Description
The Leupold VX-3HD Low Power FireDot is item 180626, a 1.5-5×20 scope with an illuminated reticle. Before anything else: it is a 30mm tube. Leupold also builds a 1 inch 1.5-5×20, item 180615, and nothing in the old store title told you which one this was.
Check the tube: the Leupold VX-3HD Low Power FireDot is 30mm
Item 180626 takes 30mm rings. Item 180615, the non-illuminated Duplex version of the same magnification, takes 1 inch rings. Order the wrong set and nothing fits. That is the first thing to get right on this page.
The two differ in more than diameter. This one carries an illuminated FireDot Twilight Hunter reticle with eight brightness settings and a CR2032 behind them. The 1 inch version is a plain Duplex with no battery.
What a 1.5-5×20 is actually for
Field of view at 1.5x is 67.6 feet at 100 yards. That is an enormous window, and it is the entire point of this scope. You can shoot with both eyes open on a driven boar or a bear at twelve paces and still have 24.1 feet of view at 5x when the shot stretches out.
At 9.57 inches and 12.5 ounces it is also the smallest and lightest scope in the VX-3HD line. On a lever gun, a straight-wall rifle or a dangerous game rifle, that matters more than magnification ever will.
The Leupold VX-3HD Low Power FireDot is a second focal plane riflescope, so the reticle keeps the same apparent size from 1.5x to 5x. The lit centre dot stays findable at the bottom of the range rather than shrinking away.
Turrets and travel
Elevation is a CDS-ZL locking dial with a set screw rezero; windage is finger click. Clicks are 1/4 MOA. Total travel is 125 MOA each way, which is 36.4 MIL, at 15 MOA per revolution with a 14.5 MOA dial travel limit.
That is a lot of internal adjustment for a scope this size, and it is one of the practical benefits of the 30mm tube over the 1 inch version. Parallax is fixed, set parallax-free at 150 yards, with no side focus and no adjustable objective.
No BDC dial ships in the box. The manufacturer does not publish a custom dial compatibility row for this particular item, so we are not going to promise you one.
Honest notes on the Leupold VX-3HD Low Power FireDot
One published contradiction worth knowing. The specification table says eight illumination settings; the description on the same manufacturer page says seven. We have printed eight because that is what the spec table states, and we are telling you the page disagrees with itself.
A 20 mm objective is small. In flat daylight that is irrelevant at 5x, but this is not a low-light glassing scope and the illumination is there to help you aim, not to gather light. If you hunt the last minutes of legal light at distance, this is the wrong tool.
The illumination depends on a battery. The etched reticle stays usable when the cell dies; only the glowing dot goes. Carry a spare CR2032. No finish colour, coating list or light transmission figure is published for this model, so we print none.
Who this scope suits
Driven hunts, thick timber, lever guns, straight-wall cartridges and dangerous game rifles. Anyone who needs to find a moving animal fast and shoot it close. The Leupold VX-3HD Low Power FireDot is designed, machined and assembled in the USA and guaranteed for life.
Skip it if you shoot past about 250 yards, if you want parallax adjustment, or if your rifle is set up for 1 inch rings and you do not want to buy new ones.
Leupold VX-3HD Low Power FireDot full specifications
- Item number: 180626
- Magnification: 1.5-5x variable
- Objective lens: 20 mm
- Main tube: 30 mm
- Reticle: Illuminated FireDot Twilight Hunter
- Focal plane: Second focal plane
- Illumination: 8 settings per the spec table, push button, daylight bright, not night vision compatible
- Battery: CR2032, 1600 / 1000 / 300 hours low / medium / high
- Eye relief: 4.4 in low, 3.6 in high
- Field of view: 67.6 ft at 1.5x, 24.1 ft at 5x, per 100 yards
- Angular field of view: 12.9 degrees low, 4.6 degrees high
- Click value: 1/4 MOA elevation and windage
- Total elevation travel: 125 MOA (36.4 MIL), 15 MOA per revolution
- Elevation dial travel limit: 14.5 MOA
- Total windage travel: 125 MOA (36.4 MIL), 15 MOA per revolution
- Parallax: fixed, parallax-free at 150 yd
- Elevation turret: CDS-ZL locking dial, set screw rezero
- Windage turret: finger click
- Revolution indicator: no
- BDC dial included: no
- Weight: 12.5 oz
- Total length: 9.57 in
- Total mounting space: 5.82 in (2.08 front, 2.51 rear)
- Warranty: guaranteed for life
Manufacturer specifications are published by Leupold. Compare it against the rest of our optics range, and confirm your ring diameter before ordering.
Ships from our Collegeville, Pennsylvania shop with the Leupold lifetime guarantee.
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