SmallCaliberCentral

I have had bad luck with Nikon. And I did not have a good luck with their customer service. I bought a monarch that was bad right out of the box, the windage would not adjust. It was 2 months before I was able to take it out and try and sight it in. Bottom line was SWFA took it back them selves, and gave me credit toward a Leupold. The other Nikon was a couple years old and would not hold zero, Nikon would not honor their warranty with out the original receipt, so it went in the trash. I have had two bad Nikon's, and will not buy another one. I currently have 8 Leupolds, from a VX-1 to MK4's, and have never had a problem with any of them. Go to a retailer, look through a Monarch and a VX-II, then tell us which glass you like better.

Well, I actually ended up returning the VX-L for two reasons. First, this scope in the 4.5-14 power needs to have a parallax adjustment on it. It does not and on the highest power, the depth of field is rather small. On 14x, when I adjusted the eyepiece for 100 or 200 yards, everything from about 300 yards and greater would be out of focus, and not just a little bit. Hunting in the west where I take shots anywhere from 50 to 450+ yards, this is not acceptable. Especially when, to get it back into focus, I would have to adjust the unmarked eyepiece. I would imagine that the 3.5-10x model would not have this problem.

The second reason is that it was not as good in low light conditions as I was expecting. Don't get me wrong; it was good, just not as good as I was expecting. So I exchanged it for a VX-III 4.5-14x 40mm OA. I have to admit, the VX-L is a little better in low-light, but not enough to justify the extra expense. I really like the VX-III and am happy with it. It is definately clearer and brighter than the Bushnell 3200 Elite it is replacing.

I just used my Nikon 4-16 w/sf for the first time today. I have had a buck master but havent played with the BDC.
I found it to be very helpful with the .204. You can zero in and be absolutely confident about your hold over if you know your distance.
I zeroed at 225, took a couple of 1gal. milk jugs out to 375 and 450. I would normally not have a clue where to hold over, with BDC I use the first hole on the reticle and hit on first shot. I used the 2nd hole at 450 and hit on first shot. I have not calculated anything more than this, cause I wasnt sure it would work. It does...
I am a little disapointed in the clearity at 16 power, maybe the southern exposure to the sun wasnt helping.

I've got to put in my $.02 worth on this subject. I about drove myself crazy for a couple years trying different scopes. I bought and sold more than a dozen looking for the "right one".
I'm retired but I work part time at a gun counter in a local sporting goods store. That gives me the benefit of feed-back from some very good shooters who are customers at the store I work in.

I hear more good about Nikon than bad. I've never owned one, however, because I dislike their reticles. The BDC just covers up too much stuff at long range. Our store has reduced Nikon inventory and therefore sales of the products because of customer service issues. Enough said?

Burris has also fell into disfavor with this store because of customer complaints, quality controll issues, and a poor representative in this area. This is my old favorite and I still own 2 with ballistic mildots. The reticle is a little busy but works well for long range prairie dog shooting. Their downward turning point seemed to occur with the merger of Pentax for whatever reason.

The Bushnell Elite 4200's seem to be an awesome scope. Sports Afield proclaimed the new 6-24 w/side pa as the optic of the year. Well deserved as far as I can see. Their choice of reticles is the pits. Big fat cross hairs or way too busy mildots. You can get a target dot in 3 or 4 models but not very many choices. They have a beautifull balistic cross hair in the 3200 series, but just in 3-9 and 4-12. I want a little more power for testing loads and shooting at the bench.

Nightforce, Zeis, and Swarovski are not in my budget. Rats!

So you've probably guessed where this is going. I've switched 6 rifles to Leupold and that is the future for all my rifles. One of our forum's senior members(whose name begins with Rick)helped me a bunch last winter when I was trying to sort out all this scope issue for my needs. Why not go to the company that has great optics, great warranty, great reps and customer service, and actual shooters who do what we do developing their products. The long range reticles and especially the varmint hunter reticle in the VX-III's are excellent on the bench and in the field. There are more combinations of powers, reticles, ao's, obj. lens sizes, long range and target scopes than any other company offers. Check out the gold rings before you buy anything else and push your budget to the best you can afford.

I hope the time and money I wasted to come to this opinion will help some of you.

i completely agree with the leupold fans on this forum. right now i have vx-1 with 4-12x40mm LR Duplex reticle on my 204. the long range duplex is really nice for holdover or under at distances out to a little over 500 yards with zero at 100 yards. even the vx-1's are really good scopes and this ones is less than 300.00. i will however be changing this scope out in the very near future. unfortunately my eyes just ain't what they used to be. i have opted for a vx-11 in 6.5-18x40 ao. i have special ordered with mil-dot and have set it up for my 204. the mildot will be calibrated for the 204, w/velocity at 3900fps, shooting 32gr. vmax bullets. and a bc of .210. it should be here sometime this week, and i will be selling the vx-1. i have 2 other vx-11 on 2 other rifles, so i already have experience with them. best scope i have ever used, and really worth the money. just my 0.02

Well I think I've owned Leupold's for a lot longer than most on this forum. They make a good scope. However, I happen to think in some cases the Monarch is a better buy, and I happen to like the BDC reticle for some applications. If I need to upgrade then I'll go for the Zeiss.