Rifle Scopes SCHMIDT AND BENDER LITHIUM GREASE spatter PROBLEM

[THE SENTINEL]

SCHMIDT AND BENDER LITHIUM GREASE spatter PROBLEM ***SO YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO IF YOU GOT IT!

08-05-2017, 09:09 PM
I bought a new Schmidt and Bender 5x25x56 in march I had it on mt 300 Norma Mag .I had what look to be water spots on the inside of the glass .I contacted Schmidt and Bender in Virginia .The service tech sent me a UPS label I sent it back.the first part of June.The scope was clear again no problems.I mounted the scope on my 6.5 creedmoor I started breaking the barrel in on my rifle.I had 100 rounds through the rifle.I was back to the range Friday morning I looked through the scope a big circle in the bottom right of the scope and a small one on the left side .I contacted Schmidt and Bender again in Virginia .The tech said Germany had changed the type of lube they are using in the scope.They started having problems with spatter on the glass.So now my scope is on its way back again.The tech said my scope was the second one he had seen with lithium grease spatter on the inside of the glass.So if you get a new scope and it has spatter on the glass call Schmidt and bender.

 

[kujuak]

???? I could of swore there were a lot of replies to this earlier today. Comments about problem scopes being in hot situations and several people had similar problem and last comment I read was from a guy who had a more recently purchased scope without the problem??? is there another thread about this problem on here about this issue?

 

[THE SENTINEL]

I had to delete thread because of bad posts we want to keep this thread Positive so anyone can get the information they need.I have contacted the MOD about the bad posts from the last thread .

 

[drglock]

I had one of scopes that had the spatter
on the inside if the lens . Contacted S&B in Virginia and told them my problem. They were very nice and promptly emailed me a shipping label and told me they would get on it once it arrived.

This is what the spatter on my scope looks like.

 

[kujuak]

I had to delete thread because of bad posts we want to keep this thread Positive so anyone can get the information they need.I have contacted the MOD about the bad posts from the last thread .

Thanks! I thought I was suffering from heat stroke!Twilight Zone type phenomenon.Old coots like me are subject to brain fades, but that was a total brain circuit failure.

 

[Sheldon N]

Mine's at S+B right now getting fixed for the same issue. They were great to deal with on the phone, had a return shipping label immediately. Mine was purchased in May of this year, shot a couple matches with it in warm weather - don't know if there's a correlation there or not. I didn't notice it early on since the spots were at the outer edge of the image and you couldn't see them unless you zoomed out below 10 power.

 

[THE SENTINEL]

My scope was repaired yesterday and shipped on its way back now.Great turn around

 

[vh20]

As I said in the original thread, I have two PMII 5x25s I purchased recently, both identical - DT turrets, H2CMR reticles, milrad, CCW. Scope #1 was purchased last June or July and it immediately replaced a Leupold on a 338 Norma Magnum. It has several hundred rounds on it since then. Scope #2 was purchased just before Christmas, but I had to wait for the smith to finish the rifle and it was finally mounted in March. It has over 500 rounds (maybe closer to 1000) on it since then.

Scope #1 is NOT affected with this issue, but Scope #2 definitely IS. As Sheldon said, it is not apparent until you get down near 10x and below, which is a range I rarely use, so I had no idea the problem was there until I turned the mag down and looked for it.

 

[THE SENTINEL]

My scope is back crystal clear ,I will remount it and rezero this weekend

 

[drglock]

Mine arrived at there location on Thursday I called them on Friday afternoon just to see if they had any idea on how long this would take. I was told that there where several scopes ahead of me and he wasn't sure of how long it would take. I then explained to him that this was a brand new scope that had only been used once and he said that changes things then. He put a note on it and said he'd personally let Jerry know first thing Monday. Hopefully they get back with me Monday morning and I can get my scope a little sooner , especially since it's the only scope I own at the moment.

 

[Sheldon N]

Hey! No cutting in line!

LOL.. I'll be alright, I've got my other Schmidt to shoot at the moment. Hopefully they have mine back soon, they've only had it a week.

 

[raven88]

I got a new S&B PM2 5x25 MSR about a month ago.....no issues so far.....some very hot range sessions....200 rounds ......... thanks for the "heads up"

 

[CAGLS]

Purchased a PMII 3-20x50 Ultra Short P4 fine MTC LT CCW Mrad scope in the Pantone finish on July 22, 2017 from EuroOptics.com during their moving sale. Took awhile to get my Spuhr QD mount because I bought a different brand mount that didn't fit the tube so I returned it and was waiting for a refund. Got the refund and ordered the Sphur mount, got it on Aug. 5th and leveled it to my pic rail with bubble levels and the 10 degree insert tool that comes with the Spuhr mount to level it to the bottom of the scope and torqued the rings to S&B recommended spec 18". Took it to zero at the range on Monday Aug 7th. Yesterday while in my garage looking through the scope I noticed a translucent circle what looks like liquid with a black spec in the middle. It's approx 4 Mils to the left and 1 Mil up of the reticle above the thick left bar most noticeable at 5x. Zooming out beyond that it moves to the outer left edge of the reticle and gets out of the way but I bought this scope because of the wide FOV at 3x.

Talked to both Mark @ S&B USA and Jason @ EuroOptics both gave me the S&B service number. Talked to Brenda and basically told me SB Germany had changed the internal lubrication for the assembly which started causing this to happen internally on their scopes. Since then they switch to another lubricant that doesn't do this. She told me she would remove all of the lubricant and re lubricate with a different type that doesn't do this. S&B should have recalled the scopes assembled with this lubricant so it doesn't even get to the consumers.

