Leica Issue

[TDMVA]

Quick tip. When you receive something in the mail check it out immediately. I didn't and now may have an issue.

I bought a Leica ER5 2-10x50 with a mag ballistic reticle for my 300 win mag from EuroOptic in mid November after someone posted their sale on here.

I then ordered a second one for my 280ackley improved. That rifle was my go to for this deer season and had a Vortex on it. I didn't want to change it mid season so I stashed the scope in my gun room without ever taking it out of the box.

Now that deer season is over I planned on installing the new ER5 on this rifle last night. When I unpacked the scope from the box and the reticle looks very different than the first. You’ll notice it’s much thicker and almost has a black outline to a red middle on all the lines.

I've sent a note to the Leica rep asking for his advice. I'll keep you all posted.

Pic one is the good one on my 300wm
Pic two is the bad one I discovered last night (it's a bit blurry but you can see the difference)

 

[DrMike]

I would anticipate that Leica will quickly provide an exchange or repair for you. They are a good company with a good reputation, in my experience.

 

[sask boy]

I have had to use Leica's customer service and I can not say enough good things about it.
I dealt with a young lady by the name of Roxanne and their warranty depot is in New Jersey :wink:.
Look forward to hearing how they look after this problem.

Blessings,
Dan

 

[gbflyer]

I've sent 2 Leica units back for factory service due to internal fogging. Both repaired and returned promptly. The binos still fog. Good communication with them. I'm sure they'll take care of you.

 

[TDMVA]

I spoke with the Leica rep that helped me with some previous questions. He said that the ER5's originally had thicker crosshairs and that after customer input they changed them to narrower ones. He feels like I may have one of the older models with the thicker crosshairs. Eurooptic had not heard of that change which is a bit curious.

After hearing that I went home for lunch and did a daylight test from the kitchen window. That's a much better spot than my basement like the first pics in the original post. It appears totally fine in the daylight although certainly thicker. Maybe the Leica rep wasn’t blowing smoke when he told me that they changed the reticle to be thinner some time ago.

Below is a side by side with 1 being the mounted one and two being the one in question.

I will do a low light test tonight when I am at home. I’ll report what it looks like then. There hopefully is no issue at all now that I’ve done this test at lunch. Stay tuned.

*all pics are at 2 magnification (the lowest mag in the scope's range). Important to note as each pic looks a bit different. it's difficult to make them exact with the iPhone.

 

[DrMike]

Most interesting. It is a reasonable response. I can understand why they would have selected the thicker reticle in the first place, though the transition to a thinner reticle shows responsiveness to customer demand. I wouldn't mind the thicker reticle. In fact, some of my scopes were chosen because of a thicker reticle which was agreeable to my aging eyes.

 

[longrangehunter]

Most interesting. It is a reasonable response. I can understand why they would have selected the thicker reticle in the first place, though the transition to a thinner reticle shows responsiveness to customer demand. I wouldn't mind the thicker reticle. In fact, some of my scopes were chosen because of a thicker reticle which was agreeable to my aging eyes.

+1 Me too, I'm used to the thicker reticle(s) that I tend to like for that reason. I have a NF 7-35x56 F1 with the Mil-C reticle and too me it's hard to see vs. if it was thicker.

That said a lot of guys like them thin for better precision, and why the scope companies are using thinner reticles.

 

[TDMVA]

I couldn't get a great low light picture from my test for understandable reasons.....there wasn't much light.

I could see the reticle as you would expect to in low light conditions and I'm satisfied.

I guess what's throwing me off on this reticle is that I see a red/brown/copper color in the reticle (on all lines) in low light. I also see it at times in good light (this morning just after sunrise) when viewing dark objects (trees for example). It seems to come and go as I move my eye through the eye box if that makes sense. It'll also be visible with the proper eye relief. Have any of you seen this? I want to say that I have on other scopes and I'm sure it's fine. I believe it is the nature of a thicker reticle that you can pick this up.

