Difference between SCHOTT HD glass and other HD glass??

[dfanonymous]

That's not what I was told.

That's because you were only told half the truth, and people love making leupold out to be gods gift to the long range shooter.

It's true leupold uses schotts glass but Asian glass makes up 95% of their line up. While a few, you can probably guess, are sourced from Europe.

However...schotts glass has distributors everywhere including America. Hence why they are "sourced" and not manufactured in America.
They're just a glass making company.

Attached is from the leupold website. If you call they will tell you which models are "European" glass vs Asian.
On a side note:
One can buy on amazon a set of binos with bak4 schotts glass binos for like $40. They're garbage.

 

[User4302021]

If buying a dialable scope, only scopes that track 99% or better along the entire range of travel should even be considered. That leaves out Leupold for sure.

All these 25x or so scopes I've put my hands on are pigs as far as weight. High magnification carries a significant weight penalty.

I would choose brands known for tracking, then get one that is 20x or less, then compare glass between those. JMO

 

[Rich Coyle]

Dog Rocket,

Have you checked a March 2 1/2+25X52?

 

[User4302021]

Dog Rocket,

Have you checked a March 2 1/2+25X52?

I have not.

 

[Rich Coyle]

I want to check one. Hope this week.

 

[coyotezapper]

This evening I was watching the FB game and I looked outside to admire the orange sky of a typical NM sunset and I remembered this thread so I went and grabbed the rifles that the two scopes mentioned above are mounted on and went out to the back porch. The first thing I did was to turn them both to 2.5X and there was no difference in sight picture. I was facing to the west to take advantage of the small amount of light left. The closest thing I could use as a sight reference was a pinon tree approximately 75 yards away. All other potential targets were hundreds of yards away. I then turned the swaro to 15X and the Leupy to 8X which is max power for both. ( The Leupy max is actually 7 and change ). I could not see my target at 75 yards with the Swaro but I could with the Leupy. The then turned them both back to 2.5X and kept looking through them until I lost the ability to see and make out target. The swaro had about a 1 minute advantage tonight. The Leupy was dark around 6:57 and the swaro 6:58 MST. I looked up the sunset time on my phone app and it showed 6:29 for sunset where I live. This is important because most states allow shooting 30 minutes before sunrise and 30 minutes after sunset and both of these scopes come close to meeting that criteria.

What is learned from this? Objective lens size and tube size have little to do with light transmission. I have also heard that 30mm scope tubes are brighter/ transmit light better than 1 tubes and this is wrong also. 30mm scopes are generally used to allow more windage and elevation turret adjustment range and a side focus dial also needs the extra room for those mechanicals.

For clarification here is the specs for the scopes used in this test.

Swarovski Z6(non illuminated) 2.5-15X44 with 30mm tube. It about 8 years old.

Leupold vari-xiii 2.5-8x36 with 1 tube. It is at least 15 years old and I don't think it uses the twilight management system.

Finally there is a podcast on JMH website that discusses optics myths and some of this is discussed there but I don't remember how in detail they go in to each describing the how and whys.

 

[coyotezapper]

Double Tap

 

[coyotezapper]

That's because you were only told half the truth, and people love making leupold out to be gods gift to the long range shooter.

It's true leupold uses schotts glass but Asian glass makes up 95% of their line up. While a few, you can probably guess, are sourced from Europe.

However...schotts glass has distributors everywhere including America. Hence why they are "sourced" and not manufactured in America.
They're just a glass making company.

Attached is from the leupold website. If you call they will tell you which models are "European" glass vs Asian.
On a side note:
One can buy on amazon a set of binos with bak4 schotts glass binos for like $40. They're garbage.

I never said that ALL of Leupold glass was german. I said the HD was. And as far as Japanese glass goes there is nothing wrong with it IMO. As I noted in the comparison above some could take this as meaning that swaro brass is over rated but I think what it means that there is not as much a difference in mid grade glass to premium glass. The only glass I care about having HD is my binos which are glued to my face for hours at a time.

As far as how I understood the glass choosing process is that each company places an order with the glass manufacturer and has them build certain glass to their i.e. Swaro's specs because they all have different aspects of glass quality they are shooting for in the finished product. Swaro glass is spec'd different than Leupold and so on as they both have different goals.

 

[coyotezapper]

Dog Rocket,

Have you checked a March 2 1/2+25X52?

March scope are very nice. I had a 3-24x42 mil mil and the size and quality was outstanding. The only issue I had was for my eyes the parallax adjustment range was very narrow - meaning you were either focused or you weren't and it was too easy to go past it and have to go back. But once you were on it and it was focused the parallax was notta. I wish I still had it.

 

[User4302021]

March scopes are in a state of flux right now. Shiraz Balolia, owner of Bullets.com and Grizzly Tools was the US importer and now he has stopped carrying them.

Supposedly other distributers are going to continue carrying them (Optics Planet lists them for sale), along with setting up a US service center, but that hasn't happened yet as far as I know. For right now, all have to go back to Japan.

http://marchoptics.com/#/

 

[Newbweatherby]

I really wished i read all these forums before buying my Minox zx 5i x25 x56 i like if alot but it looks like i could have went in better directions for the price point,my goal was max light transmission at low light being i hunt heavily pressured lands and deer usually do t move until sundown,i dont hate it but now reading i see for the price there are much netter