Now that the 3x Leupold is out of production, which of their scopes is the best for a Hard kicker? After a friend of mine had to send his 1.5x5 Leupold back a few times, I think it was three, they told him to try their 4x shotgun scope. It has a heavy duplex, and I think the parallax is set for 75 yards. He shoots a 416 Rigby quite a bit. Since he has gone to this scope he has not had any problems. I thought this info might be useful to those of you that have 458Lott&500+ boomers. I would not think the 75 yard parallax would be a problem on a BIG rifle. Remember the old B&L scopes with NO internal adjustments? The adjustments were in the mounts. If a company would bring back that principle it, might could be made strong enough even for a 577 T-REX.

N E 450 No2: It would be interesting to have some of the 'hard kicking" rifle users providing us with answers on what scopes hold-up to their rifles recoil. I have read that some (not all) custom gun makers only use Leupold scopes, but only up to the .416's, and refuse to mount any scope on the .458's. Wouldn't a compact or fixed-power scope be better for such rifles?

I read such an article in the May 2002 issue of Rifle.

Also interesting would be the details of the mounts and rings that they are using. In talking to D'Arcy Echols about his .458 Lott rifles, he was using the Leica scope with mounts of his own design.

He is on here from time to time, perhaps he will comment.

jim dodd

Most 458 Lotts and 500's have a muzzle brake of one kind or another and that is the bugger...A Lott will tear up scopes, most of them in fact, in time, about 300 rounds seems about right. when you add the brake then make that less than a 100 rounds in some cases...I have snaped most all brands, including the 3X and 1x4 and 1.5x5 Leupolds, the varibles in Schmit and Bender, Ziess and Swaworski..the shotgun scopes are no better.

David Miller reports to have boxes of scopes that he trashed, according to an article in Rifle or handloader magazine...

The only scope I have found that will stand up to that kind of recoil is the Leupold 2.5 Compact and that is because the internal adjustments are in the center of the scope and directly under the external adjustments according to Leupold...

The problem with all scopes with these big bores with a brake is the scope is designed to handle recoil comming back, which they do veru well but they cannot handle that recoil pulling it forward by the brake...that is why they make the air gun scope backwards....Try shooting any conventional scope on an air gun and it will come apart plenty quick....

Now I wonder why they cannot combine the two principles into one scope that has been beefed up and come up with a Safari model that can take any amount of recoil in any direction...

Another problem you may run into now is the recoil reducing bench rests that hook up to the bench and tie the gun down to the rest itself..All those G forces have to go somewhere and yep, its the scope that breaks...I ruined a couple of Leupolds and Jim Brockman ruined a couple of Zeiss and a Schmmit and Bender on my new International rest...I quit straping them down and the problem subsided but the recoil partially came back...Leupold fixed my scopes and I have them back. I have been discussing this happening with the Leupold rep. and they are looking into it....

In reality the 458 Lott, 505 and 500 will probably serve most just as well with a reciever sight or iron sights as most shots are taken at under 100 yards at very big animals...Irons are my choice on these really big boys..I fear the scope will side with Murphy at the exact moment I need it the most.

I was just reading an article about scopes in the August 2002 issue of American Hunter, and in the last three paragraphs of the article, the following words are written:

"..., a leading custom gunmaker-who chambers rifles for cartridges from the .300 Wby. through the .458 Lott and who regularly installs high-quality scopes on his creations, firing between 40 and 125 rounds in the process-recently told me he has a scope failure rate of about 20 percent."

In the last paragraph, the following statements are made:

"...when asked to describe the type of scope that holds up to best under recoil, the above gunmaker cited the now discontinued Leupold M8 3x fixed-power, which was 10 inches long, weighed 8.4 ounces, and had a 20mm objective."

If that scope was so tough, I wonder why Leupold didn't make it stronger instead of discontinuing it?

Ray,
I have four Leupold 3X's and I use them on rifles up to and including 416 Rem and 404 Jefferys and they are wonderfull and last forever....BUT a 458 Lott and above will trash one in no time flat..they just cannot handle that recoil and if this guy had used them, he would know that, so I suspect he was just surmising...I have trashed a lot of scopes on the Lott with a brake and a bunch on the 505...when you add a brake, the problem is twofold.

The 2.5 Leupold compact will take a steady diet of anything you can give it....After I sent a 3X Leupold back 3 times, Leupold gave me a 2.5X compact to try and it worked...pretty good service any way you look at it. thats a matter of record.

I trashed my 2.5X Leupold Alaskan also..Leupold always fixes them free of charge, more than I can say for some other brands.

NOTE:
I have never trashed any scope with recoil on calibers of 416 Rem./Rigby and under, with or without a muzzle brake.....Only 458 Lott and up.

450,

I think you will always get a lot of varied opinions on this subject because each shooter's criteria is different and also number of shots fired.

I would tend to agree with Ray on the 416 threshold, however if real top accuracy is the measure, then I think scope problems really start once you pass the 375.

I would say in general, that if you were never to group the rifle during its life, then you would never be aware of any scope problems as by far and away the majority of scopes have problems that are accuracy related, rather than reticles breaking etc. The sort of accuracy losses would never be noticed in the field. It is when you hit the paper that the problems show up.

