Recreation Outdoors

Leupold Rifle Scope Company

History of The Leupold Rifle Scope Company

For more than a hundred years now Leupold has been a proud American business that's family operated. In 1907, Fred Leupold initially started his business in optics design and manufacturing in Portland, Oregon. He was later joined by his brothers-in-law, Markus Freidrich and Adam Voelpel, in that one man shop on 5th and Oak referred to as Leupold & Voelpel. Later on Fred's son Marcus Leupold, as well as JC Stevens came to be part of the company, and then in 1942, when the company expanded, the company's name was changed to Leupold & Stevens Instruments Company. At this time, Robert, Stevens' son had also joined and eventually became the General Manager. Fred liked to say that a "square deal" is an entitlement of every customer and Leupold Rifle Scope Company continues to operate with this belief, which is a contributing factor to their consistent success. Fred passed away in 1944 and Freidrich then became the company's president. Another son of Fred's, Norbert, followed in his father's and brother's footsteps and eventually became Production Manager.

Leupold & Stevens did not start making rifle scopes until 1947, with the first one being the 2.5x Plainsman Scope. It was the very first scope to be nitrogen filled instead of air, preventing it from fogging. As a matter of fact, many of today's standards in rifle scopes, including the Leupold VX 3 are based on the innovations and designs of Leupold. In 1957, fifty years after starting the company, Leupold & Stevens was starting to gain a good reputation for their scopes and had additionally created an outdoors-men's compass. Since rifle scopes had been extremely beneficial to the success of the company, they decided that the rest of the century would be spent centering on sports optics.

The last four decades have seen a lot of innovations in rifle scopes with the design of compact rifle scopes, the Dual Dovetail mount system and the Duplex- lightweight high power target rifle scope. Leuplod & Stevens also started the production of binoculars in the U.S. again with the Leupold Golden Ring Binoculars. In 1998, after a decade and a half of presiding over the company, Tom Fruechtel replaced Werner Wildauer and remains company president today. Leupold Rifle Scope Company developed the first Lowlight Rifle scope, the first Compact Roof Prism Waterproof Spotting Scope and a brand new series of competition scopes in 2002. In 2006 they came up with the new RX Rangefinder as well as the VXL scope.

For the past 100 years, Leupold has positively contributed to the lives of outdoor enthusiasts, hunters and shooters with their rifle scopes. Following the same path they have been traveling since 1907; focusing on the consumers' need for a "square deal" would definitely make Mr. Leupold proud!