Curious how well they sell over there and how they are liked?

Over here, we prefer the European top 4: Schmidt&Bender, Zeiss, Swarovski, Kahles.
Although Leupolds are well designed and built, I believe they are second to these in optical quality and light transmition, which are vital over here, since we do most of our riflehunting in the dusk and dark.

I have four of them and like them very much. I bought them in the USA for something like 20 percent of what a german scope from Zeiss or S&B would cost. In Germany, a Leupold costs about twice as much as in the US. The much more expensive german scopes are clearly superior in low light. Otherwise, i see little reason to spend more money than for a Leupold.

Sixteen years ago when I went on my first hunt in Europe Leupold scopes were mostly unheard of. Now they are starting to get a hold on that market and I can think of at least two occations where I took big game with a barrowed rifle in Germany that had a leupold.

i find more and more people looking for "multi retricle" or "plex" type scopes, rather than the old style duplex reticle. i think this is why Leopold"s are catching on here. i fancy a varmint hunter myself.
good shooting

I have used Leupolds for at least 25 years.
My first was purchased to go with my first 375 H&H, a ZKK 602.
Since then I have become fond of this sturdy reliable scope and have used it on a bunch of rifles from 25-06 to 375 H&H.

Right now a VXIII 2,5x8-36 German #4 sits on my M70 / 375 H&H, and a VXIII 3,5x10-50 HD on my M77 35 Whelen. And I´m very pleased with both.

I know they are not in the class of Zeiss / S&B/ Swaro , but for me they do the job

In the US those of us who have formal training in shooting are taught to get our cheek hard down on the stock and not to hold our head upright. This means the eye is closer to the back end of the telescope and with rifles of substantial recoil the Leupolds, with long eye relief, have an advantage. Also we are usually not allowed to hunt once the sun is down so the superior illumination of the big Euro scopes is useless to us.

Leupolds are very popular in France, especially among target shooters. My personal preference is only incidental to your question (I own 4 Leupolds and one Bushnell) but I see lots of Leupolds on the firing line at rifle ranges. Among hunters it is a different story and there I see a wide variety of mostly European scopes.

Leupold scopes have been gaining popularity in Finland for maybe last 15 years. Nowadays they are maybe losing some market share for the European quality scopes, but they can still be found quite often on moose rifles.

In Itlay they have good reputation and market, even if I prefer European scopes, I feel Eu scopes more fast in aiming than Leupold scopes. I find the cross more quickly.

quote:

Originally posted by vigillinus:
get our cheek hard down on the stock and not to hold our head upright. This means the eye is closer to the back end of the telescope

I don't agree. It merely means your stock is too short. I agree a good cheek weld is extremely desirable, I have from super low to low mounts and swaro 6x42s. 14" LOP allows me to clear the scope and the back of the bolt when I recycle in the shoulder.

Some Euro mounts are criminaly high but it is not easy to buy quality low mounts from the US either - to wit Talleys are much to high even in supposedly low.

quote:

Originally posted by 1894mk2:

I don't agree. - I agree...

What?!?

If nothing else, high-mounted scopes are hard to carry. And, in the field, what are we doing with our rifle 99.9% of the time? (Yeah, I know, it's on the Kawasaki!)

What is often lost in these 'my scope is better than your scope' discussions is that it's a rifle sight. We're not using our rifle sight for looking at stars, birdwatching or checking out the neighbor's teenage daughter. Great optical performance does not necessarily define a great rifle sight.

Regarding the desirability of long eye relief, I positively cringe when I see a scope mounted high, with the eyepiece well back on the wrist, sometimes as far the comb nose. It must be virtually impossible to fire this setup from any position other than standing. Maybe that's whay the rather effete-looking shooting sticks are popular today. It sseems no coincidence that these rigs almost always feature a Euro scope of generous objective, having a huge flat-field ocular and consequent short eye relief.

It's a rifle sight. What good is it if we can't take the best shot possible under the circumstances? (Oh, sorry, can't go prone because I'll get a bloody forehead from my $1K + scope...)

As to popularity of Leupold products beyond North America, consider the rather numerous rifle collection of our patron saint of this forum, pictured beginning here. Presumably, the scarcity of makes other than Leupold has nothing to do with either the availability or affordability of Euro alternatives.

