Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics So Leupold are Junk anymore. Now what

Oh fuuuck, truth there! Just read the main campfire, or listen/look at the hardcore “hunters” that bitch… I still laugh about a certain member here, “ I had a variII friction adjustment fail on and buck”…. Spin a friction adjustment??? Fuucking really??? Haha 😂😂

Great thing about a swfa, WHEN it fails, who the fuuck know when you’ll get the replacement??? It was just posted, a member has been waiting over a year for his peach…. 😂

Me too. I currently have 6 of them. Some old, some new. Never had a wisp of a problem. But according to this place I must be the luckiest sombeotch to ever draw breath. LOL!

Sporting good stores here didn't sell them till the late 1970s they looked good and cost more than a Leupold so I figured they had to be something special....the eye relief was too critical on them to suit me.

About 10 years ago I got a later model Burris on a gun I bought I couldn't sell it fast enough....I put a 10 year old Leupold Varx II 3x9/AO compact on the gun and it's still on there.

I got burnt on a Burris spotting scope years back after I got it I notiiced made in China on it....I still have it it's okay for looking at bullets holes at 100 yards if you don't look very long.

Leupold optics and specs are great. Mechanics are less so, sad to say. IME, single bias-spring models are as vague as ever. The two dual-spring models I had worked well as long as I had them, but so did other brands at significantly lower price points. A brand new 4x RF model, purchased for a Marlin 39, required considerable patience to get it dialed in. Who needs that drama, especially in a time when ammo is hard to find and expensive when you do. WTF don’t they fix their erectors and be done with it?

That 4x was purchased from Doug at a very good price. It’s a perfect match for a .22, but if I’d paid $300 for it, I’d be pretty annoyed by its performance. Shoot, adjust. Shoot again. Adjust. Shoot. Adjust back to where I thought I’d dialed to before. Shoot some more until I’m satisfied it’s finally landed in the right place. Hope and pray I don’t have to readjust for another brand or lot of ammo any time soon. Same story with another Leupy, a 2-7 Shotgun/ML scope on the same rifle before buying the 4x. This isn’t bashing, it’s what I experienced. Imagine the fun if I was using $2 a pop factory CF instead of $.10 .22 LR.

Most of my Leupolds have been older models....I put a newer 3x9 fire dot with CDS on my grandsons Remington BDL .243 I bought him.
I put an even newer 1 3/4-5 with with CDS and zero stop on a Ruger 5.56 AR magazine bolt gun I call my Joe Biden AR..

Every adjustment I made on both these newer scopes took without issue.

Fact is out of the 20+ Leupolds I've owned over the years I've never experienced any issues. I had several of those Leupolds on 8 or 10 different guns without issue.

Guess I'm just lucky....or maybe I'm a good shot and know how to read a gun.

Like I said Leupold scopes aren't for dummies.

I'd say 900% of the game I've shot in the past 35 years was shot with a rifle wearing a Leupold. I will admit to not having bought a new Leupold in the past 15 years, so things may have changed in the later years.

I do know I don't want nor need a 2 pound, 25x scope to kill a deer at 150 yards, and that's about all you can find. I still like fixed power scopes but there aren't many around.

Too many range sessions like those described by Pappy, combined with sudden, magical failures in the field soured me. A lifetime warranty means nothing to me when a scope fails 5 miles in and up 4000 feet on a goat hunt. Then the attitude they displayed when their goons paid us a visit here sealed the deal. My scope purchases since have been Zeiss and Burris. I’d like to try a #4 reticle in either a Kapps 4x or the little Swarovski 3-9 next.

Gee! Now I'm impressed with your vast experience with two Burris rifle scopes!

As far as I'm concerned two or three Burris scopes was enough for me....I owned one Bushnell 3x9 when I was about 14.
Wasn't too long before I bought my first used Leupold scope my first taste of European was a Zeiss Diavari 1" 3x9 back in the early 1980s once you hunt with a European scope it's hard to look back.

I actually have more experience in the last 15 years or so with European scopes Zeiss, Swarovski and Schmidt and Bender. I still have a several Leupolds two Swarovskis and two Schmidt and Benders.

If I can afford it I prefer Schmidt and Bender.....costly to put one on every rifle.

You have verified a number of times that you are an idiot. No need to continue with more proof

Scopes aren't for Dummies. Hint

No actual failures so far, unless you count the etched reticle pigment bleeding over onto the field in a VX-5 HD. But using scopes that adjust like they should kinda spoils you for ones that run you around. No telling how the vagueness affects the accuracy you get, but I’m thinking it can’t help.

While dialing in a Trijicon on my Fieldcraft, I tried out some loads I’d assmbled with 115gr Bergers. They landed in line with the LRXs I’m hunting with, but about 2” lower. With the Accupoint, I feel confident I could just crank in the extra elevation and go hunting with the Bergers if I wanted to. That might work with the VX-5 or the VX-3i I had, but I wouldn’t try it.

