Rifle Scopes Country of manufacture of several brands?

adrian44

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Sep 4, 2013
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Seems like my information on this subject is pretty old. Was talking to someone and told him that Zeiss scopes were only made in Germany and USA, but I was told that they are now made in Asia as well!

Speaking of rifle scopes, what countries are the following brands being made or assembled in currently?

Schmidt & Bender
Zeiss
Swarovski
Kahles
Leica
Steiner
Nikon

Any information on outsourced lenses or other parts in any of them is a great addition. Thank you :)
 
Schmidt & Bender- Germany
Zeiss- Germany
Swarovski- Austria
Kahles- Austria
Leica- Germany
Steiner- Germany
Nikon- Japan

All of the finest scopes are
 
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I can tell you for sure that all Schmidt Bender scopes are assembled in Germany with the exception of the Hungary hunting line which of course is built in Hungary in our own facility under strict supervision by qualified German trained technicians.

Aside from the service center here in the US we also have one in Switzerland as well.
 
I believe it really depends on the scope or the line of scopes, and not the brand. Bushnell probably sources scopes from a number of different countries for example. Night force has scopes built in the US and also coming from Japan. It really all depends.
 
As batex said - many, many companies source from more than one country. And even knowing the country doesn't give you the whole story on quality - i.e. there are few German scopes that are junk, but some are just good while others are fantastic. Most Japanese scopes are at least good, some are just OK, some are fantastic. Etc. You need to just look up the specific scopes you're interested in.

Looking at Cramey's proposed list:

Schmidt & Bender- Germany - yes
Zeiss- Germany - NO - only some, others are USA or China (Terra line)
Swarovski- Austria
Kahles- Austria
Leica- Germany
Steiner- Germany - only some - others are USA
Nikon- Japan - NO - most are Philippines, only a few (Monarch X?) are Japan

I'll add:
SWFA SS - all Japan, but two different factories (LOW and ?Kenko?)
Weaver - mostly Japan, but some (Kaspa?) are China
Bushnell - mostly Japan (some lower price models may be other Asia)
Leupold - scopes are all US (not sure that's true of non-riflescope Leupold products)
Redfield - Revolution is US, others are Philippines
Vortex - sources from China, Philippines and Japan depending on scope model

Burris - most or all are now Asia, mostly Philippines; historically higher end models (Euro Diamond, Black Diamond, XTR gen1) were made in USA but I think all of those are discontinued (also note that Burris and Steiner are both owned by Beretta and have side by side facilities in Colorado, where warranty service is done for both, and manufacture of some Steiner models)

Nightforce - above info is correct, but my understanding is that all Nightforce scopes have some Japanese components and some work done in their USA factory, the "Made in" label applied to a given Nightforce scope depends on the relative proportions of US and Japan content in that model

etc.
 
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