Leupold=China Junk!
- Thread starter Dalebow
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Trickymissfit
Well-Known Member
Leupold uses foreign sourced components for some parts of Golden Ring products, primarily lenses. This is because at this time, there is no American manufacturer that can supply the quantity of high quality lenses that Leupold needs for its annual Golden Ring Optics production. Leupold's lens systems are designed at Leupold, by American optical engineers, in its state-of -the-art optics lab and then procured from outside vendors who must meet stringent quality standards.
Incoming parts are carefully inspected in our testing facility before they are accepted into the assembly process. Incidentally, all major optics producers worldwide acquire some or all of their glass from the same sources as Leupold. Some of these sources are located domestically, some are European, and some are Asian. Leupold has acquired its lenses this way for over 50 years.
(http://www.leupold.com/corporate/about-us/americas-optics-authority/)
actually the post is a little miss leading. There are lenses being ground everyday in the U.S. and Canada, but they are also being used for other venues. I've used some of them in the past, and they are excellent quality
gary
" Some of these sources are located domestically, ..."
Trickymissfit
Well-Known Member
I came out of the machine tool industry, and watched the Japanese pretty much become the dominate source in the industry. Then the Koreans backdoored them and stole much of their technology. Then the Chinese did the samething. Eachtime the quality and engineering lost something. But the Japanese got their start by stealing technology from the United States. There ain't nothing new under the sun, and you can pretty much figure that if it's new to you; somebody's been doing it for a long time. Now we live in a society that almost encourages this action!!
The Japanese have always made good optics, and this hasn't just came about in the last thirty five years. It goes back seventy five years or so. The Germans as well did great optics as well as some eastern block nations. The Germans were the folks that developed lense coatings and went so far as to develope the process for multicoated lenses. Then the Japanese stole it from them (or was possibly given to them by the Nazis). Not really important now as all the copyrights are long gone. I've never seen a grinder built to grind lenses, so I can't say a lot about them. Yet I suspect the idea came out of Germany a hundred plus years ago. It's common knowledge that the Germans had far better gun sights than the Allies did all thru the war, and in some cases we simply copied their designs (Revi gunsight comes to light). Their tanks had much better range due to better optics and of course a more powerfull round. We adopted much of their concepts after the war (and so did the Russians). Now days it's not that we can't build better optics (look no further than the G.M./Hughes Aircraft thermo imaging gun sight usd on the M1 tank). We can do this if we want to bad enough, but we as a nation are also operating on a REIT based economy. The real problem is that dollar and cents wise we can't compete with an economy based on twenty five to forty cents an hour; quality or not. Most folks think dollars and cents above quality and performance. I come from the school that says " you get what you paid for!"
gary
strombeckj
Well-Known Member
Gary I respect many of your opinions, but really? We are operating on a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) could you please elaborate?
Thanks,
Jon
China was the country unable to control the quality of the products manufactured and exported by companies within its borders. Pet food that was killing pets because a poisonous source of protein was used which would pass a laboratory test for protein content, but killed the pets that ate it. Also problems with tainted drugs. Several different incidents that made national news over the past several years. Pretty risky to count on high QA/QC when individuals and companies have designed products for profit rather than quality. These issues go beyond profiting from low labor costs. They're rooted in common human greed, under a lack of sufficient government oversight. People cheating for profit. Some of the problems reached to high level government officials. So my primary comment is that is seems risky (at the least premature) to boast about products meeting stringent design specifications coming out of China. No company can afford to QA/QC check every single product thoroughly. You might better make the product yourself if you have no basis to trust your source(s).
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Leupold? I go back a very along ways with Leupold. Some of my first hunting scope's, were Leupold. When I was an LEO (25 years) I picked up one of their, then very knew M1 10X and M3 6X Ultra scopes, mounts and rings for my'…, also then new M24…The US Navy showed Leupold how to make this scope and the optic's they wanted, few know more about optic's'…, like the US Navy does. The M1 scope I gave to my son with the M24 rifle 10 years after I left the department. The Ultra eventually became the MK 4 scope line… its still holding its zero year after year. I have NF and a few other scopes on my rifles. But the majorities are Leupold's; from their 1x4 28mm .223 scope to the 8.5x25 50mm Tac series for LR shooting.
I understand how a guy would feel over losing a hunt do too malfunction of a product; it's not a happy meal moment.
