Durability of Leupold internals?
- Thread starter Hespco
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Makes sense. My one VX-6HD failure was in the erector and the symptom was larger groups (+1MOA) which might not raise alarm to casual deer hunter.
Hespco
Well-Known Member
I am in no way trying to bash Leupold. Just trying to understand if there is a difference in durability ? Simple question, but seems not a simple answer. I have owned Leupold for 60 years.
memtb
Well-Known Member
I used that scope for years on my 9 pound .375 AI, loaded pretty darn warm, it held up well.
I went to the VX 3 3.5-10 CDS in 2010…..I have concerns that's it may be giving problems. I really need to examine that fear! memtb
If you're looking at light weight scopes they will fail at a greater rate than heavier scores built with the same expertise. Same with components for trucks and cars. Make something lighter weight and use it hard it's going to break at some point. Night Force are more robustly built,but are heavier. Its a trade off in everything. You're average hunter who isn't using their rifles as hard as a mountain hunter in the west or Alaska will not have failures like they do. I've grown old and my rifles don't get the abuse that they received forty years ago. I rarely have anything go wrong with mine that I didn't cause, like setting it on the Bi-pod on the kitchen table and assuming my wife who was sweeping the floor wouldn't knock it off,hitting a solid wood chair and then the tile floor, all on the leupold VX5 scope. The rear optical lense wasn't supposed to be bent like that. Leupold fixed it in three weeks.
Glad to hear you again Mentb. Was starting to worry about you.
akmtnhnt
Well-Known Member
Leupold doesn't make a claim either way. Given than the high ends fails rather regularly with what I'd consider normal use(riding in a truck and getting bounced around), I wouldn't expect any better from the low end.
I'm the luckiest man alive! I've got 6 Leupold scopes, two VX3 two VX5 and two VX-6's. No issues! They're on hunting rifles. Get dialed 50 times a year at the range and in the field. I'm just waiting for the time bomb to go off. Tick-tock. That being said I just continue hunting and shooting with them. Hopefully it's not this fall on my desert mule deer hunt in Arizona. I might switch some day to Trijicon. So long as it's light. I'll never put a 30 oz scope on a 6 lb mountain rifle. Just doesn't feel good balance wise in my hands. 38 years I've been hunting all over the States so my time is coming I'm sure. My first scope was a Leupold M8 6x fixed on a 25-06 Model 70. Bought the combo with my 4H money in 1984. In 2010 that rifle was stolen but it never lost zero. Old cruddy weaver mounts were like $8-10 bucks. I think I paid $350 for that rifle and scope. Crazy to think back on what we used to shoot back in the day and somehow never had problems. Now guys have problems every other scope they buy. I'm guessing the quality workmanship has just gone to pot like everything else in this life. My Dad's 81 Chevy 3/4 ton had sheet metal so thick we could throw chunks of firewood from 20 feet away and never dent that bed. My Tacoma now doesn't even have a steel bed. It's all plastic! Yet they charge $1000s of dollars for these new scopes, only to fall apart within a few years. Too bad. Disposable world we live in.
memtb
Well-Known Member
Thanks! I'm back from my sabbatical or was it hell…..still a bit confused as to which!
memtb
Here's my experience FWIW. I am not a mountain hunter or a prs shooter I am an everyday hunter who uses his stuff to fill his freezer.
I have a vx freedom 6-18 on my 6mm creedmoor I have used it for almost a full year now. It rides with the butt on the floor and leaned against the seat when I take it hunting and I ride some rough roads and it has held zero perfectly. It hasn't been dropped but it has been bumped here or there and it's fine. Now I do not dial with this scope. I use it with the reticle for holdovers as I don't shoot much past 300 yards with it.
I also have 3 older vx3s currently. A vx3L 4.5-14 that has been on countless rifles, beat through brush, bumped off stuff and even fell on a few times and it has time again held zero and been 100% reliable. It's one of the best scopes I've ever bought.
