Strut,
I' m new to the board and saw your post on Leupold. I have/had the exact same problem as you with my new Leupold 3x9x40 VarXII. Bass Pro in Springfield and my local gunsmith couldn' t get my scope to zero. They checked out everything and finally said to send it in to Leupold. I did and got it back within 5 days. They checked it out and said there was nothing wrong with it. I finally got it to group but the optics are horrible for a Leupold. It just isn' t very clear, less clear than before I sent it in. BTW, I had a Leupold 3x9x50 VarXII that was great. My cheapo Tasco and Busnell scopes have much clearer optics than this scope which really frustrates me. I really don' t know what to do. It cost me about $8 every time I send it back to Leupold which can get costly. Oh well just thought I' d let you know you aren' t the only one that got a bad Leupold. How did yours turn out?