As you can see the scope hasn't even been in use for more than a week since I didn't get the mount till Aug 5th and sighting the scope in on Aug 7th. It would've been nice if EuroOptics swapped it out even though it's past their 15 day return policy. It's been mounted but in my eyes it has a defect so it should be an exception. So Brenda emailed a shipping label and because of being such a new scope she will have it sent in and back using UPS 3 day select. Still sucks though, for a high end scope to do this which is why we spend the premium price to have the best clarity out of the German Schott glass. Even though it doesn't affect function consumers should not have to let it go and accept that flaw.

 

[Sheldon N]

Got my return shipping notification today for my fixed scope being sent back to me. They quoted me 4 weeks for the repair, but only had it 2 weeks in their shop. Looking forward to having it back in hand soon.

 

[THE SENTINEL]

I am on the fence on selling mine I bought a Vortex Razor and like it allot ,

 

[drglock]

Got my return shipping notification today for my fixed scope being sent back to me. They quoted me 4 weeks for the repair, but only had it 2 weeks in their shop. Looking forward to having it back in hand soon.

Same here, got my shipping notification today as well.

 

[CAGLS]

Talked to Jerry this morning to verify they recieved my scope and find out where I'm at in their work que. Since the scope is so new he's pulling it to work on this week.

 

[drglock]

Got my scope back today, hopefully I can have time to take it out this weekend and get some rounds through my rifle. Hopefully it is all taken care of.

 

[CAGLS]

Mine's on it's way back. I hope the gave it an impact test so ai don't have to send it back for the same issue.

 

[GtiX]

On July 24 bought a Schmidt and Bender PMII 12-50x56 P P4Fine MT CW FFP, mounted on a Steyr ss08 300 win mag on Agust 3, today when i got back from the range, looked through the scope and noticed like a "water drop", it goes bigger when zoom in, and smaller when zoom out, honestly, i bought this scope thinking that i'd never have any issue, so far the optic was great, but this dissapointed me a lot, contacted S&B but didn't get any reply so far.

 

[drglock]

I've had mine out twice since getting it back from the repair center. So far so good .

 

[CAGLS]

On July 24 bought a Schmidt and Bender PMII 12-50x56 P P4Fine MT CW FFP, mounted on a Steyr ss08 300 win mag on Agust 3, today when i got back from the range, looked through the scope and noticed like a "water drop", it goes bigger when zoom in, and smaller when zoom out, honestly, i bought this scope thinking that i'd never have any issue, so far the optic was great, but this dissapointed me a lot, contacted S&B but didn't get any reply so far.

Contact S B service center (540) 450-8132

 

[cageli]

Question: do you need to pay shipping either way? Not trying to be sarcastic but many makers don't cover shipping even it's not users fault.

 

[Sheldon N]

Nope, they sent me a prepaid label and took care of return shipping too. I think it was 3 day service as well, better than ground when going coast to coast.

 

[Sogan]

Sounds like S&B is promptly taking care of the issue. Always good to hear

 

[dirthead1]

I'm going to resurrect this thread. Just received a PMII 5-25x56 last week. After the first range session, noticed 2 translucent spots on the lenses. One is only visible at 10x or below, as it moves out of the picture above that. The other seems a constant size and position, just low and left of center, regardless of magnification. Emailed S&B over the weekend. They responded early this morning with a UPS 2 day shipping label. I'll update when I get the scope back.

For you guys that have received your scopes back from S&B..............any more issues after the repair?

 

[scudzuki]

I only had one experience with S&B USA years back but Jerry R fixed my PMII 5-25 fast and had it back to me equally fast. S&B USA service is top notch in my experience.
Vortex, too.

 

[Sheldon N]

So it looks like I'm sending my scope back to S+B for a round two cleaning.

Couple hundred rounds in since they first serviced it and the spatter is back. Talked to Jerry at the service center and the first few scopes they fixed they were just cleaning the grease out of the turrets and they had a few come back. They've since switched to a more thorough procedure where they clean everything inside the scope. Apparently that will do the trick and none of those have needed to be serviced again. Fingers crossed.

 

[dirthead1]

So it looks like I'm sending my scope back to S+B for a round two cleaning.

Couple hundred rounds in since they first serviced it and the spatter is back. Talked to Jerry at the service center and the first few scopes they fixed they were just cleaning the grease out of the turrets and they had a few come back. They've since switched to a more thorough procedure where they clean everything inside the scope. Apparently that will do the trick and none of those have needed to be serviced again. Fingers crossed.

I got my scope back about a week ago and have around 80 rounds through it since cleaning, with no recurrence of the spots as of yet.

 

[avalanche]

I've just had the same problem with my S&B. Lovely glass, but now with this issue, I wish I'd just gone with a Vortex Razor 2. Least I'd know they'd contact me back... Not to mention being in Australia, the likely turn around time will be measured in months, not weeks.

 

[WuYen]

Sorry for the resurrection but I have the same issue to report. Only had the scope for about a month, really disappointing after dropping a couple grand to have an issue so soon. QC should have picked up this issue before the scopes went out or r&d should have been better in their use of grease. We’ll see how long it takes.

 

[adavis1138]

Sorry for resurrecting this, my S&B had three spots show up during today’s range session. Not the end of the world but this is a hunting scope and I’m three weeks from the woods. Can this issue cause any other negative affects other than the occluded glass?

 

[VargmatII]

I have also been affected by this and as I write this my 5-25x56 PM2 is beeing serviced.

Schmidt has been very helpful in the matter and sent a delivery firm to pick the scope up, and I hope to have it back soon.

And while I am a bit bummed to be affected, I am sure that Schmidt will take care of it. And when I consider the bigger picture, my BMW also needs service from time to time so I cant really fault my Schmidt for needing som TLC at the factory too.