I have a Leupold VX 2 and love it. The eye relief is far superior to my buddies Ziess. Last season he missed two deer, and I killed two deer.
His rifle he has to strain his neck to see a full field of view, with my scope you can throw it up quickly and get off a shot. I strongly prefer the Leupold.
Sounds more like an equipment/setup problem that your buddy has and not a scope problem. If he has to strain to be in a natural position the scope is not set up properly. Maybe he has to scoot the scope further or closer on the rings, or get a cheek pad.
Either way, proof of use isnt proof of quality. These days most 50 dollars scopes from walmart will 'get the job done', and the best part is if you get a lemon you go to walmart and exchange it for nothing more than the price of gas to get there. Maybe your just a better marksman? Ill bet my life on a good marksman with cheap but working equipment over a bad shot with AI rifle and S&B glass.
I keep hearing how company's (any company) quality is going down etc etc. and since I'm a retired manufacturing and metallurgical engineer I"m here to say that is all a HUGE crock of BS! (At least for the companies which spend the money on new equipment to compete).
If you are to stay competitive the company must buy and use the most current CNC machining centers available. The old days of hand machines is gone and this is a good thing. The CNC machines are capable of holding tolerances far tighter then any of the old lathes could. This is fact.
And to get a machinist job now days running these machines the operators must go to tech school. No one just comes in and is put on them anymore. The companies can not afford to have poor operators destroy their nearly million dollar machines.
Along with much better machinery there is also much better inspection equipment. Sometimes even built in to the machine to automatically gauge dimensions.
If this was not the way it works how could China possibly take jobs away from us? The automation lets them compete is why. Now when you get into metallurgy and heat treatment these countries (China, India etc) really are lost. So the MATERIALS are not as good or rediculously POOR. And as was said before, most everything made in Japan, Korea or Germany is as good or better then we make in the US.
My new Remington 700 SPS Buckmaster is FAR better made then the 700 BDL I bought in the 1970's. That one had an out-of-round chamber and wouldn't group into 2" and also the blueing on the bolt handle looked brown, not blue.
What it comes down to is customer service and who cares enough to want to be the best at and continue to be the best at it.
My 2 cents.
I don't think anyone is questioning that better machines are built and used everyday. But regardless of what 'the best' is out there, quality control is still a company issue and not a technical one. As stated earlier, these days $50 dollar tasco's get the job done, and thats because of the vast improvements of technology. The difference is that they decided to increase speed and cheapen materials at the cost of more lemons. The companies current decision has nothing to do with how it was 30 years ago or even yesterday.
As a business owner myself, I come to that decision very often. Whether to increase cost and improve quality or stay the same or worsen. Currently the decision is almost always improve quality, so that I can continue growing and attracting customers. BUT if my company is already worth tens of millions, and those everyday small decisions are put out of my hands and onto a workers, that doesn't have the same pride attached to the company as I would as the owner, those decisions change.
Lastly, as for materials being segregated by country... and countries not having the skill or knowledge to create good materials.... I would have to disagree.
1. We are NOT talking about ADVANCE materials here. Remember we aren't building a spacecraft but a scope.
2. Unless your talking about state of the art formulations, which scopes are not made of, these are NO SECRETS. China as a country didn't miss the memo on how to make an aluminum tube solid enough for a scope.
3. Besides all those points, russia has a more advance steel metallurgical knowledge than anyone else. They have made rocket engines that the US buys for their own use, because they simply can't make them as strong and light and efficient as them because they don't have the knowledge. But again, this type of 'secretive knowledge' that puts them ahead isn't relative to scopes. a 1% weight difference while keeping strength is useful and noticeable for a 4000 pound hunk of steel, not so much on a 1 pound object.
