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WARNING: Fake Leupold Scopes from China

65K views 87 replies 56 participants last post by  HKSteve 
#1 ·
WARNING: Fake Leupold Scopes from China





quote:
Counterfeit Leupold Riflescope Warning

Leupold® is issuing a customer alert to purchasers of products, particularly via Internet sales, in regard to bogus Leupold products that are apparently being illegally imported from the People’s Republic of China. These products bear many of the marks and trade dress of current Leupold & Stevens riflescopes making them very hard to distinguish externally from authentic Leupold products.

In recent months, counterfeited Leupold Mark 4® riflescopes have begun to arrive with increasing regularity at the firm’s Beaverton, Oregon, headquarters for service. These products are not manufactured by Leupold and are not covered by the Leupold Full Lifetime Guarantee.

Leupold employs serial number tracking for all its riflescopes, so if a customer finds a scope that is suspect, he or she can simply write down the serial number and call 1-800-LEUPOLD to confirm if it is indeed authentic.

In general, most of the scopes appear to originate from Hong Kong (People’s Republic of China), and have “Leupold Mark 4” laser engraved on the bottom of the turret in a silver etch, while the black ring on the objective is etched in white and does not include the name “Leupold.” The scopes also do not bear the Leupold medallion, a mark all Leupold scopes will always possess. An authentic Mark 4 riflescope will always be engraved black on black and have the name “Leupold” engraved on the black ring.

http://www.leupold.com/tactica...counterfeit-warning/


Hopefully this helps someone before they buy one.
 
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#45 ·
ebay has buyer protection, and if you cant tell the difference between replica gear and a mark IV or specterdr then i dont really have much sympathy.

those replicas are for airsoft and 90% of the time they are sold as such!

if you revcieve a fake item start a ebay resolution case and ebay will refund your money.

btw nightforce glass and tubes are made in japan.
 
#47 ·
I always thought Leupold had their glass made in China and was assembled here for a while?Iwas told this by a Leupold rep years ago ...I really dont know just what I was told.So many companies are doing this it would not surprise me one way or another, but copyright theft in quite another thing.
 
#48 · (Edited)
You can also buy grey-market Aimpoints. You cannot have them serviced through the distributors here in the U.S. but will have to send them directly to Sweden. Aimpoint, Sweden will acknowledge the grey-market product serial numbers - but to get some work done on them - you will have to bear the cost of shipping both ways. That is why the U.S. distributors of Aimpoint are upset at companies that deal in grey-market products which are substantially less expensive and just as rugged (the exact same product) and so buyers are willing to take the risk.

Companies like Leupold have sent their cheaper hunting scope lines to be made in China. Many companies have the bodies of the scopes done in China and the optics done in Japan! The Chinese are just as capable as we or the Japanese are of building the mechanics (machining to tight tolerances est. by American scope companies) of the riflescopes.
 
#51 ·
Hmm,guess the third party company in china that makes scopes for Leupold didn't care to much about honoring patent law.
 
#52 ·
Unless in reality they are Leupold sancioned made over runs being made in China and sold on the grey/ black market
 
#53 ·
Thats what i was getting at Nordlander, the Chinese are notorius for that. The overuns are usually intentional so the middle man makes a pile of dinero for themselves on the sly.
 
#54 ·
From what I have seen is Hong Kong cares little of any patents or trade marks, as long as people want a high end product and see they can get a look a like for much cheaper then they will take the cheaper, and pray they work. Guess the saying is true that there is a sucker born every minute, and there isnt much to do but to send out the warning to potential buyers.

On a side note I have had some issues with my MKIV and sent it back to Leupold which took them 7 weeks to get it back to me and the issue wasnt fixed, the scope kept walking and wouldn't hold zero to save its life, so needless to say I returned it back to the dealer I bought it from and picked up a nice Vortex PST FFP 6-24 MOA, and haven't looked back since.
 
