Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Leupold German #4 reticle or Post and Duplex?

I love the No.4 with the heavy flat-topped posts.

Thanks for that pic Yeselk--that is cool. Compact too, eh?

It would be interesting to have it on the original rifle to work out the distance. The top turret is windage?

If I recall correctly, my 4a, the Premier Reticles version, has heavy posts about 3.0 and the thin section is about .6 @ 100 yds. The opening is about 18-24 inches. I do understand that the difference between the #4 and #4a is the wider opening of the 4a.
Leupold doesn't put all of it's reticles in all of it's scopes. The reticle shown above on the old german WWII scope is called the euro, or german, #1. I tried to get one on my old 4X. They can't do it. I didn't ask the custom shop. While I do understand they will build you a reticle to whatever specs you want, it's pretty expensive.
I don't see either the 4a or the Post & Duplex listed as an option for the VXIII 3.5-10X40. But they do list the Heavy Duplex. E

Hey E.

The "German 4" came stock with a VXII 3-10 I bought new, and I paid the custom shop to install the "German 4" in one of my 3-10 VXIII.

The #4, 4a, or "German #4" reticles are all excellent in low light. The very best is a 1st focal plane #4 reticle with square posts, the reticle enlarges as you increase the magnification making it easier to see in lower light. But you do have to be careful to not over magnify and loose enough exit pupil to black out the image.
I was hunting late one evening and spotted a legal deer at the end of a field against a background of trees 200yds away. I had a 4.5-14x50 Leupy scope that was set on 14x. I looked through the scope and saw nothing but solid black. I backed the scope down to 4.5 and could see the crosshairs clearly on the deer. It was feeding so I had time to play with the scope and noticed that at about 8x or so the scope blacked out. I just dialed it to about 5x or so and shot the deer.................................DJ

DJ, don't you know you cannot kill 200 yd deer on low power! Ha! I'll tell you, my 4200 Bushy 6-24 side focus has thick outer post ie. a German reticle, as it's the mil dot, and it is always visible. Long ago lost my reticle above 10x in a 4-14 tactical, though it may have been fine duplex-scope just blacked out at dusk above 10x.

Did read a thread on a scope test, the 40mm's performed as well as 50's and the Bushy's outperformed the Leupy's. Interesting, think the link was on 24hour.

http://www.predatormastersforums.co...5&an=0&page=0&gonew=1#UNREAD

That was the article, very enlightening to those who don't have access to enough 'on hand' scopes to test.

The test was a good one but I do have one criticism of it. He should have set the scopes to a lower power. If he'd have lowered the magnification to where the 40mm scopes still had at least a 6-7mm exit pupil the results might have been different, i.e. they probably would have looked more the same at 6x..................................DJ

Could be very true, but I do think Bushy Elite glass is top notch and it may be possible the newer VX3 scopes are closer in quality than vari x 3, I don't know, sure would like to see Bushnell come out with a top quality 6x, and also offer more reticle choices. They make really good optics based on my experience.

"It would be interesting to have it on the original rifle to work out the distance. The top turret is windage?"

Tomk,
I've had that old German scope all my life and I don't think I ever took off the top cap. See pic below. After removing the sheet metal top cap, I'm sure you're correct. There's only 8 clicks each way from center. So it must be a windage correction. I would really like to figure out a way to mount it on an 8mm rifle someday and try it out. Too busy until I get my boys through college though!

What I've found is that when most of us just "get the reticle sharp," it isn't as sharp as it can be made. If you go to the middle of what I call "the reticle sharp range" of adjustment, the reticle will not only it look sharper, but it looks like it's standing up, or out, from the image. This will make a difference in how well you can see the reticle during low light.
Yes, if you go too far, the image will go completely black. I didn't add that because it would be odvious. At the lower magnifications, the image does appear even brighter. But before you loose it entirely, you can see more at the higher magnifications.
The bussiness of first focal plane scope's reticles showing up better at higher magnification is true. Didn't mention it because very few use such scopes. E

And it's a shame. They don't know what they're missing....

