Is it all Leopolds

FAAFO

WKR
Joined
May 24, 2024
Messages
445
I’m using it correctly. Embrace your charismatic role. Don’t fight it. Embrace it. I’m not a convert yet, though I do pause before I buy scopes now. I run to the Bible….i mean scope drop threads…before I buy now.
The scope drop threads are gold
 
Joined
Feb 25, 2024
Messages
22
My Dad put a Leupold on my first deer rifle and I have had a pile of them since then. NEVER had 1 loose zero and everyone I have taken in the field was never babied and preformed every time I needed it.
 

SandyCreek

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Sep 17, 2017
Messages
178
Location
CO/IA
shit someone needs to tell some of the fellas running school houses that their leupolds are trash because some dude on the internet dropped it and the their real world experience doesn't translate :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:. Has anyone ever read an amazon review before? think about that the next time before you take one random review online as gospel.. I've had good leupolds and shitty ones and I can say the same for nightforce, vortex, trijicon, and swaro. There are turds in every manufacturer process
 
Joined
Aug 4, 2020
Messages
634
I have a Leupold VX-5 that has been shipped Fedex, been on countless float planes in Alaska, truck hunts, backpack hunts as well as multiple boat rides. It has remained spot on as have my other VX-5 scopes in snotty weather. Somehow I managed to have another successful hunt with it last week again in Alaska. IDK but the believers would have you believe it's not possible. I have Leupold, Nightforce and Maven scopes currently. I started shooting a few competitions this year and by far the most used scope is the Mark 5. It is also the scope winning most of the competitions. My Mark 4 HD took second overall twice. At one competition in Idaho I saw two of the "passed" scopes fail including a Nightforce. I was a range officer scoring the competitors at that event.
 

Wrench

WKR
Joined
Aug 23, 2018
Messages
6,275
Location
WA
The original vari x scopes were good for durability. The reticles were the weak point... but when you busted a wire it was easy to see. I had an m8 on a 223 break a wire...pure random. The friction scopes.....were sometimes finicky to get the erector settled, but once it was there.....it never moved.

When leupold brought the original mark 4 series the bigger ones were junk. My guess is they went from the wire reticle that didn't weigh much to the glass reticle and the weight was too much. I puked a few of those, but to be fair I puked most other brands on that rife due to the recoil speed.

When they brought out the vx series QC was not good and the odds of really knowledgeable people touching your scope went down....and it showed.

The new mark 5hd seems to have broken the curse.

I was the biggest leupold supporter around. The idea of a bushnell on my rifle was simply not gonna happen. I actually bought a Bausch and lomb 4200 for my first rem ti rifle after puking a leupold. B&L were the same as bushnell....and that scope held up well.

When my 8# 300rum without a brake wiped out every scope it wore I put a 4200 on it and it survived. I had had plenty of discussions with leupold and burris (even their posi lock) about what they might have to take the beating....and they both said it can't be done.

My comments about brands come from my personal experiences. I may not shoot 60k rounds a year, but 3-5k is still enough to see through the noise.
 

nobody

WKR
Joined
Sep 15, 2020
Messages
2,111
Man, I didn’t realize we have so many members of Rokslide who actively seem to hate Rokslide and what is discussed here. The real question is if it’s just a giant cult, and it sucks so bad here and everyone is brainwashed, why join and login and participate? Plenty of other forums out there, maybe you’d be happier participating there instead of dragging us down here?

