Leupold VS Bushnell VS Zeiss

I've had three of the original Conquest scopes and loved them, great glass, tough constant 4" eye relief and I actually love the plastic caps.

HAve had a few 4 series Bushnell Elites which I liked, but wouldn't put one on a big kicker, not enough eye relief.

Have run a few Leupolds, had an FX11 6x40 for a while, a couple of VX11 and an older Vari-x 111 with a special German #4a reticle which I liked. I always found th eLeupy's to flare on me occasionally and found the eye relief of the variables a bit finicky.

So for me in order Zeiss, High end Bushnell then Leupold, then I have never had any of the breakdown.
 
I've had a few bushnells, & got a couple of the Leupolds scope, love them, never tried the Zeiss YET.
 
I'll concede the glass on the zeiss is sharp and clear. What I didn't like was the weight. I've owned them all. The bushnell elites are good, can't beat the raingaurd. A few years ago if you went through a couple 6-24 elites, you could find one that was outstanding. They all suffer from narrow eyebox at or near max magnification. They are way too heavy for a hunting rig imo. I've been stuck on illumination for the past few years after owning a couple 50mm nightforce scopes, other than weight and the rotating eyepiece I found these to be without flaws.

My current rig sports a vx6 3-18x44. 19 ounces with 30mm tube, CDS option (now available with zero lock), Side parallax, fire dot illum with motion sensor (battery lasts forever even if you forget it's on), great zoom range and works with Leupold alumina caps (best thing since sliced bread). I shot a coyote at 364 yards just after legal light, it was cloudy and snowing. No shot whatsoever without the firedot. The firedot controls are combined in the side focus dial, none of that stupid switch on the eyepiece that your ball cap hits evertytime.

The zeiss 3-15 may have a SLIGHT edge, and has side focus, but is lacking a lot of other features. If weight is of concern, Leupold is the best choice.

If I had a gripe about the vx6, they are selling for what you can buy used nightforce for, I feel like they should be priced around $1100.
 
If you are looking at the $1000-1500 range why not look at options like Trijicon, Swarovski, Steiner, Leica, Etc... I was just shopping for a nice mid range scope online reading reviews and looking at all the info on this site. In the end I decided to try a Swarovski Z3 after comparing the reviews and looking at things like eye relief and weight is seemed like the best option in the price range to me.
 
Just for my own personal curiosity as I read through this thread, I noticed a couple of guys mentioned "Rainguard". Do you feel this is a good product to add to a scope? From my experience Sunlight dish detergent will do the same thing. Tiny dab on the back eye piece will eliminate any exterior fog. However the "Rain" part of the rain guard is generally because the glass isn't buffed well enough to shed water. The water molecules stick to the glass, you'll notice (and this is coming from my camera background) that any high quality glass never advertises something like Rainguard and if you actually put water on the lens it'll just run right off. Heck, I remember back in the day when the Pentax reps (before I was a rep myself) would put out cigarettes on their lenses to show how tough their coatings were. Than wash it off. Always just strikes me as odd that Bushnell sells this as a "feature" wherein it shouldn't be an issue on most scopes to begin with.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming...
 
The following is just my opinion based on my experience. Leupold is nice. Zeiss is better. I run both. Prefer the Zeiss, but am in no rush to change the Leupold to Zeiss. They work just fine for their intended purposes. My hunting rigs wear Zeiss, as those shots are critical, and hunting trips are expensive.

Thanks,
Cal.
 
The thing I like about Leupold is their warranty. I have had to use it 3 times now and each time it was a pleasure to deal with them. No questions asked, the problems where taken care of,even after admitting the problems where due to my own ignorance. As far as I can tell Leupold is the only one that has a transferable warranty too so you can pick one up in the EE and still not have to worry about anything. I have owned bunch of Leupolds and have hunted them hard and have never seen had any issues with clarity or fogging.
 
