The VX III 2,5-8 have been in production for a long long time so hard to say. Cutting cost, it only takes a white collared moron a couple of seconds to turn a very good product into crap and then you have a batch of scopes with potential disaster built into them in circulation. That being said I have one and I`m very happy with it. It has been to Africa and Canada multiple times mounted on different rifles as well as being used for domestic hunting. And it has been very very good and have never let me down in any way.
BUT, maybe the best recommendation I can give it was when chasing PAC Zebra in really dense bush I was handed the PH`s lion slayer. A seriously nice old original FN Mauser in 375H&H topped by a Leopold VX III 2,5-8. And during the hunt it turned out great. After about 2 hours of hard tracking we caught up to the Zebras in very dense bush 80-100 yds away. We could hardly see their manes over the bush. But there was a small hole in the bush maybe a ft in diameter so I turned the mag up to 6 or 7 and shot the tallest Zeb thru it. Unforgettable moment. It all happened in just seconds. The cold feeling when I saw the trackers shaking their heads because they din`t hear the bullet impact. But suddenly one of the trackers raised hes hand telling the others to zip it, he heared noises. We ran over and there lays this huge Zebra stallion. Thing is, it can be very nice to be able to have 7-8 mag available. Also in dense bush. I think the scope will be great on top of a 458WM but with QD mounts and learn to use the open iron sights.