However, Leupold has been a "stand by" their customer company from day one… If their doing business with or in China; well' I'm not a fan of that either, and the sooner they get it back to the US the better many buyer will feel I'm sure, are your willing to pay more for the "all" US made product?; you can't have your cake and eat it too, they have to stay completive in today's market. With any luck those jobs may come back. As for the Leupold company; when one "ah-s—t" wipes out all the "that a boys"… it's a little unfair to a very fine US based company. That's pretty much like being asked to play the game with the deck stacked against the payer.
They've had failures, but they've hand many, many successes. They've been a strong supporter of all manner of shooting sports, law enforcement and military.
I've had a buying relationship with Leupold from 1964 to day… what I've found most satisfying is the people that work there; all are very helpful, very professional and just plain nice to deal with.
Well' that's just my experience with Leupold... for what it's worth.
436
I understand how a guy would feel over losing a hunt do too malfunction of a product; it's not a happy meal moment.
However, Leupold has been a "stand by" their customer company from day one… If their doing business with or in China; well' I'm not a fan of that either, and the sooner they get it back to the US the better many buyer will feel I'm sure, are your willing to pay more for the "all" US made product?; you can't have your cake and eat it too, they have to stay completive in today's market. With any luck those jobs may come back. As for the Leupold company; when one "ah-s—t" wipes out all the "that a boys"… it's a little unfair to a very fine US based company. That's pretty much like being asked to play the game with the deck stacked against the payer.
They've had failures, but they've hand many, many successes. They've been a strong supporter of all manner of shooting sports, law enforcement and military.
I've had a buying relationship with Leupold from 1964 to day… what I've found most satisfying is the people that work there; all are very helpful, very professional and just plain nice to deal with.
Well' that's just my experience with Leupold... for what it's worth.
436
Trickymissfit
Well-Known Member
return on the dollar invested is the quick and dirty way to say it. The U.S. economy is fueld on large short term profits that are very violatle (it's all a sine wave). The Japanese economy for years operated on a long term based economy with lower profit margins. (less violatle). But over the last few years many over there have adopted our ideas and are now paying for it (look at Honda this week). The Chinese are very much like us, and sooner or later things will catch up to them. To take this a step further, economists hae said the only reason the Chinese are so successfull is that they don't really have a middle class in their society. But they are starting to get one. Then it will be somebody like Vietnam or Malaysia that will steal their thunder. Time always marches on.
gary
FAL Shot
Well-Known Member
Germany, Germany, Germany, Leupold, Leupold, Leupold, Japan, Japan, Japan.
It's like listening to a stuck record as far as scopes and optics go.
The fact is, if somebody who knows optics doesn't bring up the subject of Russian optics, they really don't know what they are talking about. You can throw a lot of what they "know" out the window and find somebody with some in-depth knowledge on the subject.
The Russians built the world's largest reflector astronomical telescope. The Russians built the world's first miniature biopsy scope for medical use. Dmitri Maksutov invented the Maksutov catadioptric scopes that were smaller, lighter, more rugged and easier to build than German telescopes, and they were vital to the Russian war effort to the point that Dmitri Maksutov was awarded two Orders of Lenin for his designs. Russia leads in sales of high quality night vision gear for government agency use, as my optics dealer says, the difference between American and Russian high end NV gear comes down to one issue: price....they perform almost identically. Russia is probably the largest manufacturer of good quality astronomical microscopes. LOMO microscopes and surgical optics are used all over the world in the medical field. Optics is a major industry for the Russians, if you haven't gathered from my post by now. At the height of the Cold War, 36,000 people worked for LOMO in St. Petersburg. How many worked for Carl Zeiss and Leupold? As for Russian optical occomplishments, I could go on and on.
Maybe the reason gun nuts don't know much about Russian optics is because the Russians have bigger fish to fry in other bigger markets where they can make a profit without throwing quality down the drain. Most of the new telescopes that search the skies every night for asteroid tracking are now made in Russia. Russia is after the high end medical, scientific, industrial and military market. If a lot of you guys quit buying all that Chinese crap for your rifles, maybe they will build you some rifle scopes as well.
By the way, an independent test was carried out on the WWII German and Russian sniper rifles, and the Russian 3.5 PU scope was rated superior to the German Zeiss scope in actual field use. This is for actual effectiveness in combat, and not just glass quality.