Regardless the reticle remains clear and crisp even when noticing the color change. Unless one of you can tell me why not to hold onto it or that it's got an issue i'll keep it.
Here is a pic that shows it (although not that crisp).

 

[DrMike]

I enjoy each of my Leicas; they have treated me well. Sounds as if you've resolved your issue.

 

[Nimrod84]

TDMVA,

I have seen that brown strip in other scopes, Bushnell and Leupold. From what I can tell, it is from light reflecting off of the back of the crosshair wires. Etched crosshairs don't seem to display as brown, but the thicker wired crosshairs (think illuminated reticles) often can be brown / red / copper.

J_man_66 third post down at http://www.opticstalk.com/etched-vs-wir ... c1968.html notes that etched reticles "Can't break, won't rust, dosen't "change colors'' when the sun hits it."

Thinner wired crosshairs typically don't show as brown to me, but this could be due to light wavelengths, my eyes, how much light the thin crosshairs are catching and other science stuff above my pay grade.

Point being, enjoy your great scopes!

Edited to add: all my scopes use wire rather than etched reticles. I've gotten some weird chromatic aberration and light coming off of etched reticles in the past.

 

[TDMVA]

You Leica guys who have experience with them do you have a good grasp on the subtensions of the mag ballistic reticle? the .pdf I found online has the measurements in cm/100m. I converted them to inches and they almost fall perfectly to 2moa - 24moa. Is that what you've found? The Leica .pdf has it for a 300winmag with 180 AccuBond. I have my program setup for the same but in a Partition. All other data is entered correctly.

Of course the Leica ballistic program doesn't have the mag ballistic reticle available. That's annoying.

I've sighted it in for MPBR but it would be fun to toy with the reticle too. I'm trying to make sense of this by using the istrelok app and can't seem to make it match. one would think with a 100 yard zero that the first hash being 2MOA down, at 200 yard the point of hold would be on that hash. The iStrelok app shows it just a hair below the crosshair...nowhere close to 2moa.

I know the easiest thing I can do is go shoot the darn thing but hard to find time at the moment and i'm burning time at work.

 

[jimbires]

I've noticed a few times the reticles in my scopes will look a different color . I found the scope was picking up on my orange gloves . take off the orange gloves the reticle is black again .
if you can hang a cardboard at 100 yards you could check the reticle sub-tensions . you really wouldn't have to shoot the gun . mark the cardboard like a ruler and see where each reticle mark falls out on the inch .
I'm pretty sure this scope is a SFP scope , so the magnification setting will change the gap between the sub-tensions . if I'm shooting far enough to need the drop reticle I want max magnification , so I use max power to test my reticle . if this scope is FFP , the magnification will not affect the reticle sub-tensions .

 

[TDMVA]

Here is what I did today. Set up a board, shot it at 100 yards. I’m zero’d at 4” high at 100 so I’m using mpbr. It’s for 9” for an elk hunt.

Then I held on the bullseye with the first dot, fired. - 7” high

Then I held on that bullseye with the first hash, fired. - 14” high

So using the ballistic calculator it appears the first dot would put me dead just under 400 and the first hash would put me dead on just under 450.

What’s strange is that the Nosler and IStrelok programs confirm this math. The confusion comes from the iStrelok reticle pic that shows at 450 yards that I should aim just over the first dot. Doesn’t make sense to me.

I’ll be shooting Monday at a place that I should be able to test this info at ranges noted. Until then please give me your input. I’m certain that shooting it and getting actual data is the obvious answer. Thanks.

Pics attached for reference.

 

[Nimrod84]

I have a sneaking suspicion that the reticle image is mostly correct. When I subtract 4" from your hold overs to account for your zeroed height; I get the following scope subtensions: 3 MOA for the first dot and 10 MOA for the first hash. Which I think puts the first dot at around 450-480 yd and the first hash around 670-690 yd off the top of my head. Again this is off the top of my head, so don't take it as gospel!

 

[truck driver]

If that thing keeps giving you trouble and your not really happy with it I'll take it off your hands for $1.98 and cover the shipping cost.>)