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Gentlemen,

I have reacently been looking to purchase a Leupold VXIII 8.5-25x50 LRT (Fine Duplex) for a .300 Remington Ultra buildup I am doing. I have noticed that while trying to "price shop" for this scope that EVERYWHERE I look it's $849.99 without exemption. I am talking probably 20 dealers online with the exact same prices. I am certianly under the impression that Leupold is fixing prices on their scopes, or at least mandating to the retailers what they must sell them for. Isn't this illegial??

I have seen them on Gunbroker from one specific individual who is selling this exact same scope for $750 NIB. He also has a good record. How does he get away with it an nobody else does? The only reason I don't snatch it up is because he is in Texas like myself and with sales tax and shipping I would end up paying just about the same if not more.

Does anyone know of any place where Leupolds are a little cheaper? I looked on the sample list and unfortunatly they don't have the exact one i'm looking for either.

I hadn't looked for that particular model before, but a detailed search came up with similar results. I thought I found one for $824.99 at Indyoptics.com but that wasn't the LRT model. The best I saw was $848.99 at Sniper Country. May be a little price fixing, but we've all experienced that before - bought any gas lately? They probably strongarm the retailers with the threat of pulling all their products if they don't sell at the manufacturer's recommended price. Not a lot of high quality scope makers out ther, so this technique can have a powerful effect.

R,
Bullseye

Bullseye,

I found out what the deal was. Apparently since i'm not in the retail market there is a reason why I had not heard of "Minimum advertised price" which means they cannot advertise a price cheaper than what the manufacture sets, however if you call them, or email them they can quote you a "real" price on that exact same item since it's not advertised to the public. Apparently if you sell the scope cheaper to the public they won't ship you any more supplies.

You are allowed however to sell discontinued items at your own set price, or have sales like "all items 10% off" kind of deals where if it effects every item it's OK with the manufacture.

In fact I ended up picking one up for about $150 less than what was being advertised.

It's just something I learned and thought I would pass along.

That explains it. Happy to hear you got one at a good price!

R,
Bullseye