Buyer Beware: Cabelas/meopta riflescopes

[Humphr47]

Bought a brand new Cabelas Instinct 3x9x40 w/ ext reticle ($549 retail) about a month ago. When I got it home and started to mount on my rifle, I noticed several black specs internally on the reticle. Couldn’t get em off and tapping scope only made it worse. Cabelas replaced with a brand new one that looked ok. Mounted it and after spending a half day at the range and shooting $50 in ammo, the black specs were back, in the bottom corner of scope. Very irritating. Im a hard core meopta/Cabelas Euro fan with their binos and spotter, which are amazing. But this is a highly disappointing scope. Must be a bad lot or something. Glass was awesome, the specs not so much.

Returned for store credit and will likely just get a Leupold vx3i now.

Anyone else had this experience?

 

[OakStuddedAcres]

I jumped on the meopta band wagon early on. Purchased several scopes then upgraded my binos. I ordered a pair of binos directly from meopta and they came with the same black specs you are referring to. I contacted them and they exchanged them right away. The second pair of binos came with the same black specs. Third pair were fine and I was very happy with them. Since then I have sold every meopta optic I owned. I just had a bitter feeling after that experience I could not get past. Two quality control failures direct from the manufacture. I just could not fully trust their products or quality control in the field. I work way to hard and spend too much money to have someone else’s poor quality control cost me a filled tag.
I know meopta gets great reviews and has a good following on this forum. They do make quality products. I have kept this experience to myself for the most part but thought I would speak up since others do seem to be having the same issue.
I did have one black spec in a vortex range finder as well. And a rubber armor issue with a Leica. No one is perfect.
What irritated me about my meopta experience is that they sent me the second pair with the exact same issues. They also build or assemble their own optics.

 

[Humphr47]

Interesting, must be hit or miss. Not bashing the brand by any means, still a hardcore fan of their binos and spotter, which I’ve never had any issues.

 

[Squirrels]

Anyone else had this experience?

I have, I bought a Instinct Euro 2 years ago and it has been sitting in my safe in the box until I went to mount it recently and noticed the black spots. I paid half price for the scope when I bought it because I think it was being replaced by the Instinct HD line. Long story and go round and round and round with Cabela's and they finally took care of it, but it took way to much effort on my part for that to happen. I'm still Meopta fan.

 

[Arkrunner]

Anyone have more experience with this brand I was looking at one today in the bargain cave

 

[MBAO-millennialbyageonly]

Like above bought one a couple years ago on a massive sale put on my 6.5CM. Not the best scope I’ve ever had but no major issues and put down several animals with it. Always has tracked well for me and overall pretty pleased with it given purchase price.

 

[CentralFLMike]

I've been using Meopta scopes for the past decade, or more. An R2, several R1, Optika 6 and about a dozen MeoPro of different variations and never had a single problem. I bought one used from a member from another message board and it arrived with a cracked objective lens (thanks USPS). I contacted Meopta by phone and had a replacement sent to me within 10 days without charge. Never had a quality issue with any of them.

 

[Elk2008]

I’ve seen this with some other high end manufacturers (not meopta) spotting scopes. I think it happens from time to time.

 

[rodney482]

Ive got one in a 4-16 w no issues

 

[journeyman713]

I got one about ten years ago and still feel it's a great scope!

 

[Don Qui Puncher]

I’ve had 2 meostar binos 82 mm spotter and Optika 6 with no issues.

 

[Wrench]

I have at least 10 of those scopes and all of mine are 100%. I bought them all at $250 and you cannot begin to meet that level of glass for twice that much money.