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Rifle Scopes Nikon to stop making scopes???
- Thread starter JC0352
- Start date
Heard it on the facebook today. So, I ordered a couple FX1000 from euro optics for about $350. Dude I talked to on the phone had not heard about them stopping the scope lines, or maybe he had and didn't care to share. Oh well, I've always like the nikons for what they are and I'm sure I'll be happy with the FX.
As of January 1st they are officially out of the riflescope business. Made it official last week to their personnel
i looked through one at the range one time. Seemed like a pretty good scope for what it is
Will warranty support shut off completely also? My father has a scope that needs to go back for repair and I guess he should get on it!
Not that I use any of their shooting stuff but how do you make rifle optics and shooting accessories for years and then decide I no longer want to do it
Always thought their Prostaff rifle scopes were pretty good entry level hunting scopes, there LRFs sucked and nothing else they made has ever "wowed" me......JMO
I'd skip the rangefinder.
Doesn't surprise me. I'd bet they are upset the fx1000 was a flop since they picked a horribly flooded section of the market to begin with a real contender. Had their previous tactical lines been more successful I'd guess they would still be selling better.
I'd guess their cameras and binos make a good majority of the profit. Selling stuff to nature observers is always easy.
It's a shame since they were always solid entry level scopes. Great glass door the money, just never had decent reticles until the fx series.
Doesn't surprise me. I'd bet they are upset the fx1000 was a flop since they picked a horribly flooded section of the market to begin with a real contender. Had their previous tactical lines been more successful I'd guess they would still be selling better.
I'd guess their cameras and binos make a good majority of the profit. Selling stuff to nature observers is always easy.
It's a shame since they were always solid entry level scopes. Great glass door the money, just never had decent reticles until the fx series.
i know it was just a bullet point review (if I remember correctly) but Frank had good things to say about them initially. Honestly if i could range steel with it consistently inside of 1200 I’d be happy.
Nice. Good to know that my idiotic decision before I became a member of The Hide is now amplified with my POS X1000 SFP, stiff-knobbed, no-tracking, $500 wonder is now worth about $100. Live and learn, I guess. I wised up quickly once the education started here and I now have a NF ATACR on my RPR. Not sure why, but this whole thing just pisses me off.
Sig is the only game on town for the budget rangefinder. When you see a kilo 2200 under $400 grab one. They flat out work.
My guess it's not profitable any more. The scope market has more players now than ever. I have multiple Nikon scopes from rimfire to an x1000 never had an issue with any of them. I always thought dollar for dollar in their segments their glass looked better than competition. Their warranty looked to be a pia if it was needed. Having to make sure you had warranty card and receipt. Either way I agree competition benefits the consumer.
guess if its a life time warranty the life time is about up .
Cabelas had their Kilo 2200LRH "exclusive" model on sale for $350 a few months back. Works pretty well...I was able to range a radio tower at over 1400m.
My only complaints for the cabelas kilo 2200LRH version is that it doesn't have auto brightness control for the internal display and the Applied Ballistics on-board solver only gives solutions to 800yd which limits its usefulness to me.
How does the saying go......."Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door" Unfortunately Nikon didn't do that with their late to the game FX series scopes as someone already mentioned the market is already flooded with entry level scopes. Now if Nikon had came out with something top tier on a level with ZCO, TT, NF, S&B at a decent price maybe they would sell like hot cakes maybe not.
That's odd, as the 2400 abs was about $1400 last I looked. I'd hope they neutered it to sell at that price.
I use strelok for ballistics. As long as you give it good info it has proven amazingly accurate for me.
I think Nikon screwed themselves by not upping their game. They came out with the new FX1000 scope, made it 4x power. instead of putting glass/erectors of 5,6, even 8x power in them. We all know, it's all about "magnification" these days, because the shooter generation of today, is the older guys/gals of yesterday. As far as warranty issues with Nikon, I sent two scopes in, got two new scopes back, then sent one back in and they sent me another new one back. All this took place in a 3 week time span and I used no cards or registration (did call them tho). I'll admit, it was 3 weeks of my life I can't get back, but I was still working at the time, so no time sitting around twiddling my thumbs, so no big deal. Mac
IMO, Nikon was late to the market for their tactical line up and the market was already saturated by then.
Ha, I remember being at Shot Show quite a few years ago and I went to the Burris booth asking if they had any tactical scopes in FFP and mil/mil. The reps I talked to grinned at me like a smashed cat on the highway, replying - what's FFP mil/mil??? They got in this market just in time, within 2 years, IIRC.
