Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics My Leupold vs Swaro test results

Caution: Sorry for the book but I couldn't make it any shorter.




I am primarily a Blacktail deer hunter in the Oregon Coastal mountain. I wanted to scope a new rifle with a top low light performer in a low to medium magnification range with a $1000 budget. I shoot 50-400 yds and twilight is always the most productive time for me. After trying and culling out a few other top brands I wound up with a Leupold VX5HD 2-10x42 and a Swarovski Z3 3-10x42 as finalists. This is what I did and found out to make my choice:


For a scope test platform I used my rifle with the barrel removed. All I had to do to switch scopes was to set one on the low mount ring bottoms and clamp down with my left hand. I put a layer of gorilla tape on the rings to prevent scratching and to stop slipping.

I did all my evaluation tests from early dusk to nearly pitch dark in the same woods where I hunt.


The first twilight test was using 10x on both scopes examining a rocky bluff at 400 yds. I compared the brightness, resolution and color saturation of rocks, mosses, bushes and shadow details. I didnt notice any significant differences between the two, however I battled wash out in the Leupold from the get-go. It was a challenge to find the right weld and eye relief, and when scoping it only lasted 15-20 seconds due to my slight head movements when scanning around. Using the Leupold for scoping required so much concentration fighting the eye box constraints that I wasn’t able to pay great attention to details of what I was scanning and I got eye strain in short order. I also noticed that on shouldering to acquire a target, it took longer than acceptable to generate a clear picture with the Leupold. On lower magnifications at this distance the Leupold was just fine but this was the 10x long range test.

Now with the Swaro, on the same 10x at 400yds, I had practically no washout or eye box alignment probs and I got a clear sight picture pretty much immediately. After being setup and on target I even tried shifting my cheek weld, which would have resulted in washout with the Leupold, but it didn’t happen with the Swaro until I went extreme. Eye strain when scanning was negligible as I didn’t feel like my eye and head position was fighting to stay within the eye box limits. The other thing I noticed when scoping, which is hard to describe, is there was a constant smoothness of the picture I would see rolling from one side to the other in the scope circle. I attribute this to the Swaro enabling my eye to be able to focus close to the edges and on the center simultaneously. I felt that with the Leupold my focus was directed more in the middle half of the circle.

I also compared FOV at 400 yds because the Swaro ocular and objective lens are visibly smaller in diameter than the Leupold. Surprisingly I found the Swaro to actually have slightly wider coverage.

By now my 61 year old eyes were getting tired and the last 20 minutes of available shooting light was approaching. So I switched to a more appropriate 200yd range which was a grassy clearing with big blackberry thickets as a backdrop. In the clearing was a small dark clump of bunchgrass which was to be my new ‘test card’.

I set both scopes on 8x and was not able to discern any notable difference in light gathering ability between them when under near dark conditions. When I was able to get the Leupold in perfect alignment I felt it actually had a slightly brighter image, but that didnt happen often enough to warrant any distinction. Bottom line is they both equally enabled me to see something I could not see with my naked eye in the dim light. I also imagined that there was a buck in the clearing by the blackberries and I shouldered the rifle for a quick last light simulation shot. All I can say is that under those conditions I would have located and shot that imaginary buck with the Swaro way before I could have done the same with the Leupold. Even at 8x I still had to fight wash out with Leupold, which was not as bad as at 10x, but any wash out when it is nearly dark makes your image disappear.

The Leup had a firedot which was new to me and I was curious to try it. All I can say is that when aiming at the center of a 10inch grass clump at 200 yds in near dark, I was able to see and place the x-hairs on the center of that dark mass equally well with both scopes. But when I turned on the smallest setting of the firedot, the light from it washed out the target behind it so I couldnt tell exactly where I was aiming on the clump.


Even though these two scopes have basically the same optical specifications, apples to apples they are not. The Leupold is nearly 1/3 of a pound heavier, bulkier and sits up higher on the receiver giving a lesser cheek weld for a straighter combed stock like I have. The Leupold has a larger objective and ocular lens compared to the Swaro, measured respectively at 47mm vs 43mm for the objective and 37.5 vs 35.5mm for the ocular. I did a light on paper test and the Leupold true objective was 41-42 mm and the Swaro 43-44 mm.