Anyways, to the OP, it seems to be more of a “thing” with newer Leupolds. It’s interesting, my family owns a LOT of old fixed 6x M8’s that just keep on ticking. In and out of horse scabbards, ATV gun racks, washboard roads, they just seem to work. But any of the newer leupolds don’t seem to behave that way. 2 anecdotal examples: I had a VX6 that was dead within 1 or 2 boxes of ammo on the back of a 7 mag, ended up with a spiderweb crack on an internal lens and erratic adjustments and I couldn’t get dialed in. The gun had been previously zeroed and functional with other scopes before that, and it all changed with the addition of an Leupy. Also had a VX3i on a 6.5 creedmoor that would wander range trip to range trip. Never further than a couple inches, not enough to miss inside 350-ish, but it was almost never where I left it the trip before. It also had a CDS dial that when dialed up and back down for multiple shots would end up being zeroed higher at the end of the dialing session than it was when I started. I’ve got no experience with the mark 5, but I’ve heard mixed bags of reports both on here as well in real world land. For a couple grand, there should be no mixed bag, but alas, there seems to be.

I know I wouldn’t trust the hunt of a lifetime to a post 1990’s leupold based on my own experiences and reading skills and comprehension. Law of averages suggest I look elsewhere. Which sucks, because Leupold’s eyebox is top of the market on every scope they make. There isn’t a maker out there whose scopes are easier to get behind. But that doesn’t matter if they won’t steer bullet to target reliably.
 

Bugger

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Jul 24, 2024
Messages
148
I’m curious why Gunwerks would sell so many $10k guns with a known junk scope on top. They seem to be one of the few remaining companies that rank reliability over partnership $$, and they sell leupolds with no fine print warning right next to the NF’s and Revics.
 

Jsmalls273

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Jan 13, 2021
Messages
114
Nice to see some love for the Leupolds. I'm super interested in the Mark4. Some people aren't elite enough to drop 2k on a scope. Some people don't have the extra time or extra coin to shoot 20k rounds a year. So if shooting 6 rounds before deer season through a rifle topped with a leupold still puts food on the table, hell yeah! I got a leupold vx3 on my Tikka, it'll stay there still i have a real reason to swap it out.

Not to discredit Forms or Ryan's or anyone else's hard work and money they have put into scope testing and cartridge testing though for sure. Thank yall for that!

I did jumped onto the small caliber bandwagon but not selling my 270 just yet :)

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Reburn

Mayhem Contributor
Joined
Feb 10, 2019
Messages
3,437
Location
Central Texas
I’m curious why Gunwerks would sell so many $10k guns with a known junk scope on top. They seem to be one of the few remaining companies that rank reliability over partnership $$, and they sell leupolds with no fine print warning right next to the NF’s and Revics.

You are kidding right.

How did gunwerks can roll out work, Crap never mind. How did gunwerks bipod roll out work. Crap that one was bad too. Hahaha. What about the nexus. Shit that was bad too.

Comparing gunwerks to leupold maybe more accurate then you intended for the opposite point you were trying to make.

And so I stay on topic. I wont trust a leupy for a hunt anymore. Been letdown on bad zero retention before. You use one if you like though.
 

mxgsfmdpx

WKR
Joined
Oct 22, 2019
Messages
5,947
Location
Outside
I used to get Leupold scopes for free. I used them for comps, hunts etc. I just "accepted" that I had to re-zero my gun often, it was just part of shooting. I even recommended them to shooters as a viable option up until a few years ago...

Two separate VX series scopes failed me on a couple of really hard hunts, worked my ass off, and missed two good animals in an area that isn't easy to kill higher class animals. Went down the mountain and checked zero and it was off, on both occasions. Both were sent back to Leupold and "repaired" and sent back. I thought that this just can't be the right way to go about this.

Once I started mounting my scopes per Form's method posted here, and started using models that have gone through the full evaluation, like magic, constant "re-zeroing" disappeared. I have some guns with multiple thousands of rounds on them each with Maven RS1.2s, SWFA 3-9s. and SWFA Fixed 6's that haven't had to been re-zeroed even once.