#55 ·
I have never had any product quality issues when I have dealt directly with Leupold, (nor with Nightforce or Burris or whomever. Makes sense to deal with the manufacturers when it's your life on the line, yes?), but then, I'm a dealer for them. They do indeed have a growing problem with faker scopes, but they also have an informative section on their website dedicated to ID'ing those cheaper scopes.

http://leupold.com/resources/counterfeit-warning/

Of course, if you still do buy one "For the amazing sale price of only $62.50 for a brand-new Mk 4 with illuminated retical. All sales fully guaranteed [and final btw!!]! [and which assumes they are still at that phone number...]),

Then.. you be all a'twitter that you got a "Real steal of a deal!" and so you are completely responsible. You cannot get a genuine Mk4, illuminated, for only $59.00. The usual retail for that scope, a proper Leupold build, will run you upwards of $1200 or so. Now if you are, let's say, a well-paid "contractor" in the Greater Sandbox, and find yourself pinned down by one of these...


http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab238/oaken54/Evil Black Guns/DragunovSVD.jpg


....chambered in 7.62 X54 Dragunov of course, then you'll have a bit of time to consider your total idiocy! But then, however, there's nothing to keep you and your Cheaper-Than-dirt Mk4 scope [which suffers from shifting retical syndrome...] down in "the hole" at an estimated 800 m, sand then you can perhaps find a few private (zing..) moments to reflect (bah-zang...) on your incredible stupidity (but perhaps also on your amazing (pi-zank!) thrift... DIEVIL) that will probably not get you out of your current bind.

You'll be thankful that M2 BFV [Bradley] answered the call, and then, later that night, you can do a special spiritual dance around the firepit, watching your"econoscope" melt down and placing an honest order with your local Leupold dealer. Like, you know, me.
 
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#56 ·
Anyway there are much better scopes out there than the Leupold. There are the middle of the line "tactical scopes" that will give more features for the money. The more expensive Leupold line that supersedes the Mk 4 line are way up there in price and I think that there better ones out there. Leupold have been up there for many years and so people think that they are still the best and that is simply not true. They "rested on their laurels" for too long and got overtaken by the rest of the industry. JMHO and the opinion of others in the scope industry that I respect.
 
#57 ·
Roger that,from what I have seen from the limited amount used by the Marine Corps and from my own personal use = fair optics and poor reliability.I swear by the German /European optics as the glass is incredible and reliability unquestionably the best. As the USMC Unertl was nearing 30 years old it is slowly being replaced by a Schmidt and Bender variable
 
#58 ·
Hmmm. lesser-Q Leupold high end models? Possibly a matter of opinion I'd say, since the Leupold marque is still well represented in The SandBox. Not to mention their older "folded" spotter, and their newest tactical line of those, "hardened" for true battle field survivability.

Their CBQ models:

http://www.leupold.com/tactical/scopes/mark-4-cqt-riflescopes/

or...

http://www.leupold.com/tactical/scopes/mark-4-hamr-riflescopes/

And this...

http://www.leupold.com/tactical/spotting-scopes/mark-4-spotting-scopes/

I'd still like a NightForce scope to play with. Maybe the good wife can find it in her heart to "liberate" about $5k from her Christmas "fun fund" next December?
 
#61 ·
I use Zeiss so no worries there
 
#63 ·
So are any of the cheap copies made by Norinco or Polytech? LOL!!
 
#64 ·
I guess if they ever make a knock off of a S&B I might just get it for my 22 for aesthetic reasons.
 
#66 ·
I personally think Leupold scopes are junk anyway .That is probably why it is hard to tell them from Chinese junk. The few I have purchased have let me down . A serious shooter should go to Zeiss , Schmidt & Bender , Hensoldt , IOR or Meopta in my humble opinion .I have used these scopes in some extreme conditions and the German scopes quality would be hard to copy as a buyer would be able to just look through it and tell right away as the glass is that much superior to anything else .
 
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#71 ·
Norlander, if you have had so much trouble with Leupold then why did you buy six of their scopes? It's not like they are the only available option and never have been. Me thinks thou exageruth.

All Leupold riflecopes are fully machined and assembled in the US.
 
#73 ·
#74 ·
There is something that needs to be said.


The whole GGrey market exact copy products a discussed in this thread is totally separate from the fake air soft stuff that is everywhere.

My brother plays air soft and has a lot of that stuff some is decent others are total garbage.
 
#82 ·
They say for every product made in China, there's a knockoff soon to follow. Cheap labor has its downsides.
 
#84 ·
Slightly off topic, but they also cloned a line of certain well-known camera lenses, probably in violation of patent laws.
And they are making counterfeit silver, gold, and non-bullion collectable coins such as buffalo nickels also. You wouldn't think anyone would make a counterfeit buffalo nickel but the Chinese are doing it.
 
#85 ·
Slightly off topic, but they also cloned a line of certain well-known camera lenses, probably in violation of patent laws.
And they are making counterfeit silver, gold, and non-bullion collectable coins such as buffalo nickels also. You wouldn't think anyone would make a counterfeit buffalo nickel but the Chinese are doing it.
China cant do anything without being shown how first.
 
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