I'd be very concerned about parts availability in the not to distant future for Nikon. Once those parts run out they cannot further repair the scopes.
Ha, I remember being at Shot Show quite a few years ago and I went to the Burris booth asking if they had any tactical scopes in FFP and mil/mil. The reps I talked to grinned at me like a smashed cat on the highway, replying - what's FFP mil/mil??? They got in this market just in time, within 2 years, IIRC.
I'd be very concerned about parts availability in the not to distant future for Nikon. Once those parts run out they cannot further repair the scopes.
Nikon made affordable, lightweight, durable scopes you could walk into a big box store and buy right off the shelf. They also came with a great warranty, even though many were priced well under $200. While this may not be a brand members here care about, it's a major loss for the average consumer.
What bothers me the most about this is that the brands we 'approve' of, like Vortex, will now step in to fill the void left by Nikon with China made scopes. I'd much rather see our money go to an ally country than to a potential enemy.
What bothers me the most about this is that the brands we 'approve' of, like Vortex, will now step in to fill the void left by Nikon with China made scopes. I'd much rather see our money go to an ally country than to a potential enemy.
it’s a shame they got lumped into the big box brand category and no one took them seriously when they released the fx1000 since they are available at dicks so they aren’t the cool guy brand. I’ve run mine since last October and it’s been solid with tracking out to 1150ish, glass is nice for the price point and everything just seems to work.
It’s a shame as a long time scope manufacture that they couldn’t pick up on what the customers were demanding / wanting before it was too late. They got nobody to blame but themselves.....IMO
The Fx1000 doesn’t look bad, especially with the clearance sales that will be occurring now, however my experience dealing with Nikon warranty scares me on discontinued product line. I worked as the warranty guy at a three location sporting goods chain, and of all brands Nikon was one of the worst to get things fixed. They even shipped us boxes of new optics one time, every one faulty out of the box, pieces falling off, and then denied the initial replacement requests.
I had a Nikon Monarch hunting scope one time and I ordered the custom ballistic turrets for it. The custom turrets were taller than the factory turrets and I just assumed they came with new taller caps they even showed the taller caps in a picture with the custom turrets on their website. Anyway I called them up and the CS rep said no the taller caps have to be purchased separately. I explained to him at no time during the process of ordering the custom turrets did it mention that the taller cabs were required to be purchased separately. The person was kind of rude and said that if I wanted them I would have to pay for them separately. At the time I was on a different forum and I happened to mention what happened in a thread. One of their pro staffers was also a member of the forum and he sent me a PM asking for my information saying that he would take care of it and send me the taller caps free of charge. He did and the guy was super nice I cannot remember his name. Anyway the point of my story is sometimes company’s cannot see the forest for the trees when it comes to customer service and PR.
I can agree with that, but they also don’t have the name or market position to push a higher end price point to deliver everything people want but I’ll admit it would of been easy to offer a christmas tree reticle
I hate to see any company get out of the gun arena but they havn't made any secrets about NIKON corporate being somewhat "anti-gun". All in all I don't think its a huge loss to the shooting community. Most of their product line hasn't been updated in years, so the writing was pretty much on the wall it was happening sooner rather than later.
I forget how long ago exactly, I'm going to say ~15 years ago, but Nikon got a rep for making some nice reasonably prices scopes, when Leupold was at it's low, and there wasn't much else for competition unless you spent a lot of $. Leupold has rebounded some, there's now vortex, and 10 other companies at least, making sub $1000 scopes and Nikon never really evolved. I think the FX line was too little too late, because again now the market is saturated with $500-$1000 scope offerings.
In general since Trump it's been a tough market for a lot of gun companies, the "Trump Slump" for guns sales is very real. It's the reason the SHOT show the last 3-4 has basically been a joke of "Hey look we made the same thing in a new color!" I'd bet a lot of gun companies can't wait for the election panic buying to start.
Didn't know Nikon trended to anti-gun, I've always felt the same about Swarovski. For a long time their rifle scopes/hunting gear was nowhere to be found on their main website pages and all their marketing, even after Swarovski became very popular for hunting, was all nature/bird watching orientated and seemed to very much try and downplay any hunting relationship. Even now if you go to Swarvoski's main page it starts you in their birding area.
In general since Trump it's been a tough market for a lot of gun companies, the "Trump Slump" for guns sales is very real. It's the reason the SHOT show the last 3-4 has basically been a joke of "Hey look we made the same thing in a new color!" I'd bet a lot of gun companies can't wait for the election panic buying to start.