My vx3 6.5-20 has the varmint hunter reticle and I only do holdovers with it. I have used it for 12 years continuously every summer shooting groundhogs again, bouncing in the car ,slight bumps and mounted on several rifles, but never dropped and it's held zero and functioned perfectly.
My latest leupold is a 8.5-25 vx3 long range that is the only leupold I dial on the regular basis. I tried to find issues with it in the tracking department and it has been 100% solid for my purposes.
A lot if my experience is with older stuff and it's been great and I'm not a fan boi. I don't have a lot of miles on the vx freedom yet but it hasn't given me a reason to doubt it.
I have a vx freedom 6-18 on my 6mm creedmoor I have used it for almost a full year now. It rides with the butt on the floor and leaned against the seat when I take it hunting and I ride some rough roads and it has held zero perfectly. It hasn't been dropped but it has been bumped here or there and it's fine. Now I do not dial with this scope. I use it with the reticle for holdovers as I don't shoot much past 300 yards with it.
I also have 3 older vx3s currently. A vx3L 4.5-14 that has been on countless rifles, beat through brush, bumped off stuff and even fell on a few times and it has time again held zero and been 100% reliable. It's one of the best scopes I've ever bought.
My vx3 6.5-20 has the varmint hunter reticle and I only do holdovers with it. I have used it for 12 years continuously every summer shooting groundhogs again, bouncing in the car ,slight bumps and mounted on several rifles, but never dropped and it's held zero and functioned perfectly.
My latest leupold is a 8.5-25 vx3 long range that is the only leupold I dial on the regular basis. I tried to find issues with it in the tracking department and it has been 100% solid for my purposes.
A lot if my experience is with older stuff and it's been great and I'm not a fan boi. I don't have a lot of miles on the vx freedom yet but it hasn't given me a reason to doubt it.
You're lucky like me! I beat the dogsnot out of mine! All of them. Drag'em through brush, side by sides over rough rocky roads. I don't know how many times it's fallen out of the back cab onto the door panel or ground. Probably in the teens. Slips and falls, strapped to a backpack or horse and I still haven't had a single problem. I just had it out and leaning against the pick up and the dang dog chased a chicken knocking my rifle onto the the concrete driveway. Still dead nuts zero. Some of us are just lucky like that. Oh I forgot I have another VX-R Patrol on my new 25-06. Someday I'm gonna have to buy a whole bunch of new scopes. Got $10k in Leupold scopes just living on borrowed time.
Crockett12
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2011
- Messages
- 170
I used to be a Redfield guy but that was back in the 60' and 70's. Eventually I realized the Leupolds had better glass than the Redfield and I switched to all Leupold scopes in the 80's. Since then I've had a lot of Leupolds but have only had an issue with one of them – which was an older 6.5x20 VariX III.
Now, I've got to say I baby all my rifles. I'm a hunter and a rifle of mine has only hit the ground once in my 77 years when I took a fall! That was with a Leupold 2.5x8 VariX III mounted and the scope was fine afterwards and held zero. Now I have a 3x9 Mark AR MOD-1 on an AR-15 and it's the least expensive Leupold I now own and it's not failed in any way! I've had Leupolds from a rimfire fixed power 4X to the newer VX-3HD 4.5-14x40 CDS and the only one that ever failed was that older 6.5x20! I feel I know why it failed!
Most scopes are built to take recoil, which is a violent jar of motion from back to front but aren't built to take a violent jar from its side! I had that 6.5x20 mounted on a relatively lightweight Kimber 270 WSM that had a fair amount of recoil and it did just fine until I put the rifle on the front of my ATV mounted crossways in those V shaped mounts that we see on ATV's and UTV's! I was late getting to my morning deer stand in the desert and the trials getting there were very rocky and I was in a hurry. After the bouncing along on those rocky trails the scope was dead when I first looked through it. Couldn't see a thing as it was totally black! Leupold fixed the scope without charge but my opening morning was ruined. However, there's more to the story!
