Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Leupold "adrift in the ocean?"

What I struggle to understand are the 20oz+ low-power tactical/competition-oriented optics (looking at you, Vortex). It doesn't get much better than a quick-handling semiauto carbine for tactical work, but those handling characteristics are destroyed by chucking a pound and a half worth of glass and mounts on top of the thing. Only Leupold and Trijicon still sell variable-power scopes that I'd consider putting on a general-purpose carbine.

The love for gaudy gloss-finished optics doesn't make sense to me either, probably a generational preference. Oh well, doesn't affect me.

Completely agree.

Leupolds place was producing mostly American made or at least “built” set it and forget it scopes at a reasonable price and backed up with a lifetime warranty. Light weight and compact models like the excellent fixed powers and 2.5-8 were also a big part of there niche and what they did well.

Leupold trying to out Vortex, Vortex is going to be a losing battle for Leupold and has left them just another scope maker without an identity.

I’m in agreement with booth of you and the Op. I hope they can get it straight but the latest offerings says they won’t.

Meh, Leupold just about can’t win. People have been taught that accurate adjustments are the end and be all of scope reliability and quality. I think Leupold had the correct idea that adjustment accuracy really doesn’t matter much at all in a set and forget scope and was at the very least secondary to lots of other concerns. They lost ground to other scopes that were in many ways inferior in size, weight, eye box, and over all quality but that had better adjustments. Now, they are chasing a market that has passed them by and they can’t please anyone.

Just look at this board. You either have people bitching about Leupold scopes being trash with bad adjustments and unreliable internal components or you have people wishing they would just go back to producing reliable set and forget scopes of modest weight and middling price. No one is happy.

It is always management ! Leupold is now a " mass merchendiser".

I have sent a couple scopes back for "issues" ....returned with a nice letter and explanation from staff , but not adequatly repaired. Will not ever send anything back .

I have struck them off completley.

I have 25-30 Leupold mounted scopes , all older models. 3-4 un -mounted leupolds.

I prefer used Kahles AH series , especially the rimfires , when you can find them.

Also, use Zeiss 3 X 9 X 36 & 3 X 9 X 42 Diavaris.

I don't look at new Leupolds.

I still have a few Leupold LPS Scopes .... they are quality .

For what it's worth ...........

“Leupold: Made in America tough, the way it should be”

That’d be a hell of a way to sell a scope. I remember as a kid when you got a Leupold, you were king.

For all those being critical of Leupolds offerings, you aren't really comprehending the difficulty of what they are doing.

Interview 100 shooters and 100 hunters. Ask them what they want in a rimfire scope. How many different responses would you get? First you'd get a lot of questions about what the rimfire scope would be used for. Each answer steering the buyer toward a different set of parameters. Ask those same hunters what they would prefer in a southern woods hunting rifle. Ask them what they would want in a western rifle. Ask them what they would want in a casual (not competition) target rifle.

Everyone would tell you they want reliability and durability. That would seem to be a given, but then when discussion turns to the weight necessary to deliver that kind of reliability, you see some people opting for the lighter scopes even though they know lighter may translate into a greater chance of failure. FFP vs SFP. The different reticles that are preferred with the different focal planes. Magnification. Some very accomplished shooters can be completely happy with their fixed 6. More and more I see shooters wanting and steering other shooters toward the truly high magnification variables. Novices may want one thing that highly experienced shooters eschew.

The bottom line is that economies of scale won't allow a manufacturer to make scopes to suit everyone's needs, wants or desires. It's an unenviable task.

Been drifting away from Leupold for a while, not because if any issues I’ve had, but because of ones experienced by other reliable and knowledgable people who often shoot a lot more than I do. The few I still have are working fine, but I’m not planning on more until they correct the known issues with their erectors. Just don’t want any trouble. I hope they do something, because their scopes do have a good balance of size, weight, ER, eyebox, etc.

As to the changes in their offerings, that’s a marketing decision based on whatever criteria they rely on. I find it difficult to believe that they are abandoning niches that are profitable, but absolutely believe they might be willing to make changes to cut costs even to the use of plastic parts and reducing QC measures. Trimming product lines and options is another way to cut costs, of course, as is closing the Custom Shop if it’s not making money; or raising the price of after-the-sale modifications.

As to their policy on older models, it’s simply not reasonable to expect them to maintain a stock of parts for long-discontinued scopes. Warranties almost always specify that products will be repaired or replaced at the company’s option. Pretty clear, like it or lump it. If an old scope is still cosmetically good and you want to keep it, there are places you can send them for refurbishing. Do that, or take the replacement, your choice.

Before the anti-Leupold trend began, it was pretty common to read here about guys buying old beater Leupolds, sending them in, getting brand new ones in return, and sometimes selling them. Seemed almost like a cottage industry. Not strictly dishonest, but certainly not in the spirit in which a warranty is offered, and a double negative for the company in that they were giving away product to be sold in competition with their own sales. You can bet they figured that out and it may have been a factor, however small in the changes they’ve made.

JB:

There's a direct correlation between accurate, reliable adjustments and ability to maintain zero. I've had several Leupolds that had wondering zero from session to session. The poi shifts weren't huge, and we'd justify it as moisture variability in wood stocks, wind, hold pressures, atmospherics, etc, etc. Didn't even fully realize the extent to which it went on until those scopes were replaced and the poi stayed put.

