I’ll bite. Why the bias against leupold?
I'll attempt to make this as short as possible.
I understand that all mechanical things have their limits and that lemons exist from every brand.
First reason for my bias,
When I was still running around with dudes as a job, there were two independent snipers from different groups that told me they no longer run the Leupolds from their armories because it's been verified that they loose zero noticeably easier than the other scopes they had. I also had two snipers that were a part of my task force who said pretty much the same thing. I've also had Marine snipers tell me they had broken their Leupolds, so they just leave them on the shelf and run their NF's. Granted they also broke their S&B turrets because they didn't remember how the locking mechanism worked, lol. I personally had a Mk4 on one of my service riffles at one point in time when I was acting as a DM and I was convince it had a slight wondering zero, though I never had a chance to confirm it.
Limitations of the above,
That was all about 10-14 years ago and largely unverifiable hearsay. I also didn't know a tenth of what I know now about optics and long range shooting back then. The military doesn't make one an expert in anything, despite what the frog dudes would have people think from their war story novels they've been so good at writing the last decade. No offense to the BUD's graduates on here.
Second reason,
Over the last decade, I've dabbled a bit in competition shooting. I done everything from two gun, to DMR types, to long range types, to centerfire biathlons [run'n'guns], etc... I've seen first hand how these guys treat their stuff, how they zero, the ammo they use, etc...
Though two gun guys think they abuse their guns by "throwing them in a barrel" for their secondary transition, that is not abuse. Modern scopes should hold zero despite that. They also might "reconfirm" their zero or re-zero before every match because they change ammo types/lots so often or because they don't trust that their gun is still in zero.
Guys that run optics in centerfire biathlons know that they're testing their gear, and some things that two gun guys get away with will not hold up in a run'n'gun.
Knowing the above, my standard minimum is that if I buy 2,000rds of ammo in one lot that when I go to confirm zero after a centerfire biathlon, my rifle will still be zeroed through those two cases. I can tell you that things with gold rings on them have not held this standard for me or for other people that I know who have tried to go through even one whole case while training hard for run'n'guns.
Some might say that standard is too high, but it is apparently obtainable with NF, ZCO, Steiner [of all companies], and my Aimpoint RD's.
*If you buy different ammo all the time and are constantly re-zeroing, then this whole message doesn't apply to you. Go out and buy a Monstrum and re-zero every time you go to the range.*
No apologies