Of course field comparisons are very subjective as everyones eye health and rifle fit is different but I did it for myself so my findings might be different for someone else. My eyes are certainly not that great anymore but luckily I still have barely 20/20 in my shooting eye.

After I wrote the above and edited typos, I thought that maybe I was a bit hard on my homegrown Leupold, of which I have had dozens over the years and still have them. So to double check I went back the next evening to the same spot to duplicate the same tests. Unfortunately the results were pretty much identical.

Out of curiosity I also brought along a new Leupold VX3HD 2.5-8x36 on the second go around. Let me tell you that this little guy held its own! On the 200yd near dark glass clump test it was there right along side the big boys andI had no eye box issues on 8x. They say the VX3HD and VX5HD glass is the same and I believe them. The paper objective test was right at 35-36 mm for the small scope.

I was expecting the results of my field tests to find the Swaro as the slight winner in terms of light gathering ability but that was not the case. But it was the hands down winner for ease of use so thats whats going on my rifle.

Good discussion. Thanks for sharing.

Out of curiosity was the Zeiss V4 3-12x50 part of your culled out group? I like their glass better than either of your finalists.

Good test of optical quality and value. The only thing it lacks is a test of the mechanics - the ability to hold a zero and for the adjustments to work predictably and reliably. The mechanical performance is what I care most about, by far.

Fewshus say....

Stick to Asians scope get big twisty turret......European scope wiff big twisty turret way out most peoples pwice wange.

My scopes all have turret caps I've never had a problem with any scope and its ability to hold zero.....

Nice hunting scope evaluation.

Swarovski scopes are nice.

Nice evaluation, thanks. Also good to hear about that 2.5x8, since I have one downstairs ready to go!

It was a good write up, thank you.

Thanks for sharing your work. You don't have to be Underwriters Laboratories, to me, your impressions are as valuable as any lab/science test, maybe more so in the imperfect conditions encountered in hunting.

Good test and write up. There's a lot more than just brightness when judging a low-light scope. I think you captured all this very well. And you answered a question for me regarding the Leupold illuminated reticle in low light.

Agree, for turret twisters! I'm a cap n shoot guy for coastal hunting and have no concern of any top tier scopes not holding a set zero. I use a flat shooting round and trajectory is a constant so thats relatively simple to compensate for if I know the range and the size of target animal. The wind is my enemy and that one is always the guess!

You may not be concerned with it, but zero shifts happen with real-world use, even in expensive scopes.

That also applies whether one is twisting turrets or setting it and forgetting it.

This^^^

....but most on here think "optical clarity" is THE factor to measure scope quality. They use them as glorified iron sights....

Yup, but that fact escapes many.

No.I ordered a V4 3-12x44 (discontinued). This was a mistake as I was initially attracted by the blowout Christmas price more than thinking of the utility I required. Out of curiosity I mounted it and checked it out off my porch but it was too large and bulky. My bad. No debate the glass was apparently very nice, but being an Asian scope with a German sticker, I forgot to see if it had fixed eye relief over the mag setting range like a German ones. I had a German conquest years back and it was all I ever needed.

How would you suggest that he test for mechanical performance, predictability and reliability after he has it sighted in?

Maybe I should have said little concern! Pretty much every time I am done with a day's hunt I stop when I am out of the hills and take a shot at a little rock on a bank to 'check', dry out my bore and relieve some frustration.

When I was a teen my dad was a Govt hunter/trapper. This was back in the day when the vx 3-9 was the tits. One day we were coming back from work on a ranch and there was a nice young meat buck standing in the brush about 80 yds away. My dad stopped and passed me his rifle off the rack and told me to shoot it in the neck. I shot and missed but I knew I didn't miss. Of course that set me up for eternal ribbing and ridicule! So that night I snuck into his truck and turned the elevation dial on his scope about a foot high. When we were going to work the next day I told my dad that I would bet him 20 bucks that his scope was off and thats why I missed the buck. He took the bet and shot 2 rocks on a bank at 100 yds and took my money. Until the day he died he never believed my story!

Help me understand what you are calling washout in this context.

I know it's hard to check them all, just wondering how the Tract Toric UHD 2-10X42 would fit in with these two.

Thanks for the comparison and for not c-clamping them at the playground.

It's when your eye gets out of alignment with the scope and the sight picture gets a whitish misty blur, or when extreme you lose part or all of the picture.