Nikon Travis M. said:
Just for my own personal curiosity as I read through this thread, I noticed a couple of guys mentioned "Rainguard". Do you feel this is a good product to add to a scope? From my experience Sunlight dish detergent will do the same thing. Tiny dab on the back eye piece will eliminate any exterior fog. However the "Rain" part of the rain guard is generally because the glass isn't buffed well enough to shed water. The water molecules stick to the glass, you'll notice (and this is coming from my camera background) that any high quality glass never advertises something like Rainguard and if you actually put water on the lens it'll just run right off. Heck, I remember back in the day when the Pentax reps (before I was a rep myself) would put out cigarettes on their lenses to show how tough their coatings were. Than wash it off. Always just strikes me as odd that Bushnell sells this as a "feature" wherein it shouldn't be an issue on most scopes to begin with.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming...
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http://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/lens/glossary.htm#fc
 
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Regarding that nikkor video, it would be nice to be able to look through that lens after each test and not just at 1:1 ratio like a window but at high magnification like a scope, I wonder if it would be scratchy or smeared at all or still crystal clear ?
 
DMS1 said:
I'll concede the glass on the zeiss is sharp and clear. What I didn't like was the weight. I've owned them all. The bushnell elites are good, can't beat the raingaurd. A few years ago if you went through a couple 6-24 elites, you could find one that was outstanding. They all suffer from narrow eyebox at or near max magnification. They are way too heavy for a hunting rig imo. I've been stuck on illumination for the past few years after owning a couple 50mm nightforce scopes, other than weight and the rotating eyepiece I found these to be without flaws.

My current rig sports a vx6 3-18x44. 19 ounces with 30mm tube, CDS option (now available with zero lock), Side parallax, fire dot illum with motion sensor (battery lasts forever even if you forget it's on), great zoom range and works with Leupold alumina caps (best thing since sliced bread). I shot a coyote at 364 yards just after legal light, it was cloudy and snowing. No shot whatsoever without the firedot. The firedot controls are combined in the side focus dial, none of that stupid switch on the eyepiece that your ball cap hits evertytime.

The zeiss 3-15 may have a SLIGHT edge, and has side focus, but is lacking a lot of other features. If weight is of concern, Leupold is the best choice.

If I had a gripe about the vx6, they are selling for what you can buy used nightforce for, I feel like they should be priced around $1100.
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What gives the Zeiss a slight edge?
 
Brianma65 said:
What gives the Zeiss a slight edge?
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Clarity.
Not sure if it's the coatings or the finesse in the way they finish the lens.
I've had a couple and they win for the sharpness at legal light heading into dark.
DMS1 has the right ideal.
Sure wish I could afford a new Leupold as he describes.
I had one in me mitts last time at the store and I can think of a few hunting trips where
that illuminated dot would of made a difference.
 
Brianma65 said:
What gives the Zeiss a slight edge?
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Superior lenses and coatings. I haven't seen a Leupold that was clearer or brighter than a similar priced Zeiss. In fact, I have yet to see a Leupold of similar magnification and objective size, that was clearer or brighter than an HD-5. The higher end Zeiss scopes are optically superior to any Leupold scope.
 
Brianma65 said:
What gives the Zeiss a slight edge?
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Like Kamlooky said: Clarity. It's not a huge difference, but the contrast is better, or colors are truer and the image just "POPS", but the slight edge in low light is trumped by the firedot. If you can't see your crosshairs against a dark background, you are hosed.
 
I had a HD 5-25x50 and it was nice but I found the SHV 5-20x56 better. I'm not concerned with low light but clarity is most important . That's why I was wondering about the VX 6 3-18 bit $1600 is a pricy sum #####.
 
Brianma65 said:
I had a HD 5-25x50 and it was nice but I found the SHV 5-20x56 better. I'm not concerned with low light but clarity is most important . That's why I was wondering about the VX 6 3-18 bit $1600 is a pricy sum #####.
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Unless you have wheels on your rifle and do not care about weight, I went from an NXS 5-22 to my leupold and have not ever once feel like I traded down. The optics are very good on the vx-6 to me. If your going to layout that cash, see if you can find a way to compare side by side.

Also to note: I have owned 1 Swarovski Z3 scope and experienced the most buyers remorse of my life. I switched up to a nightforce and felt the glass was better. The scope was tinney sounding/feeling, and I could flex the objective bell towards the barrel with my hands when mounted on my rifle. Flame on!
 
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