Useful life of a scope?

[Jpsmith1]

I grabbed this single line out of a different topic so that I don't entirely hijack that discussion with my question.

What IS the useful life span of an optic?

How do YOU determine when your optic has reached end of life?

Most of my hunting rifles have scopes mounted that are almost as old as I am, and I'm definitely closer to half a century than I am to "a decade or more"

I'm simply curious about this as optics fascinate me and I'm always fiddling with and drooling over various optics.

A $1,000 scope is going to have a useful life of a decade or more.

 

[KenLee]

Depends on how good it was compared to other scopes when it was made. I have 35 yr old Nikons that have never lost zero, even though they were abused. These $300 scopes were spectacular to me in 1989, but the low light capability is crap compared to today's scopes.

 

[TaperPin]

That’s a good question. My experiences with variable power scopes have not been good, so 99% of what I shoot are fixed and they seem to hold up well. The last scope that malfunctioned was in the 1980’s and was at least 10 years old at the time - Leupold replaced it with a new one.

My oldest is a fixed 20x Leupold out of the 1970s that is my beady-eye varmint scope - I keep hearing what a terrible product Leupold makes, so it must be going to break any day now. The 6x and 8x are out of the 1980’s. The fixed 4x and 12x are out of the 1990‘s.

I believe the 1x Sightron is a 2000 or 2010ish vintage - it rarely gets used and might last a long time. Three other 6x scopes rarely get used, but are fully functional.

 

[ChrisAU]

Generally don’t stop working but they do go obsolete. A 2024 Leupold VX-Freedom has better glass and coatings than any optic Leupold made just 15 years ago likely.

 

[Honyock]

I don't think I've ever worn out a scope, but the newer coatings do improve light gathering. I still use an old Leupold VX2 3-9x40 that's 30+ years old on one of my guns and it still does what I need it to do for whitetails.

 

[Kurts86]

Here is my take. The only real failure point for a scope over time would be internal adhesive breaking down or loss of internal purge.

The reality is that what’s available new obsoleted a scope more than mechanical degradation. Some guys use the same gear for the better part of a lifetime and others change yearly. In general good scopes tend to have production life cycles of at least a decade with few changes. At this point the Nightforce NXS series is 20+ years old.

Coatings have gotten better, 30mm+ main tubes have all but killed 1” tubes, duplex reticles and capped elevation turrets are becoming less common, FFP is starting to be very common.

When I look at the scopes I run mostly now they have been available between 5-11 years with only minor changes and my oldest scope is currently 8 years old. Part of that is I hit the point where I could afford to buy good scopes but in the last decade I went from a bunch of 1” tube capped elevation duplex scopes to 30mm, Exposed elevation and FFP scopes.

Anyone who is running the same scope for 20-30 years is definitely missing out on some improvements.

 

[5MilesBack]

The only reason I replaced my old Redfield Accu-Trac scope from the 80's was because of low light situations. Otherwise it performed as it did when new. I used to use it at the 600 yard range quite frequently. I had a Leupold Vari-x II from the 70's that I just sold a few years ago for $275. It was part of my saddle gun setup and used to get bumped to heck on the horse, but was always spot on year after year. I could have easily kept using that scope, but again....most newer scopes are better in low light.

 

[Axlrod]

It probably depends on which scope it is. A well made scope should last a long long time. But the "useful life" of some scopes is 0 days!

 

[SomeJackassOnAForum]

If it doesn't have electronics, it will probably be obsolete within 20 years, but will certainly still be useful beyond that. Anything electronic (think rangefinder) is probably a paperweight after ~10-15 years.

 

[Jpsmith1]

Thanks, all.

These answers make sense.

Time moves on, optics improve.

Not that my old Leopold or Redfield scopes won't work, but a newer scope with better glass is simple better

This is pretty much what I thought.