I've just received an email from Leupold announcing their new VX-1 and VX-2 (note Arabic numbers instead of the previous Roman numerals.)

Their biggest advance, accoding to the literature is Lead Free lens glass. THANK GOODNESS! We've all apparently been being poisoned all of these years by the lead in our scope lenses!

Leave it to the Leupold advertising department to ballyhoo something totally irrelavant, but which sounds extremely, well, current. All of those other scope companies are spoiling the environment and sickening shooters with their LEADED LENSES!

I wish to god that Leupold would fire their advertising agency and sell their scopes based on their quality and utility, not all the friggin hype.

Oh No,what next ?

My daddy told me never to eat the scopes !!

I heard aluminum gives you Alzheimer's...does this mean I can no longer let me kid chew on my 1.5 x 5? Dammit!

Well my scope bite with the "old glass" is starting to worry me now, do you think I should get a blood test?

quote:

Originally posted by calgarychef1:
Well my scope bite with the "old glass" is starting to worry me now, do you think I should get a blood test?

I'd be more worried about the urban hippo hunting.

Maybe there are certain areas of California where you are not only prohibited from using lead in your bullets, but in your scopes as well? Can't be too careful about what our condors eat, now can we?

Although Leupold makes a big deal of their new "no lead" lenses, they neglect to tell us just how this makes them better. I suspect that Sworovski, which has built their reputation on leaded glass, might take exception to Leupold's advertising agency's explanation of how "unleaded" is better.

I vote for leaded glass--

all the Cathedrals of Europe can't be wrong.



SSR

quote:

Originally posted by Cross L:
I vote for leaded glass--

all the Cathedrals of Europe can't be wrong.



SSR

+1

I'd wager that leaded glass poses few if any risk to the end user but that the primary risk is from the PRODUCTION of leaded glass. Both to the workers and to the environment.

I am no expert on scope glass, but unleaded or ultra clear glass is kind of a rage now in commercial building. According to companies like PPG that make unleaded architectural glass, it has a much higher color transmission as opposed to leaded glass that adds a green tint to all colored objects. If you take a piece of typical leaded glass and look at it in section view, you can see the green tint at the edges and the distortion it adds. If you do the same with unleaded glass, it is clear all the way thru and has little if any distortion (that I could tell when I looked at samples)

If you are really bored and want to look at it, Google “Starphire Glass”

My guess is that Leupold is marketing that not as health benefit, but for optical clarity.

quote:

My guess is that Leupold is marketing that not as health benefit, but for optical clarity.

Leupold is marketing it as a marketing benefit. There are no other benefits. The next thing you know they'll be telling us that all of their competitors lenses are full of sand, which of course, they are.

Isn't the massive media and political bull-litter of the modern world just amazing? No wonder none of our predeccesors lived beyond their teens....except my great aunts who all died at ages between 95 & 100 years old except two...who both lived to be more than 100.

No doubt they would have lived to be 250 years old (r..i..g..h..t!) if they hadn't lived all their lives eating and drinking things like bacon, chittlings, ice cream made of 100% real cream and lots of raw sugar, raw unpastuerized milk, farm-fresh eggs, home churned and salted butter, salt-cured and/or smoked hams which never saw a refrigerator (fridges didn't exist during most of my aunts' lives), calf brains with scrambled eggs, real southern fried chicken, lots of starches from home-made bread, waffles, pancakes all drenched in butter and pure syrup, fried potatoes and so on. But they didn't have the government protecting them, so eventually they died.

Amazingly enough the leaded crystal-ware they served things in didn't get them either, nor did the unfiltered water from their heavily arsenic and sulphur "contaminated" wells. The government actually came through later in our lives and tried to make us all quit using our drinking water wells in our valley because of the "Excessive arsenic and other mineral content". Since many of the folks there were born in our valley, lived there all their lives, and at that time were in in their late 80s and beyond, they all just laughed and told the G-men "Thanks for the advice. Now go away".

We kids all died young too, from when we used to play with liquid mercury all the time...laying a pool of it in our bare palms, then dropping a copper penny into the pool, pulling it out all silver coloured, and pretending it was a dime. Hell, I think I've been dead since I was 11 years old!

Oh well, now that they can't shove prohibition down our throats any longer, all the drones have to do SOMETHING to justify their government doles. And to make them dependent on the government so they never dare try to reign-in its wild spending and dictatorial red tape, and keep on re-electing the crooks.

Granted I love to hammer on the liberals every chance I get but in this case it does in fact have to do with optical clarity. Leaded glass refracts light differently which is what has made it desireable in "crystal". I'll guarantee you that the high end optics manufacturers use lead free glass but never thought to "advertise" it as such since it shouldn't be there to start with.

All that said, it wouldn't surprise me that it is mentioned by Leupold to give that warm, fuzzy, green feeling to liberal buyers.

You are certainly right AC, how have we managed to live as long as we have much less our ancestors.

Ken....

quote:

Leaded glass refracts light differently

True. But there are any number of factors which cause glass to refract differently than whether it has lead content or not. Differential refraction and correction for refraction is just one of a number of challenges that optical engineers have to overcome (reach compromise, as there is no such thing as both having your cake and eating it in optics.)

If you will note in Leupold's advertising, they fail to say just what advantage the "lead free lenses" provide, and while they imply it, they do not actually state that their previous lenses contained lead. I don't think that there is any question that the "lead free" promotion is just exactly that -- something that their advertising people think sounds good without having to explain how it actually is good.

I'm in agreement with you Stonecreek. You know to the marketing folks it "sounds good".

Yes, optical engineers have a number of hurdles or compromises to deal with. My telescopes use either water white glass or pyrex glass. Both are optically clear. While the refrator uses a three lens objective using pyrex the reflector uses both. The Schmidt lens is water white and the mirror is pyrex.

Let's face it, when they engineer rifle scopes there are many factors to overcome because they also have to be durable. Meeting a price point makes it very challenging to say the least.

Anyway, nothing like sounding "green" to make the liberals feel warm and fuzzy.

Ken....

Lead or no lead it doesn’t bother me at all.

Anyone who has tried to clean a lens by licking it will soon find it an ineffective technique and move onto better methods, thus avoiding any risk

If any of you decide that your OLD leupolds are to dangerous to handle.

I well gadly dispose of them properly.

Just ship them to me prepayed for disposal.

Maybe they will put the lead back in the gasoline...

Would it be okay if it was lighter, leaded glass can be heavy. Just curious about the technical considerations.

I'm surprised I'm still around after many years as a kid throwing my cast net since I was taught to put the lead in my mouth when I throwed it.

Lead seems to be taboo these days. Unleaded gas. Zinc wheel weights. Copper (unleaded bullets) and now lead free glass.

Don't know if the lead is a detriment to the optical clarity but they don't state this. It may be the EPA has forced them do eliminate any lead from their products (or process).