Leupold would've been ahead of the game had they owned their tracking issues early on; instead, they doubled down on marginal designs by adding CDS dials to erector systems that weren't robust enough to handle it, and now they have a ton of these type of threads on their hands. With all of the scopes that get sent back, they know what their products are capable of, yet they kept selling the same stuff with dials added to cash in on shifting markets.

Exactamundo!

Got a 6 and a 10. Great scopes for some purposes, but not every use, and it’s as you said, a size (form factor) issue, not just weight. Just bought a Trijicon that’s somewhat heavier, but doesn’t have big honkin’ turrets hanging out. It also has a reticle that’s usable under the hunting conditions I experience. Sacrilege, I know.

This is where I am critical of Leupold. Their comments when they had their webinar (or whatever you call it) here told me they refuse to acknowledge their issues. I'd own a VX5 HD firedot (perhaps more) right now if they seemed more interested in addressing what is a real issue, especially with their CDS system. That and the "tap the turrets to get the adjustments to take" was laughable, and frankly sad. Telling THIS group that there were no repeatability/reliability issues and to tap the turrets, was what really steered me away from Leupold. Even with the generous veterans discount I can get, I have passed them over on my last half dozen or so purchases.

The entire hunting & shooting world has been convinced that you can hit anything at more than 100 yards anymore w/o a scope that has dialing turrets & repeatable adjustment to 1/4 MOA........................

And that "hunting" is shooting animals at 800+ yards.

So the market is selling what people think the want & need & will buy.

That makes for big, heavy pieces of lumber that don't fit well on ultralight rig of various types & purposes.

How may companies off a straight 4x anymore????????????

MM

Newsflash... leupold sucked 15 years ago.

My favorite hunting scope is a 6x36 fixed power Leupold....now it seems they have dropped that from their line...i limit my shooting to center hold....300 yards or less...

I am not a turret twister and have sent one Leupold back to get repaired that was 40 years old at the time. I sold it to my B-in-L who is still using it. I have them on .257 Robert all the way up to .375 H&H ranging from 1.5-5x20 to 3.5-10x40. Not one has let me down while hunting. The only time I needed major adjustments year to year has been when I change loads. I do try to get as close as possible to my quarry. That is what makes hunting fun to me.

As I get older and not as nimble maybe I'll need to get a twister type scope to shoot over the ground I can't be as stealthy on anymore.

For those wanting fixed power scopes Leupold still list 2.5, 4 and 6 powers.

I don’t shoot from the bench and I’m not worried about POI shifts that don’t move from “minute of deer” inside 400 yards. So, I guess I’ve never noticed. But then again, I don’t shoot with enough magnification that I could even tell a minute shift in POI.

The phenomenon of higher magnification that causes people to think they should be shooting at ticks on a deer’s back instead of the boiler room and allows them to obsess over 1/4 minute of angle shifts in POI is what has hurt Leupold.

Gloss scopes are hardly gaudy. On the proper rifle, they look exactly like they should be there, thus the current upswing of folks looking for gloss scopes for classic rifles.. Generation preference has nothing to do with it.

Case in point ..... I just bought a early 50s 721 in 300H&H and mounted a GLOSS M8 4x in Weaver R&B on it. It "looks" right, whereas if I had mounted a current hubblesque 4.5-16x50 in 30mm rings with mondo turrets and mils reticle, it would look downright gaudy. Add a bi-pod to that and it would look downright retarded. Those things have their place on fiberglass/stainless 700 LEGO guns and I have those too.

It's called being efficient. Eventually you run out of old parts and you no longer manufacture old parts.

Does the original car mfg's still produce parts for their 1975 models?

Nothing wrong with Leupold, it's called remaining competitive.

That webcast here in this forum a couple of years ago soured me on Leupold. I had owned perhaps 50 Leupold scopes and more often than not noticed the wonky adjustments. I didn't let it bother me much because I tend to set & forget, but their refusal to acknowledge an issue that I KNOW exists completely undermined my confidence in their scopes and their entire enterprise. I still have a VX-II on a muzzle loader and a couple of Prismatics, but I've moved on to try other scopes. Some have disappointed me a bit because Leupold usually delivered excellent (to my eye) optical quality, but I've found some lines I really like such as Weaver's Grand Slam and Super Slam and Sightron's Big Sky series, all of which are getting pretty rare on the used market. I prefer a duplex or simple ballistic reticle and that tends to narrow down my choices. I have several others that are mounted but not yet sighted in, such as a Tract Response and a Bushnell Nitro. The optical quality of those two seems to be very acceptable based on cursory examination. Once I've actually used them a bit, I'll have a more solid opinion of them.

If Leupold would step up their game and get their erector issues eliminated, I could probably be persuaded to give them another chance. But as of today, that's just not going to happen.

After owning dozens of Leupys (mostly various-x-IIIs) I started moving towards Nikon Monarchs 15-20 years ago. The tracking was much better, and brightness/clarity was on par. I also started dabbling in Swarovski and Zeiss scopes. The Euro glass was a even better, but in the case of the Swaro Z3, Z5 and Z6, the tracking was still unpredictable and Leupy like. My most recent scope purchases have been SWFA(4), LRHS (1) and Tract(1). The SWFA HD and Tract glass are great, but I like the LRHS even better. As I get older, my patience for poor tracking has really wained...and my desire to send more $ to Oregon has disappeared. I'm simply unwilling to drop the coin on even the high end models. If I'm able rationalize another rifle purchase in the near future, my $ will go towards a Zeiss V4 or V6, or perhaps, another Tract. It is a sad commentary on U.S. manufacturing. If the Japanese and Euros can do it, why not Leupold? Just my 0.02.