My latest telescope eyepiece turret was built by a Russian, Yuri Petrunin, in Colorado. He moved to the USA to better market his astronomical telescopes to Americans, and he of course uses imported Russian optical cells. He has a "stellar" reputation with his TEC scopes, pun intended. He also does contract work for the U.S. government for high end military applications. I don't think he has the slightest interest in the rifle scope market.
It's like listening to a stuck record as far as scopes and optics go.
The fact is, if somebody who knows optics doesn't bring up the subject of Russian optics, they really don't know what they are talking about. You can throw a lot of what they "know" out the window and find somebody with some in-depth knowledge on the subject.
The Russians built the world's largest reflector astronomical telescope. The Russians built the world's first miniature biopsy scope for medical use. Dmitri Maksutov invented the Maksutov catadioptric scopes that were smaller, lighter, more rugged and easier to build than German telescopes, and they were vital to the Russian war effort to the point that Dmitri Maksutov was awarded two Orders of Lenin for his designs. Russia leads in sales of high quality night vision gear for government agency use, as my optics dealer says, the difference between American and Russian high end NV gear comes down to one issue: price....they perform almost identically. Russia is probably the largest manufacturer of good quality astronomical microscopes. LOMO microscopes and surgical optics are used all over the world in the medical field. Optics is a major industry for the Russians, if you haven't gathered from my post by now. At the height of the Cold War, 36,000 people worked for LOMO in St. Petersburg. How many worked for Carl Zeiss and Leupold? As for Russian optical occomplishments, I could go on and on.
Maybe the reason gun nuts don't know much about Russian optics is because the Russians have bigger fish to fry in other bigger markets where they can make a profit without throwing quality down the drain. Most of the new telescopes that search the skies every night for asteroid tracking are now made in Russia. Russia is after the high end medical, scientific, industrial and military market. If a lot of you guys quit buying all that Chinese crap for your rifles, maybe they will build you some rifle scopes as well.
By the way, an independent test was carried out on the WWII German and Russian sniper rifles, and the Russian 3.5 PU scope was rated superior to the German Zeiss scope in actual field use. This is for actual effectiveness in combat, and not just glass quality.
My latest telescope eyepiece turret was built by a Russian, Yuri Petrunin, in Colorado. He moved to the USA to better market his astronomical telescopes to Americans, and he of course uses imported Russian optical cells. He has a "stellar" reputation with his TEC scopes, pun intended. He also does contract work for the U.S. government for high end military applications. I don't think he has the slightest interest in the rifle scope market.
ishootkittens
Well-Known Member
If only help was as plentiful as disagreements...
Trickymissfit
Well-Known Member
the largest reflector scope is no longer in Russia by the way. It was built as a consortum between European and a couple North American Universities. Is so big that they had to use several mirrors in it. Think it's rated at 214 meters in diameter (might be off a little one way or another). Location escapes me, but it maybe in Chile. There are also a couple others being or are built that are only slightly smaller.
My comments on German gun sights was with reference to tank mounted stuff and aircraft gun sights. The Germans held the record for a one shot kill till the Gulf War in Iraq. It was 3300 meters with a turret kill on a T34 that was filmed. The current record is about 5600 meters using the G.M. / Hughes gunsight mounted on a Challanger II tank. The German hit was with a 75mm PAK 40 mounted on a Marder II or Marder III. The Challanger used a 120mm Sabot. Prior to that there was much speculation about some Isrealie claims of 2000 yards one shot kills on T72 tanks in the Baka Valley. The U.S. even went so far as to send over an investigative team to see if it was B.S. It wasn't.
I've used (and still own) a couple Russian built eyepieces, and they are indeed pretty good. But there are others just as good if not better. You just can't beat the Russian price tag. The Russian scope design is pretty nice (I own one) but won't run with a Teleview or a Takahasi refractor. When you look at deep space photos, you'll find more often than not they are using a good refractor and a high dollar digital camera. (Santa Barbara Optics)
gary
Question? Have you been using the recent Leupold rifle scopes manufactured in the past 5 years?
Your experience with Leupold may be similar to mine. Except I've migrated to other brands of rifle scopes over the past 5 years. For two reasons. Firstly, as I shifted to specializing in LRH, I wanted higher power magnification than I had previously been content with. Secondly, prior to changing out my lower power variable scopes to higher power variable scopes, I researched and learned there were now many options in addition to Leupold, and that those other options provided better values for my money. Even when I was using my Leupolds all those earlier years, I was aware that some cheaper scopes I owned had glass that provided better light transmission and resolution. I always thought my Leupolds were only so-so (average) with respect to the quality of the glass.