Nobody is "attacking" Leupold, or "following a cult" because they are trying to keep folks from living like I did for decades.
 

mxgsfmdpx

WKR
Joined
Oct 22, 2019
Messages
5,947
Location
Outside
I have a Leupold VX-5 that has been shipped Fedex, been on countless float planes in Alaska, truck hunts, backpack hunts as well as multiple boat rides. It has remained spot on as have my other VX-5 scopes in snotty weather. Somehow I managed to have another successful hunt with it last week again in Alaska. IDK but the believers would have you believe it's not possible. I have Leupold, Nightforce and Maven scopes currently. I started shooting a few competitions this year and by far the most used scope is the Mark 5. It is also the scope winning most of the competitions. My Mark 4 HD took second overall twice. At one competition in Idaho I saw two of the "passed" scopes fail including a Nightforce. I was a range officer scoring the competitors at that event.
You're probably the 50th person to come into a scope thread with a mythical "Leupold VX" series that has "never lost zero".

Every single one of those has been invited to send in for an Eval, to help show that a Leupold can perform. Not a single one has been sent in.

Would you be willing to send your VX-5 in for an evaluation? Help show folks what a Leupold can do?
 
Joined
Aug 10, 2015
Messages
2,705
Nice to see some love for the Leupolds. I'm super interested in the Mark4. Some people aren't elite enough to drop 2k on a scope. Some people don't have the extra time or extra coin to shoot 20k rounds a year. So if shooting 6 rounds before deer season through a rifle topped with a leupold still puts food on the table, hell yeah! I got a leupold vx3 on my Tikka, it'll stay there still i have a real reason to swap it out.

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If shooting six rounds per year is your idea of marksmanship, I'm fairly confident that you probably don't have the skill set to identify minor shifts in zero.

There's a number of reliable scopes available for well under $2k.

I'm sure you were being facetious, but very few (any?) people are shooting 20k rounds. A modest budget certainly allows for a few hundred, at least.
 

bmart2622

WKR
Joined
Jun 16, 2013
Messages
2,423
Location
Montana
Oh I get it. Killing the animal is the ultimate end goal, but losing zero is losing zero, there doesnt need to be a bad outcome. How many times have guys sighted in and hunted through the season and then pulled there gun out prior to the next season and had to "re-zero"?? Despite what we've been told for decades, that is not normal, something in the system failed or the gun was never truly zeroed to begin with. And just to be clear, this goes for any brand optic, Im not singling out Leupold.
 
Joined
Jun 12, 2019
Messages
1,679
IDK but the believers would have you believe it's not possible.
That's not really what people are saying though. They're just saying you have a much higher chance of having issues with any given Leupold than you do something like a NF. Nightforce scopes will still occasionally have issues, just much more rarely. This is a frequency thing and I don't see why people have a hard time wrapping their minds around the concept of averages.

"The men in Sweden are much taller than men in Laos"
"But I know a guy from Laos who's 6'7" tall!"

Anecdotes don't disprove claims about averages.
I started shooting a few competitions this year and by far the most used scope is the Mark 5.
It certainly is. They're a hell of a lot of scope for the price for competition guns. And if the zero happens to wander a bit that's alright you can correct it before the competition starts at the zero range. And given how little abuse PRS scopes take that's kind of a minimal risk. For the right set of requirements they make a lot of sense.
At one competition in Idaho I saw two of the "passed" scopes fail including a Nightforce.
Nightforce scopes do occasionally have issues just like any other scope. I know someone who broke a turret on an ATACR for instance. Out of curiosity, what was the Nightforce fail though? Did the scope have a zero shift or was it some other mechanical issue that popped up?
 

Jsmalls273

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Jan 13, 2021
Messages
114
If shooting six rounds per year is your idea of marksmanship, I'm fairly confident that you probably don't have the skill set to identify minor shifts in zero.

There's a number of reliable scopes available for well under $2k.

I'm sure you were being facetious, but very few (any?) people are shooting 20k rounds. A modest budget certainly allows for a few hundred, at least.

Yes of course I was being facetious! It might be an exaggeration but there ARE people here that look down on others for not being able to shoot thousands of rounds.

I kinda view this as getting in the weeds. Way more animals are killed each year with scopes that have zero shift. I am absolutely NOT claiming vortex or leupold is better than nightforce though!!

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