Thread: Leupold Scopes are NOT worth the money....IMO

NZ hunters seem to love Leupold scopes, I own three myself (well now two), but I have always felt that you paid a premium for the Leupold name and for an American made product. So over the last 3 weeks, I sold my Leupold VX-5HD 3-15x and Weaver T16 target, and brought a very nice s/h Sightron SIII 6-24x and s/h Weaver Super Slam 3-15x.

Now I will say after a few days of playing with them, that the newly purchased Sightron and Weaver are the same optical quality as the Leupold VX-5HD...to my eyes I can tell no difference. Also the box test I set up in my back yard seems to show both have the same tracking accuracy as the VX-5 did.

So I've reached the conclusion (yes my opinion only), that the value for your money just isn't there with Leupold anymore. Paying twice the money for a Leupold, does not get you twice the brightness or twice the clarity or twice the tracking ability as top brand Japanese scopes like Sightron, Vixen, Athlon, TRACT or the old Weaver Super Slams. Actually the more you spend on optics, the more diminishing returns apply.

Now Leupold does import good glass from LOW of Japan, but nothing I would ever dare to call "impressively different" from the other top brand Japanese scopes I listed. And to get their high power ratio scopes (VX-6, Mark 8), you gotta spend a huge chunk of change….a lot more than what similar featured scopes are selling for.

I think Leupold have had their day and now they are mostly resting on their reputation/brand name and excellent customer service. If that’s the case, perhaps the rest of the Japanese optics companies have already (or shortly will), pass them by?