I came to believe we were paying a premium for Leupold scopes in part, because of their iron-clad warranty service, and in part because of leftover sentiment from years gone by, when Leupold had gained and maintained the lion's share of the US market in rifle scopes for so many years. Lots and lots of loyal Leupold customers. That loyalty is still present today for many average hunters. A relative of mine owns/operates a gun shop and Leupold scopes have always seen a steady following of customers. Although most recently (the past 3 years) I am seeing many more non-Leupold scopes on the shelves in his gun shop.
It seems like Leupold knows there are a lot of quality competition branded scopes that they have to compete against. Sounds as if they're struggling to maintain quality in their effort to remain competitive. And I'm sure they do need to outsource some of their parts to remain competitive. Because a lot of the competition is also outsourcing.
Almost forgot to make my point. I never had problems with my Leupold scopes from 8 to 35 years ago either. But it seems what I'm reading in this Thread is - the reliability of the currently manufactured scopes may not be as good as my older Leupold scopes were.
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FAL Shot
Well-Known Member
Gary,
Just what Russian telescope do you own? The ones sold by Orion were not of the quality of a LOMO or several other Russian manufacturers. A LOMO Mak-Cass similar to mine was examined and found to have 1/35 wave optical figure. An optical figure of 1/10 wave is considered extremely high end. Celestron and Meade only claim 1/4 wave as that is the "diffraction limit". The fact is, all degradation in the optical chain adds up, and 1/10 wave guarantee or better is a sign of a quality made scope.
What is the optical wave figure of your Teleview and Takahashi refractors? It will not be better than my LOMO Mak-Cass, I assure you. I talked to Vic Maris who owns Stellarvue (builds scopes every bit as good as Televue....only larger) and when he was in St. Petersburg, Russia, dealing with LOMO he asked them to start making again the Mak-Cass scope that I own so he could sell them under Stellarvue brand. He knew it was equal to his BEST 5" refractors at a fraction of the cost. The LOMO guys flatly refused to consider the request, as they were very disappointed at the amateur astronomy community that bought Meade and Celestron scopes for a couple hundred dollars less when they could have had world's best if they weren't such idiot tightwads and obviously prejudiced against Russian optics. If you don't believe me, call up Vic Maris at Stellarvue and talk to him yourself. The LOMO Astele scopes were some of the best ever built in their aperture range.
Also, if you look in Telescope Optics by Rutten & van Verooij, you will see that at high magnifications a Mak-Cass or Mak-Newt scope of high quality will have higher contrast at high magnification than any refractor scope. The best visual scopes for high power lunar viewing are considerd to be Mak-Cass scopes, and they are better at double-star splitting as well.
I own a Stellarvue refractor, and refractor scopes are better at low power viewing as they have higher contrast at low powers and do not have the hole in the middle of the exit pupil that all obstructed scopes possess. Camera scopes are chosen for a low f ratio, but that is of no concern in visual scopes and high f ratios such as my f/15 Mak-Cass make eyepieces perform better, and they can be simple ones with higher contrast.
Televue Nagler eyepieces are famous for rectilinear distortion. They often have 8 elements. They can't compete with simple eyepieces of 3, 4 or 5 elements as far as image contrast and sharpness goes. The Baader Eudiascopic eyepieces are classics at a reasonable price, and they carry a US government contract number if you care to check it out. Celestron once sold them (pre Synta) as the Ultima eyepiece, and Orion as the Ultrascopic, and Parks sold them as well. They may vary in the coatings involved. My telescope dealer lists them as his favorites, over Televue which he sells a lot of as well.
Look up reviews of the LOMO Astele 150mm Mak-Cass and you will see that it is 10 out of 10 from about every reviewer. I have yet to see the refractor that can beat it on high power lunar viewing, literally yielding a thousand shades of gray from the purest whites to the blackest blacks. Ansel Adams would freak out over this scope. If you want to buy one....good luck. Nobody seems to want to sell them these days......but contact me if your pockets are deep enough. I have a guy who will locate one if anybody can. I have a 4" LOMO Mak-Newt for sale. I'm the original owner, mostly been stored away these past 5 years. One of the best lunar scopes out there for early and late moon phases. At f/5.5 it is a very fast photo tube.
