Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Leupold: VX-7 Discontinued?

Just spoke to custom shop - they called to confirm an order I placed this week. The rep didn't know anything about the vx7 being discontinued but did acknowledge pending announcement of a vx6 line. According to this rep, it will be 6xzoom scopes in 30 mm tubes. No specifics as to models

I remember comparing an older 6X42 Leupold once to a fancy S&B PMII. Neither myself or the owner could see any differences....... E

Leupold needs to quite the redundancy in their lines and use the production capacity to push down prices. Competition is getting better and some really good glass can be bought for less coin. They are able to produce glass that can compete at any level, however, they need to understand they cannot put $1200 price tags on $600 glass. Their name alone is not going to rate the extra $ in todays global market. I say this being a fan and hope the best for the company.

koshkin,

Do you think the new VX-6 will include a high magification light weight like the Swarovski?

Test charts using blocks or bars are still user subjective because they are little more than fine detail eye charts, which is probably why you saw a big swing. People still see what they want to using them and there is no way to remove the human element.

As well depending on the condition and use of each, some coatings could have been damaged or broken down causing another layer of difference between similar brands and models.

After so many years, thousands upon thousands of posts, I have come to the conclusion test charts are a waste of the individual users time because, again, the shooter will see what they want, and in many cases only gauge based upon what they paid or have emotionally invested in. You can line ten shooters up and have them look at the same thing and score the scope and you will get 10 different scores -- so what does it all mean.

Get what you can pay for, and buy what makes "YOU" happy and not worry about what some one saw under whatever conditions in whatever far away place for whatever reason they decided to check something, because for every "plus" you'll find a "minus" and for each there is a reason.

Scopes are not eye glasses, and when your doctor is changing the prescription, from "Better or Worse" he doing so in a specific manner. Looking through one scope at an eye chart and moving to another is not a "Better or Worse" situation that same as being at an eye doctors.

Uncorrected I can't read the entire line first line of an eye chart, so If I look through a scope and read the resolution bars, and someone with 20/20 vision looks through the same scope at the same bars, he will clearly "see more bars".. because I am friggin blind in my right eye... so saying they are not subjective is false... they are a reference point, nothing more.

Further more, no scope tested is calibrated to the power settings, so you have no way of knowing if one is viewing at 10X and the other 11X, or worse, 9.5X which will also cause a difference in what you see... because the number of bars you see are also a product of magnification. None of them are calibrated, I don't care if you put everyone on 10X, the truth of the matter is, you have no way of knowing that they are all seeing the test chart the same...

These reasons are why the test charts are not industry standard and not being used in the manner which people think they need to be used.

Please, its simple, just like SWFA stated with people who come into their store... No two people see the same piece of glass the same way... that is fact of life you cannot reason away with. We see it all the time, nobody, I mean nobody looks at the same scope and sees the same thing, that's life.

As a Photo geek I have contacted this man, years ago about this: Norman Koren and asked about using his software... and understand they do use software to do this, essentially taking the human element out of the equations because of all the reasons I have stated. Photo geeks photograph the test target and run it through this software to reach their conclusions.

I made an effort to explore this, and can tell you it's not happening way you think. Sure 30 people can give you a good cross sections of "opinions' but that doesn't make them right, or educated opinions, it just makes them their particular opinions at the time. As been written, there was more wrong with these kinds of test than there is right, that I can promise anyone reading this.

The human eye can only resolve so much, the glass in the scopes are designed, almost all of them to resolve beyond our limits, (especially at the higher end) so anything past what we can resolve is a plus. The real test of optics like rifle scopes are not in the number of bars it can see, but how it resolves things like color, because that is where the money is, in the coatings. The glass is meaningless, the coatings make it so we can see, very few understand this, which is why they test black & white bars, and don't focus on the colors of the USAF Chart... which you have to ask why its barely used and hasn't been upgraded... instead we have turned to computers and software.

You want to use the USAF chart, you better be using the colored bars, especially the red and yellow because that is where the differences between scopes are... look at old reviews I posted, I specifically use the colors, not the black & white...

Magnification also matters, the focus on the rear is 99% for the reticle, not the image downrange that is what the parallax is for... you can fine tune some of it, but essentially the diopter is not focusing the target its focusing the reticle. So your vision absolutely matters, everyone's better be 20/20 or else you're skewing the results between people and scope that says 10X and is actually 11X is going to see more bars than a scope that says 10X and is actually 9X, there is not way around that, you're only so close to the test target.

You can try to argue semantics o f what you think, but i have time, numbers, and research on my side, that I promise you. This isn't my first scope rodeo there hoss.

here is the image test page:
http://www.imatest.com/home

" All the gear, and no idear" - an anonymous aussie

koshkin,

Do you think the new VX-6 will include a high magification light weight like the Swarovski?

And "that guy you trust" has called BS on your statement claiming your Leupold 6x42 was hanging with a S&B. Need me to find that direct quote from him E?

Your posts are heavily biased and offer no value other than to prop up Leupold and try and make them look better.