Your cabela's must not be like mine. The scopes are in the gun department. The counters have scopes, handguns and other stuff. The rifles are behind the counter. There is no one person that specializes in anything. They work behind the counter and will help who ever with whatever. Not to mention take a phone call in the middle of helping you (that drives me nuts!).

I would ask what qualifies him as a "Scope Specialist". The fact that he sells them doesn't mean much. Does he have an optics background? Is he a world class hunter and used all these scopes in the field? I doubt it. I think cabela's does a decent job of getting employees knowedgable in the department they work, but experts? Not from what I have seen. Opinionated yes, experts, not so much. Most of the time they can't even tell me who makes a particular scope when you look at it. I mean it has thier name on it, but it's made by someone else for them. It sure would be nice if they knew who, but they don't.

I'm not a huge leupold fan, but a poor scope? I highly doubt it. One of the best built on the market, that is why they offer the waranty they do. Just a bit pricey for what you get in my opinion. I could see if he said that about tasco, or a cheaper bushnell, but leupold? I hope they don't hear about what cabela's staff is saying about thier product.

On that note I own one of the Cabela's Alaskan Guide scopes and like it quite a bit. I thought for the money it was nicer and had more features than the simular leupold I looked at. It's a 6.5x20x44 with the mildot reticle. I put in my .17HMR and love it. I tried about 4 scopes before I found the one I wanted. That is the good thing about cabela's, if you don't like it take it back and get something different.

Paul