During a particularly rough patch at one place I was working overseas, I took an older and very reliable American made Burris 2-7 compact and mounted it on my M4. It got used a more there in 6 months than most scopes would see in lifetimes. It never failed in any way.




I later switched to a Leupold 1.5-5 illuminated LPVO and used that for years in the M.E.







The punchline is though, I have nothing bad to say about the older American made Burris scopes. I also have an older American made set of Burris 12x signature series binoculars that I have been using for 20 years now and have never felt the need to upgrade glass.

You ain't kidding jwp......dumbassery on parade with every new post.

Not just southern.

Hunting the woods where I do isn't exactly taxing on gear as long as you take your time pulling it up into the tree behind you.

😉

You two bright bOys should tell us about your Chinese Junk scopes

Thanks for your service Mackay.

Only thing I didn't like about the older Burris scopes was their eye relief was more critical than a Leupold.

Idiot

Congratulations in your experience, but apparently you did NOT have experience with "two or three Burris scopes," and actually never even used the second one you acquired.

Right now I own dozens of rifle scopes, from 16 different companies. I own 17 Leupolds, more than any other brand, with Burris in second place at 11. The others include some European brands including Hensoldt, Schmidt & Bender, Swarovski and Zeiss. Probably have owned more Swarovskis and Zeisses than any other Euro brands. Among the newer brands are Nightforce, SWFA and Tract Toric.

Also right now, I have had 20 different brands of scopes fail in one way or another when on my rifles. That is BRANDS, not individual scopes, often multiples in one brand, including some noted European scopes, plus Nightforce. Any scope can malfunction after enough use, though some arrive from the factory "broken." I know this partly because for 30 years now I have been paid to test scopes, and one of the tests is to put them on rifles that recoil at least as much as a .300 magnum, and shoot the rifle considerably.

But the subject here is Leupold scopes--along with Burris. I still own quite a few Leupolds because they suit my purposes on many rifles, especially older Leupolds, some with friction adjustments. The M8 fixed-powers, for instance, are not only light and hold zero once you get them adjusted, but almost never break. Though that has happened a few times, usually by the wire reticle snapping.

Starting about a decade ago I had more Leupolds start to malfunction than ever before--including the FX fixed-powers, which replaced the M8s. At first I welcomed them, because of more consistent click adjustments, but too many didn't hold zero--and I'm not talking about 2-3 inches of shift, but sometimes a foot or more. Sent them back, and at least two were returned by Leupold with a note saying they'd "examined" them and could find nothing wrong. I tried them on the same rifles and they malfunctioned the same way.

So many Leupold scopes started malfunctioning that I eventually was photocopying the repair forms several at a time. Eventually I realized that was ridiculous, so started buying more Burris scopes, especially Fullfield IIs, as "affordable" but reliable scopes for general use. Got my first around 2003, a 30mm model that they then offered as what were then often called "tactical" scopes by many companies, which had very repeatable adjustments. Still have it, and its been on several rifles and the adjustments are still very repeatable. In fact, shot my last big game animal with it a couple weeks ago, using my custom 6.5 PRC.

But also soon tried a basic 1"-tube 3-9x40 Fullfield II, and it also worked well, with far less erratic adjustments than Leupolds in the same price range. When Burris started having them made in the Philippines I got one of those, and compared it to the American-made scope, and the "Asian" model was at least as good in every respect, and in some ways a little better. This was because Burris didn't just ask an overseas company to make a copy of the American FFII, but shipped the machinery to them, and provided instruction in how to use it.

Since then have acquired several more Philippine-made FFIIs, partly because the guys at a local sporting goods store (which sells a LOT of scopes) told me Burris was probably the most reliable brand they carry. In all that time--and a lot of shooting--have only had ONE 3-9x40 FFII malfunction--and that was my first 1" model, made in the USA, which had been on dozens of rifles, often when testing a new rifle, BECAUSE it had been so reliable. Isent it back to Burris and they had it repaired and back to me within two weeks.

I have used more expensive scopes for the same purpose, and some didn't last as long. Others did well--though one Nightforce did eventually need repair, after being used hard as a test-scope on quite a few hard-kicking rifles over 4-5 years. During the same time-frame I had to return several Leupolds for repair, and at least two malfunctioned in the same way when they showed up again.

All of which is why quit buying new Leupolds for a few years, and only used my older, proven ones. Lately they seem to be improving, and in fact have a 2-10x42 5HD that I need to "test-fire," because have heard so many good reports from trusted friends that I have high hopes. In the meantime I'll keep using my older Leupolds (used one of those, a small variable, to take my first big game animal this fall) and Burrises, and other trustworthy scopes to hunt with.

JB:

Thanks for being forthright when sharing your experiences. Too often those with your level of industry knowledge and connection do their best to either tap dance around what they know to be an inconvenient truth, or, more frequently, spread deliberate disinformation. I fully understand that one can't bite the hand that feeds; however, as you've exhibited through your writing, in order to remain relevant there needs to be truth in what a source passes off as an experience derived opinion. I learned early on to consider the context whenever factoring in an opinion tendered by someone who has something to gain.


"It's like Lennon said"