Didn't know Nikon trended to anti-gun, I've always felt the same about Swarovski. For a long time their rifle scopes/hunting gear was nowhere to be found on their main website pages and all their marketing, even after Swarovski became very popular for hunting, was all nature/bird watching orientated and seemed to very much try and downplay any hunting relationship. Even now if you go to Swarvoski's main page it starts you in their birding area.
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Nikon does not make scopes. Nikon has not made scopes in many, many years.
What Nikon does is brand scopes. That is not necessarily a bad thing. Finding the measure of the market, choosing features, and working with retailers, and handling customer service are all important things and companies can provide great scopes that do not actually manufacture them. However, it is very different to stop branding scopes than to stop making them as you have no factories to re-purpose, close, or otherwise deal with. It is very easy to stop branding scopes just as it is very easy to start doing so.
This explains some things on the Black FX1000 6-24x50 I was reviewing.
What Nikon does is brand scopes. That is not necessarily a bad thing. Finding the measure of the market, choosing features, and working with retailers, and handling customer service are all important things and companies can provide great scopes that do not actually manufacture them. However, it is very different to stop branding scopes than to stop making them as you have no factories to re-purpose, close, or otherwise deal with. It is very easy to stop branding scopes just as it is very easy to start doing so.
This explains some things on the Black FX1000 6-24x50 I was reviewing.
Jim is correct.
Nikon slowly got rid of all of their higher end products and consolidated their production to a couple of OEMs in the Phillipines. For a little while about 15-20 years ago they sold a solid no-frills product in a rather slow moving market.
What worked for them was that they never tried to innovate. They waited for someone else to open up a niche in the market and work with an OEM to develop the capability to make a particular product. Then Nikon would move in, promise the OEM larger volumes and try to flood that niche with less expensive product, since they did not have any R&D expenses. That's the so-ca;;ed "second comer" advantage.
With the market changing fairly rapidly and with people looking for something newer and better all the time, Nikon's business model simply did not work any more. For Nikon, "newer and better" meant "snazzier marketing and new cosmetic treatment". There is a reason there was an exodus of people from Nikon who actually made things happen. How do you think we got Tract? or newly re-energized Meopta (the guy who runs Meopta USA used to tun Nikon USA)?
Nikon overall is really not doing well in every consumer market they are in. Their cameras are losing market share quite rapidly and the only business where they make money is semiconductor.
ILya
Nikon slowly got rid of all of their higher end products and consolidated their production to a couple of OEMs in the Phillipines. For a little while about 15-20 years ago they sold a solid no-frills product in a rather slow moving market.
What worked for them was that they never tried to innovate. They waited for someone else to open up a niche in the market and work with an OEM to develop the capability to make a particular product. Then Nikon would move in, promise the OEM larger volumes and try to flood that niche with less expensive product, since they did not have any R&D expenses. That's the so-ca;;ed "second comer" advantage.
With the market changing fairly rapidly and with people looking for something newer and better all the time, Nikon's business model simply did not work any more. For Nikon, "newer and better" meant "snazzier marketing and new cosmetic treatment". There is a reason there was an exodus of people from Nikon who actually made things happen. How do you think we got Tract? or newly re-energized Meopta (the guy who runs Meopta USA used to tun Nikon USA)?
Nikon overall is really not doing well in every consumer market they are in. Their cameras are losing market share quite rapidly and the only business where they make money is semiconductor.
ILya
Couldn't that be said for the vast majority of "scope companies" these days though, even new popular ones? Especially those priced under say $1000. How many are really building scopes from scratch with in-house designs -vs- just ordering from OEM houses that are making scopes for a dozen other "scope companies".
Sure using OEM houses makes starting/stopping something much easier and less impact, but it seems like it has to go beyond that otherwise all these other new popular companies would be tanking as well. What I've seen over and over, doesn't matter of it's optics, clothing, bikes, etc. is that when a company gets too big, it invariably loses control of itself, quality suffers, decisions are made purely on investor $'s, usually right after someone large buys them out. This can even be good for the company, but bad for the customer, until after a few years the customer figures it out what is going on.
Arcteryx is a great example, used to all be made in Canada, top notch stuff, got bought by Salomon, then again by Amer Sports, moved most production to China, Philippines, Vietnam, Bangladesh, El Salvador, Laos etc. Their stuff is still good, but not as good, prices of course not only stayed the same but went up. Same thing happened to mountain hardware when Columbia bought them, and North Face when VF bought them. The real trick is to find the top companies before they get too big, as soon as someone is owned by a big investor group, it's time to find another company to support because the last thing those groups have in mind, is product quality.
