It is getting to the point, that quality of the scopes available on the market are nowhere near as important as weighing out the quality of their customer service...

I have had good luck for years with Weaver Brand Optics....

I have tried Simmons, which are owned by the same outfit... I have had some Simmons go south, but not until recently have I had a Weaver go bad...

It did so within 3 weeks of receipt.. It was a V16 and was mounted on top of a 223 bolt action rifle, shooting light loads no less.. more equivalent to the 221 Fireball...

So I got an authorization to return it....going on 3 months ago now....I might as well shot it out into space....

Weaver and Simmons were purchased within the last year by Meade Optics...

From dealing with them, on getting two scopes replaced, and then one of those going south in 3 weeks.. I have a lot of experience to pass on dealing with them....

Meade's customer service wins the award for a CRAP organization.....

Following website instructions, they don't get back to you... leave phone messages according to their instructions, they don't get back to you... they don't seem to log notes on any conversations....yet you are expected to keep track of whom you talked too last time.. what all your tracking numbers from UPS, because they can never "locate" your return... and then you provide it multiple times and they still can't seem to "locate' it.. even when UPS records show delivery....

I don't know if it is just apathy, big business corporate attitudes, poor quality control or what....

But if anyone is looking for new optics, I'd recommend looking at ANYBODY before I'd look at a thing supported by Meade...

Weaver is going to gain a crap reputation as long as they are under Meade's roof.. if all of my experiences are any indication of their poor attitudes and incompetency....

I rate Meade/Weaver/Simmons a big fat zero...

There was a time just a few years ago when it wasn't like that for Weaver or for Simmons by my own experience. I just had my new Nikon optima BP scope not work in 6 shots, I sent it without warning but with my invoice to Nikon in Cali, and got it back from NY fixed in 9 days. Now for me its either Burris or Nikon .

I recently had a Thompson/Center handgun scope go bad. I mailed it to Thompson/Center with no receipt and had a new one in my hot little hands in less than a week.

I will agree that contacting meade can be a problem. Approx. 2 1/2 months ago I sent them a damaged 6 to 20 grand slam. When I say damaged it was destroyed in fall and the AO was bent right over blocking the front lense. It took about 6 weeks but they sent me a brand new scope stating they could not repair the old one.

There was no charge for replacement.

I've heard some of the same about Meade Optics Seafire....

What I find interesting is that I use their telescopes and the customer service is EXCELLENT... I guess they simply can't figure out that customer service from one line of products SHOULD NOT differ from others...

I thought initially when they picked up these labels that it would be a good turn around for these scopes but that doesn't appear to be the case... I am certainly betting that they don't understand the shooting/hunting community and that will not bode well for them... You can imagine thinking about forking out many thousands of dollars for a telescope and remembering the experience you had with their rifle scopes... I'm guessing you would look to another brand even though their telescopes and associated customer server are first rate...

Sorry to hear about your experience though... I'll stay with the Leupold, Zeiss and Nightforce brands I think....

Ken....

I guess I'll just stay with Leupold. There is a strong rumor going around that their customer service is excellent. I wouldn't know. In 40 years of using them and double that number of scopes, I've never needed any customer service.

You are among a growing number of people that are speaking out about the complete lack of service and satisfaction involved with dealing with meade instrument. I try to stay with zeiss for just that reason.......more money at the onset......but some times you can pay in more than one way dealing with some of these clowns. Just got done a little return with bushnell....not quite as bad, but you don't measure response time in days....or even a week.....try seven weeks just to return a defective scope and get credit......wow. If I need to return any more scopes it will now be zeiss or leupold, I don't fool with any of the others anymore. Lifes too short to deal with shoddy service from companies where bean counters have been inbedded to try and duck any real repair or warranty service. They must only plan to sell one scope to each customer......

woods