Has anyone done a drop test on Leupold Vx5hd?

[Marbles]

LOL......hypotheticals are always fun and a waste of time, since they are hypotheticals.

Oh.....never taken any of those other scopes mentioned to Africa, just the VX6, 6 times.

Are you truly so poorly educated in either science or philosophy or warfighting or medicine or firefighting or engineering to believe that?

I've worked in 3 different professions where the people you want to live can and do die when things go wrong. Everyone of those professions makes decisions based on reasonable hypotheticals. The engineers who design the equipment used in those professions design it based on such hypotheticals as well.

Or we could play hypotheticals all day long......if you fall and break both arms, do you think you'll still be able to accurately shoot your NF scoped rifle?

This is what is referred to as 27 Ninja questions. That saying "there is no such thing as a stupid question" is proven false by these. I.e. I have been taught how to work a pistol with only my left hand (load, clear, Etc.), when teaching this someone who has decided not to learn will say "Yeah, but what if 27 ninjas jump from the roof while the pistol is held by my knee."

 

[JGRaider]

Hypotheticals are much more important in life or death situations that's for sure. In a scope dropping thread.....not so much. You're apparently in the life saving business.....kudos to you.

 

[JGRaider]

The sad thing is that as long as people argue the fact that there leupold scopes work fine without actually testing the limits to see if it really does leupold has no reason to revise there product to make it better. Which is shame because on paper there scopes have some of the best options out there . Thats what lured me in when iv heard plenty of times before they alway lose zero and witnessed a total failure first hand 1 time i thought “come on such a big well known company it must be a 1 in a million issue”. I then sold a perfectly good nightforce because i wanted something lighter for carrying got leupold vx5 and in a few months was already experiencing shift in zero i never had before.

If you think Leupold cares about the RS forums, I believe you'd be sadly mistaken. Probably goes for most any other scope maker/seller for that matter. They're all in business to make money, and I assume the one's that are best at that are the ones that stay in business.

 

[Tom-D]

If you think Leupold cares about the RS forums, I believe you'd be sadly mistaken. Probably goes for most any other scope maker/seller for that matter. They're all in business to make money, and I assume the one's that are best at that are the ones that stay in business.

I dont think they care about RS but information is information someone reads it here and goes and tests it and shows there friend who shows their friend,its got to start somewhere. And as i said i had heard this from multiple shooters around me all the way over hear in Aus way before i had even heard of RS so it is clearly not an exclusively RS issue. All RS has done has shown actual evidence to back what i had already heard/seen

 

[Jfjfrye]

And I’m still trying to figure out who’s Johnson is bigger….. can you guys just whip em out or shut up. Sound like 12 year old girls squabbling just to be heard without saying anything valuable in any way. Jesus.

 

[Jason Snyder]

I think my biggest issue on this forum is how 90% of people on here love to bash leupold and praise those 3 other brandsas though they walk on water.

Who cares? Really.

And I say that with one of my rifles wearing a gold ring. I could care less if someone likes it or bashes it. I’ve dropped tested it and confirmed it holds zero.

One of my other gold rings went back for warranty repair, and will be getting sold to purchase a maven this fall.

I really don’t give two hoots what people think of the gear that I use. If they don’t like it, they are free to buy me something different.

 

[Macintosh]

Man, talk about a thread derailing....lol

For me personally I can honestly say that in 35 years of use I've never had a leupold scope let me down. What do I mean by that, well I've never missed or wounded or made anything less than a clean, quick, ethical kill because of my leupold scope shifting zero enough to matter out to 400 yards.

Does that mean I've never missed, hell no I'm not saying that. But when I have missed I've confirmed that indeed it was my own shooter error and not my scope.

Now fwiw I don't dial and I don't shoot long range, if I did maybe I would be more concerned, maybe not I don't know.

But seeing how my own track record has never convinced me to throw away my leupolds I guess I'll just keep killing shit with them.

I think my biggest issue on this forum is how 90% of people on here love to bash leupold and praise those 3 other brandsas though they walk on water.

Let me just say if the general population felt the same as the folks on rokslide then leupold would have either went out of business decades ago or started copying nightforce a long, long time ago.

