I know nothing about Shepard scopes. here's what I do know. Bushnell, Weaver, Redfield and Leupold have a long history of producing quality scopes. Redfield and Weaver are now owned by Meade who has a reputation for fine telescopes to look at stars with. Nikon and Pentax have huge names in lenses for cameras. that's where I would concentrate a search for a scope. Some of the European scopes have a huge name, I doubt that many people looking thru them could really tell the difference between one of them and one of the above if someone didn't tell them which was which.

Shepard has been around awhile and may very well make a good scope but, the old top of the line Leupold is now bottom of the line and very very rasonable. I love the old Redfields and shoot them, Tasco World class (old style) and Nikons. Oh yea, I have a 3-9x Bushnell Banner on my 25-06 that has been there for about 15 yrs now! No problems.

Thanks for the info Don. I would have to agree with you on your view on this subject. But what makes the Shepherd scope so attractive is how you can zero it for 100 yards and shoot out to 1000 and it is specific to your bullet. Also the one shot zero is pretty neat. It is kinda spendy though I would have lean towards a known and respected brand for the price.(around 600 bucks). I dont have the money for a new scope now(got a boy on the way any day now) so I will use this time to research and choose a good reliable one with lots of history.

When I was looking for a scope for a custom rifle I checked out the Shepards. They seemed nice enough but there was something about them that wouldn't work for me, and I don't recall what it was. I decided on a Bushnell Elite.

I have seen two fall apart and not make it thru a 5 day sniper school. I have no personal hands on experence other than what I have observed. For the money you could buy a real nice luppy.