I have been in about 40 gun shops in Spain, 20 in Turkey, 1 in Germany, 1 in the UK, and 3 in Italy. In those 65+ gunshops I have never seen a Leupold.

Europeans expect to pay $400-2000 for a scope. Even my Spanish game keeper with his $400 rifle, $400 mount, had a $800 Pecar. This from a guy that makes about $1000 a month.

quote:

Originally posted by meplat:
...It's a rifle sight. What good is it if we can't take the best shot possible under the circumstances? (Oh, sorry, can't go prone because I'll get a bloody forehead from my $1K + scope...)

I can see your point, but if a hunter isn't able to shoot with any of the typical Euro scopes from all possible field positions, using the typical Euro calibres (375H&H or smaller), then he/she doesn't know how to handle a rifle IMO. I have never had a problem shooting with various Zeiss scopes for example throughout the years, mounted on various calibres including 300Wby and 375H&H.

The one bad scope cut I have gotten was many years ago with a 30-06 that had a Simmons scope mounted. But then the shot was a fast one at an upwards angle of about 45 degrees, and I was sitting at the time. I don't remember what kind of eye relief it had though, as this was about 15 years ago...

As for Euro scope eye relief, I had an interesting phone conversation with Hans Bender a few days ago regarding this very subject on his Schmitt&Bender 1.1-4x24 Zenith scopes. The thing was that all the info I could get here in Norway stated that it had 3.5 inches of eye relief. Yet on the US S&B website, it said 3.7 inches. Naturally, I was a little confused. I had read on AR recently that the S&B scopes sold in the US were a so-called "Magnum Eye Relief" version.

As I learned from the pleasant conversation with Hans Bender, all the S&B scopes produced are the same no matter for what market. And he will be informing the webiste guys to have a look at what is written there. As he also mentioned, the Europeans often list the average eye relief when using a variable scope. While the US producers often list the maximum eye relief. So in reality, the figures you read in many brochures aren't always as rosy, or negative as the case may be, as it would seem.

From what I understood from him, when the 1.1-4x24 is set on 1.1, you actually can keep your eye 100.0mm (3.9 inches) from the scope. This isn't much worse than a Leopuld really. Yet with the S&B scope, your field of veiw is about 10 meters more at 100 meters. Which it appears to me that many European hunters value more than half an inch extra of eye relief.

All in all, since this forum is about European hunting, I think the need for super long eye relief is a bit exaggerated, unless when used on bigger stuff like a 458 Lott or 416 Rigby. Which is not commonly used on European game.

For Euro hunters using such calibres to hunt DG in Africa etc, I can see the usefullness of the Leupold long eye relief, but that is another matter IMO.

My take on Leupolds is that they are are pretty a decent scope, and probably ideal for American hunting conditions, ie sunrise to sunset.

However, by the time they get to a gundealer in Europe, several middle men have probably had a markup applied. The result of this is that the price differential between a Leupold and a Euro scope is much less here. By the time blokes like us get to buy one, they are relativly close - maybe 80% in price of the equivalent spec'd Euro scope.

Before Christmas past, I bought a S&B 3-12x50 illuminated reticule. A friend bought a Leupold VXIII 4-14x50 also illuminated. My scope cost about £160 more than the Leupold. During daylight, one could not say one is better than the other. However, once the sun set, the S&B came into its own. I cannot say in percentage terms how much better, but in my perception, certainly more than enough to justify the extra cash. Unlike the yanks, most of us don't own 30 rifles, so we will put the best we can afford on the few rifles we have.

quote:

Originally posted by meplat:

What is often lost in these 'my scope is better than your scope' discussions is that it's a rifle sight. We're not using our rifle sight for looking at stars, birdwatching or checking out the neighbor's teenage daughter. Great optical performance does not necessarily define a great rifle sight.

Thanks for stating this often-ignored fact, Meplat. You are exactly right that a riflescope's performance as a telescope is secondary to its overall performance as an optical gunsight. To be a useful and dependable optical gunsight, a scope must be (1) reasonably compact and lightweight, (2) have repeatable adjustments (3) have adequate eye relief and a generous window of eye placement, (4) be weathertight, (5) recoil resistant, (6) able to withstand some amount of external trauma, and preferably, (7) be attractive and have a durable finish that will last for many years.