Sure using OEM houses makes starting/stopping something much easier and less impact, but it seems like it has to go beyond that otherwise all these other new popular companies would be tanking as well. What I've seen over and over, doesn't matter of it's optics, clothing, bikes, etc. is that when a company gets too big, it invariably loses control of itself, quality suffers, decisions are made purely on investor $'s, usually right after someone large buys them out. This can even be good for the company, but bad for the customer, until after a few years the customer figures it out what is going on.
Arcteryx is a great example, used to all be made in Canada, top notch stuff, got bought by Salomon, then again by Amer Sports, moved most production to China, Philippines, Vietnam, Bangladesh, El Salvador, Laos etc. Their stuff is still good, but not as good, prices of course not only stayed the same but went up. Same thing happened to mountain hardware when Columbia bought them, and North Face when VF bought them. The real trick is to find the top companies before they get too big, as soon as someone is owned by a big investor group, it's time to find another company to support because the last thing those groups have in mind, is product quality.
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Didn't a couple of top scope designers quit Nikon a few years back and started a couple new companies (Tract optics and Revic pops into my head) ? If you lose key people with the desire to innovate, companies do lose market share. That said I admit I proudly own 6 different Nikon models which have never ever given me 1 problem. Have I ever had to use Nikon warranty? Not once, but I read here on the forum daily complaints and scope problems from high dollar scopes other forum members are using. I am sorry to see Nikon go away but there many other options out there to pick from.
Well, hopefully they will honor warranties for years to come. If so, it might be a good time to grab a FX for a beater rifle as long as it tracks. The glass is decent enough, especially at a good discount. They always were about 10 years late to a party. Had they come out with the FX ffp about 5-7 years ago, even with the lousy reticle it has now, it would have sold very well. Had they come out last year with a much better reticle and magnification range, it might have done better, but it’s too late now.
When I got back into the shooting game ( at 55 y.o.), my first real truly variable scope, was a Nikon 4x16. I thought I hit the "jackpot", because the last time I looked thru a scope, was when I was 17 years old and it was a 4x Weaver, on a lever action 308 Win.. I thought the optics was very good, only because of the magnification, but what did I know? When I did have issues with my first purchase, Nikon took care of it. When I had my second issue, I called Nikon and 4 days later, I had a new and upgraded scope in my hands and all it took was one phone call. Told them what I would be willing to upgrade to and they sent me what I wanted, free of charge. Upon further research, I found out that Nikon scopes were manufactured in the Philippines.
Mac
Mac
Love their camera gear but never thought much of their sport optics, kind of like Leupold, they are good and have some decent stuff but nothing ground shaking, certainly nothing to compete with the big 3 (Swarovski, Leica, Zeiss). In an increasingly flooded market with lots of competition, I'm guessing Nikon realized they could no longer be competitive. Maybe their FX line was their last hope to try and get "back into the game" but with so many other sub $1k optics hitting the market they just couldn't get enough of the share.
We may never know all the reasons why, but sad to see them leave sport optics as they are a good brand.
We may never know all the reasons why, but sad to see them leave sport optics as they are a good brand.
The opening page of the 2019 Nikon catalog (PDF) sure tried to give the opposite impression, at least about the glass. But I guess they never actually say they make the glass.
>For over 100 years, the guiding principle behind every Nikon
product has been to engineer it from the inside out and create an optical system specific to the function of the product and to the needs of the user. As one of the few makers of optical glass in the world, Nikon has the advantage of being able to specify and select the exact type of glass, lens geometry and multi- coatings needed to optimize the optical performance of any given optic. The result is what we call our “Glass First Principle,” and it applies to every binocular, riflescope, fieldscope and laser rangefinder that bears the Nikon brand.
I always thought when Nikon went from having lets say 5 models of scopes to cheaper/spin-off models of those 5 model of scopes that it would be a slow death of Nikon......I have a monarch 3-12x42 w/ bdc from 2007-2008 that is a good clear scope but that was/would be the last Nikon I would ever buy, from what I remember shortly after that fov and quality imo went to hell in their rifle scopes.
D
Deleted member 10043
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"TTAG spoke to Nikon’s advertising agency who confirmed the news. We’re told that this is a business decision Nikon has made based on their position in the highly competitive optics market."
Www.thetruthaboutguns.com/nikon-is-exiting-the-rifle-scope-business/amp/
Www.thetruthaboutguns.com/nikon-is-exiting-the-rifle-scope-business/amp/
No big loss, Nikon has been junk since they discontinued the Japanese lines years ago. Those scopes were pretty solid.