Just what Russian telescope do you own? The ones sold by Orion were not of the quality of a LOMO or several other Russian manufacturers. A LOMO Mak-Cass similar to mine was examined and found to have 1/35 wave optical figure. An optical figure of 1/10 wave is considered extremely high end. Celestron and Meade only claim 1/4 wave as that is the "diffraction limit". The fact is, all degradation in the optical chain adds up, and 1/10 wave guarantee or better is a sign of a quality made scope.
What is the optical wave figure of your Teleview and Takahashi refractors? It will not be better than my LOMO Mak-Cass, I assure you. I talked to Vic Maris who owns Stellarvue (builds scopes every bit as good as Televue....only larger) and when he was in St. Petersburg, Russia, dealing with LOMO he asked them to start making again the Mak-Cass scope that I own so he could sell them under Stellarvue brand. He knew it was equal to his BEST 5" refractors at a fraction of the cost. The LOMO guys flatly refused to consider the request, as they were very disappointed at the amateur astronomy community that bought Meade and Celestron scopes for a couple hundred dollars less when they could have had world's best if they weren't such idiot tightwads and obviously prejudiced against Russian optics. If you don't believe me, call up Vic Maris at Stellarvue and talk to him yourself. The LOMO Astele scopes were some of the best ever built in their aperture range.
Also, if you look in Telescope Optics by Rutten & van Verooij, you will see that at high magnifications a Mak-Cass or Mak-Newt scope of high quality will have higher contrast at high magnification than any refractor scope. The best visual scopes for high power lunar viewing are considerd to be Mak-Cass scopes, and they are better at double-star splitting as well.
I own a Stellarvue refractor, and refractor scopes are better at low power viewing as they have higher contrast at low powers and do not have the hole in the middle of the exit pupil that all obstructed scopes possess. Camera scopes are chosen for a low f ratio, but that is of no concern in visual scopes and high f ratios such as my f/15 Mak-Cass make eyepieces perform better, and they can be simple ones with higher contrast.
Televue Nagler eyepieces are famous for rectilinear distortion. They often have 8 elements. They can't compete with simple eyepieces of 3, 4 or 5 elements as far as image contrast and sharpness goes. The Baader Eudiascopic eyepieces are classics at a reasonable price, and they carry a US government contract number if you care to check it out. Celestron once sold them (pre Synta) as the Ultima eyepiece, and Orion as the Ultrascopic, and Parks sold them as well. They may vary in the coatings involved. My telescope dealer lists them as his favorites, over Televue which he sells a lot of as well.
Look up reviews of the LOMO Astele 150mm Mak-Cass and you will see that it is 10 out of 10 from about every reviewer. I have yet to see the refractor that can beat it on high power lunar viewing, literally yielding a thousand shades of gray from the purest whites to the blackest blacks. Ansel Adams would freak out over this scope. If you want to buy one....good luck. Nobody seems to want to sell them these days......but contact me if your pockets are deep enough. I have a guy who will locate one if anybody can. I have a 4" LOMO Mak-Newt for sale. I'm the original owner, mostly been stored away these past 5 years. One of the best lunar scopes out there for early and late moon phases. At f/5.5 it is a very fast photo tube.
Trickymissfit
Well-Known Member
First of all I've only used their eyepieces in the past. Not cheap in my book (one was almost $800). Have looked thru the Orion ones, and I agree with you. There's just something not right with them. Right now I'm using a Mead 5" M/C. I like the scope but hate their mounts. I'll fix that problem when I get the time, unless I give it to my grandsons. I went to a sky party a couple years ago, and go to do some serious deep sky observing with a Takahashi (152mm?) that had an 80mm scope piggy backed on it. I was ruined! That's when I finally got a good glimpse of Neptune (think it was Neptune anyway as it was blue). But I also like the ease of handeling that M/C scopes have, and have also been thinking about a 12" one. But while I was up there I also got the chance to look thru a Dobson that had an 14" mirror! Kinda liked that one as well. Stelarview scopes are very nice, and I could live with one. One thing I do seem to notice with the good refractors is that they don't seem to be bothered with stray light pollution like my Mead is. Have you ever used the Optron mounts? (the big one) Been thinking about changing the Mead mount over to that one, as anything has got to be better! Do you do a lot of deep sky observing? That's my next goal.
gary