Good optical glass is cheap these days, and therefore it's no trick to make a good, clear telescope. However, it takes both clever engineering and an in-depth understanding of rifle sighting (including hunting, targeting, and varminting) in order to build a good riflescope.

By and large, European-produced scopes have a reputation for excellent optics. However, they are almost always heavier and bulkier than is desirable, they typically have rather critical eye relief (not necessarily short, but rather a narrow window in which you see the full field), and also critical eye placement laterally. Most of them are also a bit more fragile than the very tough Leupold line.

Leupold, despite being relatively expensive in Europe, has been gaining ground with Euro shooters who are increasingly coming to recognize that scopes can not only provide you with an excellent sight picture, but can also be fast and easy to use.

There are a lot of good scopes available on today's market -- European, Asian, and American. But it is Leupold which has most often engineered its products to be the most useful optical gunsights available.

Stonecreek,

Funny my expirence with eyerelief has been opposite to yours..

I compared a Leupold M8 6x42mm and Swarovski 6x42mm side by side with a view of buying one of the scopes.

The Leupold did seem to have a slightly longer eye relief but this resulted in a noticably smaller FOV to the Swarovski. But I found the Leupold required critical eye placement..

What did it for me was the optical coatings on the glass..The Swarovski handled "difficult" light conditions far better than the Leupold..When the sun was low on the horizon, the Leupold tended to suffer from flare ect when looking in the general direction of it..Also the Swarovski was able to able to handle high contrast situations better...In one test, I was glassing into the dark shadow of garage about 40m away on a very sunny day...With the Leupold, I was aware "something" was hanging on the back wall, but when looking through the Swarovski I was able to see the "something" was a coil of hose pipe..If that had been a deer in the field bedded in deep shadow, I would have been able to see it with my bino's, but only the Swarovski scope would have let me take the shot...

Erik, 1894

Your observations on eye relief mirror by own. I think correct stock fit makes a huge difference in whether you take a wack in the eye for any given scope...A couple of years back I bought a Meopta 4x32mm for my 9.3x62mm and was intially worried as it "only" had 80mm of published eye relief...Even shooting prone either uphill or down, it turned out to be fine..It seems the standard stock on the CZ550 American fits me particularly well...

Regards,

Pete

My knowledge of hunting situations in France is probably not too different from those of Germany. Rifles are fired, in the majority of cases, either from a stand (for Roe and sometimes Stag) or on a line in a driven hunt (wild boar and sometimes stag). From a stand at dawn or dusk optical performance is everything, size and weight are lesser considerations. On driven game you see a lot of red dot type optical devices, not really rifle scopes. And, since the biggest caliber generally seen is the 9.3 X 62, with most calibers being moderately powered 7mm's or .30s, recoil is not much of an issue.

Since this forum likes to ask a ton of hypothetical questions, here's one: "If you could only own one scope for all your hunting, which would it be?" I would opt for a 1.5 - 6 X 42mm Schmidt&Bender.

I see a few, but generally in the minority in Germany. In fact, for drive hunts I have one that I switch off with a red dot sight, and another on a competition rifle, but both are daytime deals. As far as hunting at night, I fully trust the top Euro scopes.

Wink, my hypothetical answer would go to a Swarovski 3-12x50 illuminated red dot, though your choice is also mighty fine, Waidmannsheil, Dom.

Speaking for myself, I have three Leupolds on my rifles, 4.5-15x50 (25-06), 6-20x50 (22-250AI) and a 8.5-25x50 (6.5x284) all being the Mark 4's.

They compare IMHO very favourably to other similarly priced optics and for my kind of shooting, which is beyond "normal" UK stalking perameters, I find they work very well for what I do. Optically, they are very clear, show little fringing and have good light transmission until dusk, I find that the reticules are very precise, the only thing I find annoying is the locking ocular ring, I prefer the Euopean fast focus style.

I have to say though, that having owned Swarowski, Schmidt and Bender and other european fare, my next rifle, which is to be built very soon is going to have a Schmidt & Bender PM11 on top of it.

(I am allowed to change my mind after all!!)