never dial when shooting game! Everybody is or whats to be a sniper!

IF Leupold could eventually establish the reputation that Night Force has for reliability, they would once again own the rifle scope market. Remember when you were proud of the gold ring on the objective?

Here is the problem, prices will go up. I am sure Night Force scopes are more expensive to make.

Not everybody wants to be a sniper. Everybody wants a reliable scope, even for just sighting in. Long(er) range shooting has grown and is growing into a new facet of shooting. It is challenging and a whole lot of fun in the off season.

Just send the $ for a Night Force and stop bitching. The next thread will be about how expensive and heavy the Night Force scopes are! Rifle Looneys!!!!!!

Who is bitching? I transitioned to Zeiss and Night Force already. May try SWFA too.

I still have some Leupold scopes that are used as "set and forget" scopes only. I have replaced 3 of them with a SWFA 3-9HD, a Nightforce SHV 3-10 and a Bushnell 4-5-18 LRHSi and when I adjust the scopes they move the bullets impact accordingly as they should. My Leupold scopes had me questioning my ability to zero a scope from the bench at 100 yards. They were frustrating.

If I had it to do over and wanted to use a Leupold I would have had a B&C reticle installed and never twist a turret after the initial zero. Just learn trajectory using the B&C reticle.

Leupold doesn't have a problem just like Remington didn't have a trigger problem...

Remington has a trigger problem NOW!

Messed with it some more. Took rings off, checked base screws. Put it back together. Both windage and elevation move jerky.

Back to Leupold tomorrow.


Lefty