That said I still plan on keeping to my word and bouncing a leupold or two up and down my shitty gravel road and posting targets as to how they hold up come summer time here in montana

Fwiw I have and do own one nightforce scope. Actually bought it as a result of reading Forms tests. I think it's a hell of a scope but it still hasn't convinced me to sell my leupolds

Anyway I'm done here for awhile. Heading to hunt talk , I'll check back in 2 or months

Not to pick on you, but this is a perfect illustration of the problem.
1) they work for a lot of people—thats clear. Whats not clear is what the takeaway message should be from that. I think we need more info to put that into perspective before that becomes relevant info to this conversation. We dont all have the same needs, and we dont all use our equipment the same way.
2) most (not all) of the people ready to die on the leupy hill readily admit they dont shoot past short range—in this case 400 yards would be considered very long range by most hunters (remember the numbers of hunters in the east and midwest, individual states like Pa and Wi sell more deer tags than the entire population of some western states). A 2moa shift is probably itrelevant at 100 yards. But would a sub-100 yd hunter buy a scope that they knew had decent odds of losing zero by 2moa? Probably not.
3) the zero-check is not quantified or tracked, at least not that anyone else can see, so its rarely (never?) possible to say if the methodology would have registered even a significant shift. Was this a perfect zero within 1 click, determined with a decent-sized group at a measured yardage, both before and after? Or was it a 1 or 2-round minute-of pie-plate zero “about an inch and a half high” sort of zero, or was it something in between? We never seem to hear the details.
4) “I dont shoot long range”. Ie I am not concerned about error that might be significant for someone else, either in reality or in aspiration. Yet I’m willing to defend equipment that its not clear how methodically or thoroughly I have actually vetted it. “Good enough for 200-yard deer hunting” is not what people are talking about, especially when there are pretty good alternatives.
5) “if the general population…they would be out of business”. See point 2. The “general population” shoots at a 100-“ish” yard range once or twice a year, does not track their zero from trip to trip, shoots a single 3-round group at most, doesnt put a lot of effort into mounting, and their zero is often 1-2moa off from where they think it is in the first place, and thinks having to adjust zero every year is normal. And they shoot their deer at 40 to 80 yards, maybe 150-200 if they happen to have access to ag land to hunt. This IS the problem…regardless of whether leupold scopes are great or crappy, the “general population” wouldnt know it. It’s true that if all those people thought this way scopes might look different—but they DONT think this way. I shoot at least once a month at a public range and see 4 or 5 people doing a shitty job of zeroing or checking zero every single trip—its far and away the norm. Its the RARE person I see zeroing or shooting in a way that would even allow them to track or even resolve a 2moa shift. And regardless of whether its a large-enough error to matter most of the time for most people, does anyone think joe average would keep buying a scope that they knew would often be off a small amount? I dont. This rationale makes perfect sense, but it simply doesnt provide any evidence to me one way or another about an actual problem.

Bottom line, if it works for you and you have vetted it, KDWYD. But if you havent actually tracked it in a methodical way, why defend it if you dont know? And if you have, theres a whole lot of people who’d love to see that, so PLEASE show us. Its a challenge—Ive been burned three times out of four. I know some will hold zero, I had one that never lost zero. But I still had three that didnt hold zero, and that wasnt from dropping them. But if other people can track their zero methodically and SHOW that it doesnt shift periodically, at some point we see enough scopes so we can see something of a trend, and if it looks like very few shift I’ll readily eat the whole serving of crow that Ive personally dished up. If for no other reason than getting pleasure out of showing how wrong the leupy-haters-club is, Id think more folks would be motivated to show it with evidence.

I am genuinely looking forward to all the zero tracking posts that I hope are forthcoming this summer.

 

[General RE LEE]

Amazes me these threads get to these many pages and its the same argument every time. Man it is exhausting. I have ADD, 5 kids and stressful job. I don't know who has time to read these posts that are like novels. I scan a couple sentences and move on lol.

 

[Balderdash]

