No matter how it’s spelled, Leupold offers quality
Boy is my face red because there was a spelling error in last week’s article and I am sure I will hear about it. I wrote a piece about the world’s largest rifle scope manufacturer named Leupold Stevens and the name was inadvertently spelled Leopold. I stand in error regardless of how it happened. It could have been me, my personal editor or the paper who spelled it wrong. As Harry Truman said, the buck stops here!
I have often thought a Leupold on one’s rifle spells reliability because seldom does a Leupold need repairs and there is no question it carries the best warranty of any product I can think of. Since I am talking Leupold, I can’t help but mention that I have a grandson who lives in Beaverton, Ore., the home of, if not the best, one of the world’s best scope sight producers. I hadn’t seen him for about three years and who came to visit but Dr. Douglas Byrd and his two sons. Before coming east, he visited Leupold and brought me a catalog of their new products and the company has made a big change in the scope lines.
When local gun enthusiasts think of German optics designers, the first company that comes to mind is Unertl because they were made on the North Side of Pittsburgh and they produced as good an optical accessory as could be made. Meanwhile on the west coast, it is Leupold that comes to mind.
Fred Leupold also was a German import, coming to this country around 1880. His first optical instruments were for surveying and it wasn’t long before he was into scope making. The interest in scope sights came about when a few generations later, Marcus Leupold had a then common problem while hunting black tail deer in the Cascades. As most of us know, the coast of Oregon is wet and Marcus missed a big deer because of a fogged scope. I can speak with personal knowledge on this subject, too.
Returning to work, Leupold had his engineers work on the problems of scope fogging. It was in 1947 when the company offered the Plainsmen to the hunting public and with sealing improvements and the use of nitrogen as a filler, it proved to be exactly what it promised: fool proof. I remember this model and the Plainsman was followed by the Pioneer and eventually the Vari XX Models.
Like many successful companies, more room was needed and Leupold moved instate from Portland, Ore, to its present home in Beaverton, and presently has a 150,000-square-foot building and employs more than 500 people. I may own a few other scopes, such as Redfield, Unertl and Nikon but if I were taking part in an important and expensive hunt, my rifle would carry nothing more than a Leupold. Over the years and through much hunting and shooting, I have come to realize the importance of reliability and, in my opinion, reliability in a scope is spelled Leupold.
As for my grandson, they treated him well when he showed up unannounced at the Beaverton headquarters and retrieved a new catalog. Part of the plant was toured and now he understands why the rifle I gave him many years ago still carries a Leupold. Starting out as a small company that repaired surveying equipment, Leupold has come a long way and stands at the top of a very competitive business. Here’s hoping it can stay there for a company that offers such a good product and offers the best warranty by anyone in any business. It deserves to flourish and maintain a good response from the shooting public.