Home Forums Gear Free Classifieds Looking for Leupold 3X Big Bore

Hello

Looking for a new in box Leupold FX-II Big Bore 3X. Prefer matte and heavy duplex. Willing to trade bullets, optics or just buy outright. Have a 375 H&H that needs a long tube 1” scope. Thanks.

Up again!

Anyone?

Let’s try again!

264 magnum I know a guy who has a gloss duplex one that’s new in the box Pm me if interested will try to send you pics

Anyone?

264,

I like your choice in scopes.......they can't be beat for rough use IMO.

I have a couple extra 3X and one of em is the newer Big Bore model for sure.

I'm in the midst of some F&G work but will take a look this evening.

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Top dollar paid!!

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Awesome scope but very, very hard to find.

Good luck with your search.

This! When I saw your thread, I winced a bit because my search was, in a word, exhausting. In 2020 when I finally located mine, they had only been out of production for two years. Now I imagine they're going to be even more difficult to locate. Mine is currently mounted on a Ruger #1 RSI chambered in .275 Rigby. So it's a bit like a unicorn riding piggy back on another unicorn. But I like it!

The way I found mine was by creating a search on various websites (GunBroker, GunsInternational, Classifieds, etc.) and bookmarking them in a folder on my Chrome browser. Then every morning while I was drinking my coffee, I would right-click on that folder and select "Open All in a New Window". It would run all of my searches and display the results on a bunch of tabs. On some websites (e.g. GunBroker), I could filter the results before I bookmarked it to only show the new listings from the last couple of days. So for most of them, I could quickly glance at the web page, see that nothing had appeared & move on. Doing it this way, I was able to continually look for a Big Bore and it would only take me a minute to be disappointed again (over & over & over...). Basically being monomaniacally relentless paid off.

There are some websites that allow you to search all of Craigslist nationwide without looking at a specific locale. Bookmarking this, finally one day a guy in the midwest Great Lakes region listed one locally. A small target audience & a fixed price means limited competitors. Boom! I called him, used PayPal to send him some money, crossed my fingers & a couple of days later, the scope appeared. The irony of all this is that while I'm very pleased with it & consider it to be a perfect fit (both aesthetically & functionally) for the what I'm using it for, it probably (almost definitely) wasn't worth the effort I put into acquiring it. It's cult-like status & relative rarity because it was only available through Leupold's Custom Shop really doesn't help. I think the few people who own them are generally disinclined to give them up. And there's plenty of modern alternatives that would be adequate or better substitutes. But if you insist on acquiring the classic original, then you're preaching to the choir. I get it.

But like RAS posted above, "Good luck with your search". My only regrettable advice is to be really patient & have a Plan "B".

Thanks for the advice guys!! I have a rifle that needs a long tube and long eye relief!! The Leupold 1.5-5 is really close but I need a hair more mounting length. I would be open to any other options if you guys can think of any. Thanks!!

Because I'm a right hander who shoots left, I have developed a fondness for ambidextrous falling blocks (e.g. Ruger #1, Winchester 1885, etc.). I like their simplicity. Unfortunately, they can sometimes be difficult to fit a scope on because of the mounting location & the need for long eye relief. I don't know if there was a better way to solve this problem but what worked for me was drafting scopes I was interested in onto a piece of cardboard & test fitting the template on a particular rifle. I would then see where the combination of scope turret & mount ring location made the rear of the scope to fall. The devil is in the details. Some scopes that looked theoretically good under the printed specifications would turn out to be unsuitable because the turret was too far back and forced the scope to be mounted too far forward. And vice versa. Scopes with unimpressive eye relief had great latitude in mounting position. I would mark the templates to show how much eye relief I had at the back and whether it would work with standard or offset rings. I then separated them into great fit, ok fit & disregard collections.



As a possible example, in the photo above, I put a Meopta R2 1-6x24 RD on top & compared it to a Leupold VX-5HD 1-5x24. With their turrets in the same location, you can see that the Meopta has a longer mounting tube & is an overall longer scope. But another good measurement is that it also has greater eye relief. So comparing just these two scopes, the Meopta would be one that I would look closely at. Visually it's easy to see how much further back your eye would be on the top scope. Obviously, this is just one of many possible scope comparisons.

Another thing to consider is you were looking at a scope that had a minimum magnification of 1.5x in your post above. On my rifles, I have two scopes that have very low starting magnifications and also mount well to give me lots of eye relief: The Schmidt & Bender 1.5-8x42 Stratos & the Swarovski z6 1.7-10x42 (which I have mounted on my .375 H&H). Whether this is an acceptable alternative or whether it will fit on your rifle well is of course completely dependent on your criteria and the dimensions of your rifle.

I'm going to post this reply & send you a PM that will hopefully also be helpful.

Awesome information!! Thanks so much!

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I have a LNIB FX-II Big Bore Matte Duplex Mounted once but never used.

I also have M8 3X Gloss Duplex 99%.

I will part with either one but can't think of any trades needed at this time.
I would take Leupold 6x42 LR Duplex in trade.

There's not enough of em out there to determine value so if interested, talk to me.

PM sent.

VernAK is excellent to deal with and purchase was exactly as described! Thanks again!

This is the second transaction with 264 and he's great to work with even though we have to struggle through international currency exchange and shipping.