Not to pick on you, but this is a perfect illustration of the problem.
1) they work for a lot of people—thats clear. Whats not clear is what the takeaway message should be from that. I think we need more info to put that into perspective before that becomes relevant info to this conversation. We dont all have the same needs, and we dont all use our equipment the same way.
2) most (not all) of the people ready to die on the leupy hill readily admit they dont shoot past short range—in this case 400 yards would be considered very long range by most hunters (remember the numbers of hunters in the east and midwest, individual states like Pa and Wi sell more deer tags than the entire population of some western states). A 2moa shift is probably itrelevant at 100 yards. But would a sub-100 yd hunter buy a scope that they knew had decent odds of losing zero by 2moa? Probably not.
3) the zero-check is not quantified or tracked, at least not that anyone else can see, so its rarely (never?) possible to say if the methodology would have registered even a significant shift. Was this a perfect zero within 1 click, determined with a decent-sized group at a measured yardage, both before and after? Or was it a 1 or 2-round minute-of pie-plate zero “about an inch and a half high” sort of zero, or was it something in between? We never seem to hear the details.
4) “I dont shoot long range”. Ie I am not concerned about error that might be significant for someone else, either in reality or in aspiration. Yet I’m willing to defend equipment that its not clear how methodically or thoroughly I have actually vetted it. “Good enough for 200-yard deer hunting” is not what people are talking about, especially when there are pretty good alternatives.
5) “if the general population…they would be out of business”. See point 2. The “general population” shoots at a 100-“ish” yard range once or twice a year, does not track their zero from trip to trip, shoots a single 3-round group at most, doesnt put a lot of effort into mounting, and their zero is often 1-2moa off from where they think it is in the first place, and thinks having to adjust zero every year is normal. And they shoot their deer at 40 to 80 yards, maybe 150-200 if they happen to have access to ag land to hunt. This IS the problem…regardless of whether leupold scopes are great or crappy, the “general population” wouldnt know it. It’s true that if all those people thought this way scopes might look different—but they DONT think this way. I shoot at least once a month at a public range and see 4 or 5 people doing a shitty job of zeroing or checking zero every single trip—its far and away the norm. Its the RARE person I see zeroing or shooting in a way that would even allow them to track or even resolve a 2moa shift. And regardless of whether its a large-enough error to matter most of the time for most people, does anyone think joe average would keep buying a scope that they knew would often be off a small amount? I dont. This rationale makes perfect sense, but it simply doesnt provide any evidence to me one way or another about an actual problem.

Bottom line, if it works for you and you have vetted it, KDWYD. But if you havent actually tracked it in a methodical way, why defend it if you dont know? And if you have, theres a whole lot of people who’d love to see that, so PLEASE show us. Its a challenge—Ive been burned three times out of four. I know some will hold zero, I had one that never lost zero. But I still had three that didnt hold zero, and that wasnt from dropping them. But if other people can track their zero methodically and SHOW that it doesnt shift periodically, at some point we see enough scopes so we can see something of a trend, and if it looks like very few shift I’ll readily eat the whole serving of crow that Ive personally dished up. If for no other reason than getting pleasure out of showing how wrong the leupy-haters-club is, Id think more folks would be motivated to show it with evidence.

I am genuinely looking forward to all the zero tracking posts that I hope are forthcoming this summer.

Heck of a post. Fully captures the essence of the situation.

 

[Macintosh]

Amazes me these threads get to these many pages and its the same argument every time. Man it is exhausting. I have ADD, 5 kids and stressful job. I don't know who has time to read these posts that are like novels. I scan a couple sentences and move on lol.

Shouldnt you be either
1) at your stressful job and not on rokslide
Or
2) at the range shooting a 10-round group to get a good zero and measure of extreme spread so you can prove once and for all just how stupid we all are to worry about this?
Or 3) anything else your time is better spent on?

 

[2-Stix]

Just looking for some reading material that backs the Leupold bashing I see on the forum. Other than forms test one a vx3 I wasn’t able to dig anything up. I thought maybe I had missed a large thread and wasn’t using right words in the search to pull it up. Still haven’t seen anyone suggest an actual test that’s been performed on the higher end leupold vx5 vx6 or mark scopes.

I had a VX5 and VX3 fail. Erector in the VX5, still need to send the VX3 back. Both lost zero. Dirt roads, tipped over a few times, hunting tight timber over 6 days. The VX3 has a 2" zero shift. Nothing I did should have caused that. The VX5 just plain broke...never hunted it, just 3-4 range trips. I was sent back. I bit the bullet and went NF.

 

[5811]

But if you havent actually tracked it in a methodical way, why defend it if you dont know?

Ego. If you give people something for free and it doesnt work, they get rid of it and move on. If they spend a pile of their hard earned money on it, it gets defended to the bitter end.

I'm not saying Leopold scopes don't work, but people defending brands and brand loyalty is all tied to the need to be right when they made that decision.

 

[House21]

I know a guy who took his scope off and tried to shoot down the barrel like a shotgun on a bedded buck that wouldn’t budge after a lot of shooting… it didn’t work, but may be worth practicing if you decide on a leupold

I bet 100 rounds shooting down the barrel, you could make it work inside 50

That’s a true story btw, which makes it funnier. I recommended next time, leave the rings on and use them like a peep sight, and made sure he knew I was kidding

At least your buddy took his scope off lol. Took a buddy hunting for his first deer, him and his brother were out a few days before and “zeroed” his rifle. We were about half way to our spot and this deer comes out about 80-100 yards. I put up my Binos, he shoots which was a perfect shot. When I look up there’s no scope on his rifle. Scope ended up coming off with the recoil yet he still managed to make a perfect shot. I still bug him about that to this day