At least in Sweden, their reputation seems to be right up there with all the German/Austrian top flight optics. They are very much perceived to be a quality optic.
I do now one guy who (last year or so) sent an old (ca 20 years? 35 years?) Doktor scope back to the factory. He got it back in about a month, totally rebuilt, inspected and certified by a real person (who signed a detailed report on the scope's performance). Yeah, I know -- the Germans love this sort of thing, but I admit that I kind of appreciate it too.
Personally, I am not sure that I could pick a Doktor out from a blind array of Schmidt & Bender, Zeiss (not Conquest), Swarovski, Pecar, Kahles... Probably
not in daylight, although
think that I could pick out the best (Schmidt & Bender, Zeiss, possibly Swarovski) in the dark. I might be wrong about which are the best in the real dark too!
I would love to have all these optics, mount them on a board with just their objectives and oculars sticking out of a carboard box, and test them on a dozen hunters! Like most of those mentioned above, eye relief of the Doktor's is moderate not long (I think that I recall reading "
over 3 inches eye relief" on one of Doktor's web pages), and they tend to have fairly large objectives (and often 30mm tubes). A bit on the heavy side too, and not as tough or waterproof as a Leupold to be honest.
Having said all that, if you can mount one at the proper distance to your eye, I sure would not complain about any of the above brands! They do perform well after dark from the 2 examples I have had access to. Not my choice for my .375 H&H (that wears a Conquest with 4 inches of eye relief), but ideal for a varmint rifle I think -- I am looking for such a scope for my .222 Rem in fact!
I should also note that my comments are from a European perspective: none of that "Leupold is good enough for legal shooting hours". I used to live in Canada and the USA, but here in many European countries we do
not have to pay any attention to some arbitrary "
dusk + 30 minutes" like most of North America -- if you can see well enough to shoot a wild boar at 0300 hr by moonlight, we can do so legally. It is up to the hunter to decide if he/she can take a safe shot in the dark or not.
Lastly, you might be interested in this: I did find them for sale in the US
HERE. John (satisfied owner of many Leupold scopes, but night scopes they ain't!) In fact, I just missed buying a 20-year old Schmidt and Bender 8 x 56 scope for peanuts a while ago too!