For what it is worth and the info is out of date now, but about 10 years ago I did some scope testing for Tasco Australia and compared them to Leupold and Zeiss.

The test was done as follows:

1) Each scope was initially tested on a bench gun in 6mm/06 or 270. The bench gun was fitted with Number 5 barrel so weight was around only 9.5 pounds.

2) The scope was then mounted on a 416 Wby and a big bag of lead shot behind it. The 416 was fired both with and without brake on.

3) After the 416 shooting, the scopes were put back on the becnh guns.

You ain't going to believe it, but the Tasco world Class scopes won the day. However, I am convinced if we tested another lot of scopes we would have had different results and our results would be different again if the same test was run today.

As a side issue, while we were shifting scopes about at the range some onlooking shooters asked could they try their scopes on the bench gun, and we obliged as it was a bit more info.

Most of the scopes were variables of different brands and had come off pretty much straight factory rifles. However, with the volume of shooting in Australia, most of the scopes would have been exposed to quite a lot of shots.

All those scopes showed a fall off in accuracy when mounted on the bench gun.

However their owners had not seen the scope problem because of compensating errors coming from their own rifle. But when the rifle will put down 5 shot groups of .3" or so you soon see any problems from scopes, especially when the bench gun has far more recoil than a 6mm PPC.

My general findings have been that calibers from say the 270 up to 375 will cause problems that you would never see come up on a 222. Also whatever a 375 causes problems with, so will a 270, but it will take longer. With accuracy problems 375s are more inclined to open the whole group up whereas 270s tend to start with flyers and often continue this for some time and in some ways that makes them harder to pick.

Once you go to 458 (and probably the big 416s like 416 Wby) it is almost like the shift from 222 to the 270 to 375 group.

I also have a feeling that both weather (hot) and vibrations from the vehicle have an affect on scopes. The reason I say this is that from what I know and have been told, scope problems are more common in Australia than any other country.

This I think comes from the high volume of shooting and also the fact that we shoot from vehicles and can drive around quickly chasing animals. As well, we fequently shoot in very hot weather and you will often see rifles so hot the scope is hot enough to be uncomfortabe to touch.

Mike

[ 08-06-2002, 02:35: Message edited by: Mike375 ]

Of the guns that I shoot now, only one has a scope, the CO2 Air Rifle. I seem to have gravitated to peep sights over the years, they don't fog up, lose clarity, lose zero, etc., the way scopes do. I never had a scope that didn't give me some problem sometime. No matter how good the warranty, Murphy seems to dictate it will fail when you need it most. I guess I didn't really think about it to much till I started reading down this thread, and my eyes could use the help of a scope now, but it will most likely be 1.5/2X KISS kind of thing for me.

Mike,
Interresting stuff and I have no doubt it is accurate...I am sure I would never notice a decrease in accuracy on one of my big bores unless I was bench testing and even then I would mark it off to a bad load...Of course it would make little difference on a 416 or bigger as I normally use them on a buff at 40 yards, and accuracy isn't high on my criteria for a DGR rifle...

I do believe that TOUGHNESS is THE NO. 1 FACTOR in scopes and that is why I am such an advocate of low power varibles and fixed scopes with 20MM tubes..they just simply take more abuse and hold a zero better than a longer, larger belled objective..Maybe they are not as clear or gather enough light for some but all I personally require is the ability to see my target and put the cross hairs generally where I want them, all else is poppycock...I don't need to count fleas, hairs or abrasions....I like a standard duplex and have little use for the big heavy crosshairs or tricked up hairs that clutter up the scope as I only use the juncture of the hairs to shoot. the standard duplex has been sufficient for me.

I have NEVER missed nor lost an animal due to low power magnification, only to failure to hold a zero, too much power ( had a camp staffer turn my power ring to 12X on a 4x12 one time years ago and I did that myself on another ocassion), and things that would have been prevented thourgh the simplicity of a fixed scope or low power scope....so that is my take on the subject and its not for everyone, humankind mostly learns from their own mistakes, not others.

Ray,

I tend to be the same as you with optics. In fact a mate of mine reckons I would be OK with plastic lens

However, some people and my mate is one of them, are influenced far more by optics. For him, optics that are not so good, or power too low, seems to make him uptight and pull shots.

Mike

I agree with Ray about the 2.5x M8 Leupold. Cough, cough, sssssppphewie!!! Sorry....wool ball.

I have two of them. One on a 458 Lott in a Winchester Model 70 and one on a 460 Weatherby (with a muzzle break). The Lott has about 150 rounds through it and the Weatherby has about 50 rounds through it. These are full house loads. Actually, I got a little hot with the Weatherby. 500 grains humming along at 2720 fps. Whew! Not going to do that any more. The non braked Lott still kicks a lot more at 2450 although.

The Leupolds are holding up great. The Talley mounts are being tested to their fullest extent. The best part is that the scopes cost $176 each brand new!

I have a .416 Rem Model 70 with about 400 rounds through it and it has been topped off with a 2.5 Leupold since day one. The scope still functions PERFECTLY after being dragged through the brush in Zimbabwe and battered on the back of a snowmobile in the Yukon Territory.

JohnTheGreek