If you don't read the evaluations and assume that the scopes in the drop test are being slammed down on concrete that's on you. You cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into. People are brand loyal and get their feelers hurt especially when gear they put their hard-earned money into does not perform how they believe it should.
There's a huge difference between can't hold zero or breaks when dropped from head height onto concrete (SWFA) versus can't hold zero from being tipped over from bipod height or riding in a truck down a bumpy road (Leupy VX3). One of those is a very common occurrence in the use case of backcountry hunting; the other is not.
Folks that can't / don't bother to read? They SEE a scope being dropped and think its truly about dropping a scope (hence the "I never drop my gun or fall posts") while ignoring the written intent that Form has seen a correlation that scopes which can handle the drop test don't have wandering zero's when bouncing around in trucks/side by sides/general hunting bumps and vibration. The drop test is just an accelerated narrowing down of which scopes to truly validate long term, it is not gospel, its just a correlation and expediency test which someone is documenting for free.Good lord folks I'm agreeing
I think I was just pondering what the cause of people's assumption that it's a scope break test, in spite of that clearly not being the case.
As your post points out, warranties don't do you any good when you have a failure a day or two walk/ride out of the back country on a hunt of a lifetime that you have been applying or saving for for years. My bighorn tag was 20+ years in 5 or 6 states of applying. I had a backup rifle with me but you don't always have that opportunity. I've not had a failure yet, but why take a chance if you can minimize the chance of failure with a different scope whether the S2H or something else. Just my opinion.