I've got lots of questions and suspicions about these tests.
First of all, trying to read a newspaper at 100 yds. is very dependent upon how well the scope is focused. Focus can also have an effect on how well you see the scope's reticle.
Second, he said nothing about any AO's or side focus features. Any scope with such things looks less bright than those w/o.
Third, the value of a 50mm scope is that you can use more magnification at a given level of light than you can with a 40mm scope. These tests used nothing but 9X.
Fourth, the indicated magnifcations of scopes is often not their actual magnification. If you are going to compare scopes, then they need to be set on the same actual magnification.
Last of all, none of my Leupolds are any where near that bad. It's no trick at all for me to see small antlers on a buck at 150 yds., for instance, long after the sun has gone down and over 30 mins past legal shooting time. This with any those "dim" one inch, 40mm Leupolds. E

There you go, E. There's another board you can join so you can tell the guy:

1) He's too stupid to focus his scopes.
2) He's too stupid to "understand" what he sees through his scopes.
3) He's making stuff up as part of an evil plan to disparage Leupold products.

You've taught us well that the only reasons a Leupold could ever lose such a test has to be one or more of the above. Join the board and attack! Set that boy straight!

To add more questions I just got off the phone with Leupold and was told the following:
POST AND DUPLEX--The same as the heavy duplex but with the thin wire on top. At 10X and 100yds the opening is 5.5" The thin wire subtends .5" and the thick 1.5"
GERMAN #4--They make only one #4. At 10X and 100yds the opening is 25". The thin wire is .4" and the thick 3.7".
When you look at the picture of the #4 on Leupold's web site the thick portion and the thin portion, going for example the bottom to the center, looks to be about 50%thick and 50%thin. This is different than the picture of the the Leupold #4 that appears on this thread. The rep pointed out to me that as the magnification decreases the "opening" increases. Could it be that the picture posted was at a higher magnification than the one on the Leupold web site? The 25" opening of the #4 at 100 yards seems like a lot to me. Does this large opening vrs the 5.5" of a Heavy Duplex make it more or less difficult to place the shot in low light? I realize that this is subjective and I hope that users of both types will weigh in on this one.

Kingman, FYI, I DO believe, but may be wrong the 25" or so in the 6x42 #4 is the same as a wide duplex, next, I believe the poster told me that the #4 photo was from a 6x42, so the x's are constant....

Again, I may stand to be corrected, if so someone will chime in.

The book says the post/duplex in the 6x is 1.0 on the thin wire....not sure why the book says that and the Lupy person said .5"?

65BR is correct. My scope is a 6x42 FXIII. Here's the box with the part number...

a couple emails from Lupy Tech. I stand corrected on the P&D

Tom:
(For the German 4 in a 3-10)
the price to have the heavy duplex in will be $54.99 plus $15.00 S&H.
Here are the Dimensions:
heavy wire section- 6.12 inch on low and 2.08 inches on high thin wire
section- 2.16 inches on low and .735 inches on high
distance between top and bottom:
32.4 inches on low
11.02 inches on high

All readings are at 100yds.

(For the post and duplex)

Tom:
Both the crosshair and the posts of a Heavy Duplex reticle are double the thickness of a regular duplex reticle. (the three bottom posts)

Kingmanguy:

I hope my email post doesn't make things more confusing...

Have both the HD and German 4. IMHO the scope graphics on the box and web site aren't even close on the German 4. The heavy posts of the German 4 extend significantly further on my 3-10 and 3-9 in viewing. The spacing for the crosshair is good near and far for both reticles for hunting and paper.

The heavy crosshair is what makes it more usable in low light as it won't disappear as quickly as a "normal" crosshair. The heavy posts come into play in extreme low light...and that is probably well after legal light in most conditions, in most states.

In my experience the heavy crosshair on either reticle is likely all you will ever need in places where there is a legal light requirement...but in a couple particularly dark spots I sit, I use the German 4 from Lupy--for guidance from the posts, just in case I need it.

In a Zeiss (German)or Swaro using the fine crosshair in their repective 4 reticles, I have used the heavy posts for a shot or two after losing the crosshair. I use 6x in low light as it works best for me.

FWIW, have spent many hours, (when hunting solo) watching spots in the North well into the night to try to see if Mr. Big was still around...with excellent binoculars

This is anal retentive to the nth, but tis the outcome of chasing mature whitetail for too long...

Jon, if you want to call him stupid, be my guest. I would say he's just ignorant. He doesn't know any better. E

But that's your job. That's what you do to everybody here.

Close enough.

Yes, he only actually looked through the scopes. He doesn't know any better that his eyes were playing tricks on him, he was hallucinating, what he saw was just so complicated he couldn't understand it.... Hopefully somebody who hasn't actually looked through the scopes will set this poor misguided soul straight by telling him what he should have seen....

What. A. Joke.