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Leupold Rifle Scope Company

History of The Leupold Rifle Scope Company

For just over a hundred years now Leupold has been a proud American company that's family operated. In 1907, Fred Leupold started the company in optics design and manufacturing in Portland, Oregon. Leupold was joined by his brothers-in-law, Adam Voelpel and Markus Freidrich, in a small shop located on 5th and Oak Street referred to as Leupold & Voelpel. Later Leupold's son Marcus, as well as JC Stevens came to be part of the company, and then in 1942, as the company was beginning to expand, the company's name was changed to Leupold & Stevens Instruments Company. By this time, Stevens' son Robert also joined the company and would go on to become the General Manager. Fred often liked to say that, "the customer is entitled to a square deal" and the company still operates under this belief system, which certainly contributes to their consistent success. In 1944, Fred died, and Markus then moved in to become the company's president. Fred's other son Norbert, decided to follow in his brother's and father's footsteps and eventually became the company's Production Manager.

Leupold & Stevens did not design and manufacture rifle scopes until 1947, the 2.5x Plainsman Scope being the first. It was the first rifle scope to be filled with nitrogen as opposed to air, preventing it from getting foggy. In fact, many of today's standards in rifle scopes, such as the Leupold VXIII scope are based on the innovative developments that Leupold has come up with. In 1957, half a century after beginning the business, Leupold & Stevens were gaining esteem for their rifle scopes and had additionally created an outdoors-men's compass. Because the scopes had been very beneficial to the success of the company, it was decided that the very last half of the century would be spent focusing on sports optics.

The past forty years have produced many new innovations in rifle scopes with the invention of compact scopes, the Dual Dovetail mount system and the Duplex- lightweight high power target rifle scope. Leuplod & Stevens also started the production of binoculars again in America with the Leupold Golden Ring Binoculars. Then in 1998, after fifteen years as president of the company, Tom Fruechtel took the place of Werner Wildauer and is still the company's president today. Leupold developed the first Lowlight Riflescope, the first Compact Roof Prism Waterproof Spotting Scope as well as a cutting edge series of competition scopes in 2002. In 2006 they came up with the new RX Rangefinder and also the Leupold VX-L rifle scope.

During the past 100 years, Leupold has certainly contributed to the lives of hunters, shooters and outdoors people with their scopes. Following the same road as they have been traveling since 1907; listening to consumers' need for a "square deal" would definitely make Fred proud today!