Re: whats wrong with leupold?
I had a buddy whos dad is color blind. One day we were sitting there talking, another friend of mine asked him "well what color is blue to you?", he answered with "blue". The guy asked him again, "no no no, what color is blue to you?" He again answered "blue". He couldn't get his brain to wrap around the fact that, even though this guy was color blind, blue was still "blue" to him, it may not be "blue" to us, but it was "blue" to him. It was his interpretation of "blue".
My point is, all of our eyes are different. When dealing with lens quality of a scope, the perceived image is going to differ from one person to another and is highly subjective based on our own individual eyes.
All I use are Leupold scopes now. I also think Nikon, Vortex, and many others make very passable scopes. To me though, the Leupolds I have compared to others have always come out on top. (Note, I have not compared them to many of the very high end stuff because I simply cannot afford names like S&B, NF, or USO.....why tease myself.)
Would I rather have one of the higher end scopes like NF? Yes. They have some "bells and whistles" that the Leupys dont have that I would like to take advantage of. But I can get Leupolds at a pretty significant discount, and they do everything ive ever asked them to do. I cannot afford a $1500+ scope NO MATTER WHO makes it.
When people ask me what scope to buy, I tell them I prefer Leupold. But I also tell them to look through as many brands/models as they can get their hands on. Buy what looks best through THEIR eyes, spend what THEY can afford to spend, and tell everyone else to sod off.