We have always liked Leupold Mark 4 scopes. In a gadget hungry shooting industry where lower volume “designer” scope makers have grabbed shooter’s attention with high priced optics Leupold seemed to be lagging behind with innovation. The facts have always contradicted this assumption however. While companies like Nightforce, Schmidt & Bender and others have been touting their products Leupold has always been quietly supplying the lions share of tactical scopes to the military, law enforcement and sport shooters. For the US Army, Marine Corp, Special Forces and foreign governments Leupold remains the de facto choice for tactical optics. More shooting matches have been won, more game bagged and insurgents capped using Leupold Optics than probably all other manufacturers combined. Leupold’s latest offerings are truly state of the art. The Mark 4 line has been upgraded to include new models, illumination, reticle systems, available large tubes and mil adjustments designed for the military which naturally benefit civilian shooters. The rugged new CQBSS for example has already been adopted by the Marine Corp for multi tasking missions including mounting on machine guns and the 34mm version of our test scope was chosen for the XM2010 sniper system.

We chose Leupold Mark 4 6.5-20X50 with the illuminated reticle (67975) 30mm scope to test the latest generation from Leupold’s tactical department. The scope has all the features we have come to rely on from Leupold with excellent fit and finish, compact design and relatively light weight for it’s capabilities.The TMR reticle is extremely easy to use with clearly defined .2 mil subtentions. Leupold’s illumination system has been upgraded with 15% brighter illumination and defined click stops for the adjustment knob. In the field this scope is truly a pleasure to use. The target image is clear and bright with no edge distortion or shadows even at maximum magnification with Leupold Index Matched Lens System. The TMR reticle picture is crisp making ranging a pleasure rather than a guess even out to our test distances up to 600 yards. We fired 200 rounds then removed the scope and remounted it back into the Leupold Tactical rings and didn’t need to re-zero. In box tests it performed flawlessly through multiple trials and once we set the knobs from the original zero it remained there without any need for further tinkering. As with everything else on the scope the ¼ MOA adjustments (70 MOA of windage and elevation) worked as advertised with tactile clicks from the windage and elevation knobs and smooth adjustment of parallax focus.

It may sound as though we love this scope because we did. Everybody got a crack at using it and the decision was unanimous. In a tactical long range scope that is built to take the rigors of combat and range alike there is little left to be desired of this scope. Another top notch scope from Leupold. 100 years plus in the optics industry and still innovating. Leupold’s engineering, manufacturing and execution combined with the best in the business warranty still make Leupold the standard by which all others are judged.