American Handgunner July/August 1977

, Leupoldscopes passi'Krentz Test"more than 5,CZJ timesWilljam F. Krentz of of one brand had previously broken down u, 2000Alien Park Michigan after 600, 800 and 400 rounds of .22 LRhasdeveloped a fa.+ and the reticle in another brand tore outlSWcinating new test forafter 265 rounds of -45 ACP.) ! 1000scopes, although that Then, one day in the summer of '75, Bill 9 500is not what he in- showed up at our plant with a Leupoldtended to do. M8-2X mounted on the slide of his .45ACP. He casually mentioned that he'd firedabout 5,000 rounds, using Leupold scopeson several slide-mounted .45s-without a(1) ACP firing develops 2,000 G's. (2) Slidestopped in full open position creates 750 G's.single scope failure. That gave our people (3) Slide stopped in closed position producessomething to think about! Like, what kind~ $ ~ , % ~ ~ ~ ~ ; $ ~ e % >of stress does this put on the scope? So,we decided to rig one up and find out.(That's really ours in the picture. If youwant to see Bill's original, look on page 38of the May, 1976 American Rifleman.)Well. the results of the accelerometer testswere fascinating, too. We discovered thatevery shot subjected the scope to threeseparate stiff jolts-varying from 750 to astaggering 2,000 GIs. The simpliis from the actual oscilloscope rin3 up of a round .from the magazine,) In caseyou don't know, one "G- is the measure ofthe pull of gravity at sea /eve/, normallyshown as 32 ft./sec.Z. To fully appreciate thefigures, you should realize that 2,000 G's isroughly the same as the deceleration of a cargoing 135 mph when it hits an immovable wall.us that dnce heSo$~ $ ~ ~ d o ~ ~ ~ n ~ $ , $ ~ ~-without a single scope' failure. And, incase you're wondering, the Leupold scopesBill used were not specially selected forhim. Except for a prototype he tested inlate 1975, all came off a dealer's shelf.Which makes his following statement allthe more important: "Once they aresighted in, I have never had a Leupold(scope) lose its zero."Naturally we're pretty proud that Leupotdscopes can take this amount of punishment.Certainly, performance like this hasto staff on the inside. . .with the right design,materials and careful craftsmanship.You can enjoy a Leupold "GoldenRing@" scope, performance, too.There's one to satisfy every shootingor hunting need.See your dealer.Write for a catalog.Leupold & Stevens, Inc.Dept. AH-1, P.O. Box 688,Beaverton, Oregon 97005, USA.