Q&A for Leupold Mark 5 Field Evals

[Skerhunter]

Or just a really weak scope lol. In this case it was a bit of both the stock bounced off the ground and I felt like an idiot.

I really only gave my 2 cents because it seems like guys are falling into two camps on this test. The first camp is denial, they claim the only ones that have issues are the ones form tested and their scope would never display such issues. If they don’t do that they claim he’s biased or tested wrong. The second camp completely dismisses the scope all together because it can’t survive a 36” drop. I don’t blame the second camp, no one wants a wondering zero or scope failure. This scope wins too many matches to say it’s completely unusable.

I provided my experience because I’m somewhere in the middle of those two camps. I owned an nx8 4-32 when I bought my mark 5 and after being behind both of them I sold my the nx8 because to my eye and use case the mark 5 was drastically better. I’ll unfortunetly have to baby the scope a bit and check zero frequently which isn’t ideal but I can’t deny the fact that it’s been a great scope for the past 3 years. If my main want for a scope in the future is absolute bomb proof I’ll probably pick up an ATACR or read through more drop tests and choose a scope that passes.

I want to see some of these tests done on thermal scopes!

I don’t think thermals would hold up well to this drop test. I think a lot of them would be damaged/malfunction with repeated drops. But you can easily test a thermal yourself for normal field use and I do. Usually when dropped they will be off enough to cause a miss, but will return to zero on the second shot. I have seen multiple do this after falling off a tripod or being dropped in the field. Doing stuff in the dark is always a struggle. I evaluate my mine by simply bouncing it on the butt - like a 6-12” drop between shots to make sure my mounts are tight (common issue) and check zero after bouncing around in the truck.

 

[wgcracker13]

@Formidilosus I know I am asking some questions relatively late in this Q&A and I don't know if you will have the answers since the test was done almost 4 years ago now.

I noticed that the rings used were some Vortex rings. As far as I know, I could be wrong, but Vortex has never made scope rings for a 35mm main tube (the largest they have had being a 34mm). Why were these rings chosen to be used for the test?

My thoughts behind the question: If both the scope main tube measure out to the nominal radius as advertised, there would be just shy of .040" crush on the scope tube (assuming concentricity is perfectly maintained). I have also seen the main tube of a MK5 measure out to 34.5mm (I have also seen some advertised 30mm scope tube measure out to 29.5mm) which would lead to around a .020" crush (same assumption as above). I have also seen 35mm Warne Mountain Tech used on a MK5; after getting the ring cap torqued down the scope could still move in the rings by hand, slide and rotate with very little resistance (the ring cap was touching on both sides of the lower half of the rings as well). It was then expressed to me that this was a common occurrence for the MK5 and the 35mm Warne rings as well as the 35mm MK4 Leupold rings never had that same issue. 34mm Warne rings were then grabbed and used for mounting the scope and there did not appear to be any issue. I could see why 34mm rings would be used, I could also see how they could cause a problem for the internals of the scope.

Thank you for these drop tests and the information that they provide!

 

[Wiscgunner]

@Formidilosus I know I am asking some questions relatively late in this Q&A and I don't know if you will have the answers since the test was done almost 4 years ago now.

I noticed that the rings used were some Vortex rings. As far as I know, I could be wrong, but Vortex has never made scope rings for a 35mm main tube (the largest they have had being a 34mm). Why were these rings chosen to be used for the test?

Precision Matched 35 mm Rings

Precision Matched 35 mm Rings

vortexoptics.com

 

[wgcracker13]

Precision Matched 35 mm Rings

Precision Matched 35 mm Rings

vortexoptics.com

Sweet, I was wrong on them ever making a 35mm ring. Thank you!