Some years ago I had a very lightweight rifle built and everything I chose for the build was decided on light weight! To that end I mounted an inexpensive Leupold Ultralight 3x9 on it. It was one of the original Leupold Ultralights which I believe weighed about 9 ounces – so it certainly isn't a very robust scope! I've had that same scope mounted on that rifle for about 30 years or so – and carried that rifle/scope combination on the same ATV in the same area's that killed the 6.5x20 – and the scope has never failed. Every year when I take it to the range to check its zero before deer season, it's always exactly where it was the year before. It's never once lost its zero from where I set it 30 some years ago! The scope doesn't have the best glass as there is a noticeable difference in glass quality between it and the newer 3x9 Mark AR MOD-1 but that old Ultralight has never failed and it's taken more bouncing around than about any scope I've ever owned!
Since I've gotten older, I've always chosen my scopes based on light weight – which means a Leupold! This discussion may change that because as mentioned earlier by others, lighter weight means less robust – which would also include the internals and not only the tube itself!
Right now I'm leaning towards the Trijicon and Nightforce scopes but can't really afford the Nightforce I would want and since the Trijicon seems to do well in the "Rokslide Rifle Scope Field Evaluations" and they're lighter weight than the Nightforce, I'm now lusting for a Trijicon Credo!
Now, I've got to say I baby all my rifles. I'm a hunter and a rifle of mine has only hit the ground once in my 77 years when I took a fall! That was with a Leupold 2.5x8 VariX III mounted and the scope was fine afterwards and held zero. Now I have a 3x9 Mark AR MOD-1 on an AR-15 and it's the least expensive Leupold I now own and it's not failed in any way! I've had Leupolds from a rimfire fixed power 4X to the newer VX-3HD 4.5-14x40 CDS and the only one that ever failed was that older 6.5x20! I feel I know why it failed!
Most scopes are built to take recoil, which is a violent jar of motion from back to front but aren't built to take a violent jar from its side! I had that 6.5x20 mounted on a relatively lightweight Kimber 270 WSM that had a fair amount of recoil and it did just fine until I put the rifle on the front of my ATV mounted crossways in those V shaped mounts that we see on ATV's and UTV's! I was late getting to my morning deer stand in the desert and the trials getting there were very rocky and I was in a hurry. After the bouncing along on those rocky trails the scope was dead when I first looked through it. Couldn't see a thing as it was totally black! Leupold fixed the scope without charge but my opening morning was ruined. However, there's more to the story!
Some years ago I had a very lightweight rifle built and everything I chose for the build was decided on light weight! To that end I mounted an inexpensive Leupold Ultralight 3x9 on it. It was one of the original Leupold Ultralights which I believe weighed about 9 ounces – so it certainly isn't a very robust scope! I've had that same scope mounted on that rifle for about 30 years or so – and carried that rifle/scope combination on the same ATV in the same area's that killed the 6.5x20 – and the scope has never failed. Every year when I take it to the range to check its zero before deer season, it's always exactly where it was the year before. It's never once lost its zero from where I set it 30 some years ago! The scope doesn't have the best glass as there is a noticeable difference in glass quality between it and the newer 3x9 Mark AR MOD-1 but that old Ultralight has never failed and it's taken more bouncing around than about any scope I've ever owned!
Since I've gotten older, I've always chosen my scopes based on light weight – which means a Leupold! This discussion may change that because as mentioned earlier by others, lighter weight means less robust – which would also include the internals and not only the tube itself!
Right now I'm leaning towards the Trijicon and Nightforce scopes but can't really afford the Nightforce I would want and since the Trijicon seems to do well in the "Rokslide Rifle Scope Field Evaluations" and they're lighter weight than the Nightforce, I'm now lusting for a Trijicon Credo!
Been working with a friends rifle VX5HD. Windage turret is mushier than a cheap Bushnell and does not track. GARBAGE!
