I' ve never heard of " mixed" reviews of Leupold scopes either! All I have EVER heard was good!
I don' t have any experience with the new Rifleman scope or the VX-1, but the Vari-X-II was the best scope you could get for the money! Sure when you get into the high dollar scopes the Ziess will win, but I' d still bet that you can' t get a better scope than Leupold for less than $200.00!!!