[killer]

Most of my scopes are Leupold...not that they're brighter than others but the custom service, specifically, reticle changes is what I like. I have also dropped binocs out of trees and they were fixed no questions asked, so lifetime warr means lifetime. They didn't ask if I was original owner (which I was) or any question how I cracked them, they just fixed them.

The reason I bring up reticle changes is when you hit age 40 most guys start to lose some up close focus. When you hit 50 you start to turn out the adjustable eye piece of the scope to where there's no more adjustment left and if you don't have an AO either the crosshairs are pretty much worthless. I suppose one can use cheaters but than you lose your long range vision if you have to pull your head back quick.

I do wear prescription glasses but I never got the up close vision back I had with my younger eyes, it's only a certain bracket of good focus. It just sucks with scopes using glasses as far as I'm concerned. My long range vision is still good so I prefer hunting/shooting with no glasses.

A quick fix is the Leupold heavy crosshair. You'll get a complete going over of the scope and fresh nitrogen put in it with a big fat crisp crosshair to last another 20 years? Hopefully by that time my dang medical will cover the new fangled eye surgery out on the market. Not counting on it though.

One of my varmint scopes is the Leupold basic 12x varmint with what they called the "varmint duplex." It's basically a medium thin duplex. I can't really hold much more magnification very well, it just gets too shaky. For some reason that scope is still working fine with original crosshairs but that one has both an AO and adjustable eye piece.

So in conclusion why I recommend Leupold:

1) warranty
2) reticle changes available and or other scope custom work

I think the 12x varmint Leupold is around $500.00 maybe less if you ferret out some sales somewhere.

Wow...have prices gone up or what on stuff. Glad I bought what I did when I did.