ORIGINAL: driftrider

Nikon Monarch hands down. It's a much better scope than the VX-II in terms of features and optics, it's on par or slightly better than the VX-III, but costs a lot less. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

And for those who brag up Leupold's customer service as a primary reason to buy their scopes, consider this... if the scope is worth the top dollar that you'll spend on it, then you should never need the service in the first place. Instead buying a product because you know the company will fix it when it breaks, buy a product that you can be fairly assured will never need service. And in the event your Nikon Monarch scope ever does have problems, you can send it in to be fixed under warranty as well, but you'll probably never have to. It might take a little longer, and they probably won't give you freebies or upgrades (which is passed on to everyone else), but you'll get your scope fixed.

I think that might be part of the reason that Leupolds cost so much, because they're passing the cost of all the free repairs they do every time some careless moron bangs his scope off a boulder or tree trunk down to the rest of us.

Leupolds are good scopes, but they aren't worth what Leupold wants for them. You're paying for a name and for the "free" repairs they hand out like candy. I own two Monarchs and love them both. I've never owned a Leupold because I refuse to pay more for nothing. If someone gave me a Leupold, or I found one that was priced competitively with other COMPARABLE scopes, then I'd definately take it. As long as Leupold demands 125% or more compared to their competitiors products, they can keep them; I'll buy a better Nikon or top end Bushnell and never regret it.

Mike