Leupold VX-Freedom 3-9×40 Hunt-Plex Great 60 MOA Scope

Description

The Leupold VX-Freedom 3-9×40 Hunt-Plex is the classic American deer scope with a modern reticle in it. Three to nine power over a 40mm objective has been the default hunting magnification for fifty years for good reason, and the Hunt-Plex reticle adds just enough holdover to stretch it without cluttering the view. Mag5 Firearms is a family owned FFL dealer in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, and scopes ship direct with no transfer.

This Listing Has Been Corrected

This product reached our shelves titled simply LEUPOLD SCOPE VX-FREEDOM, which describes at least a dozen different scopes. We identified it from barcode 030317029784 as Leupold item 181307, the 3-9×40 with the Hunt-Plex reticle, and have titled it properly. If you were comparing several identically named listings on this site, that is why.

The Leupold VX-Freedom 3-9×40 Hunt-Plex Reticle

Hunt-Plex is a duplex that does a bit more. The heavy outer posts pull your eye to the centre in failing light, and a small set of holdover marks sits below the crosshair instead of a full ladder. It stays readable in the last ten minutes of legal shooting light, which is when a great many deer are actually taken.

The Leupold VX-Freedom 3-9×40 Hunt-Plex reticle sits in the second focal plane, so it looks the same size at 3x as it does at 9x. The holdover subtensions are only correct at one specific magnification. Read the card in the box and set the ring to that power before you use a holdover at distance, or the marks will lie to you.

Leupold VX-Freedom 3-9×40 Hunt-Plex Optics and Eye Box

Field of view at 100 yards is 33.1 feet at 3x and 13.6 feet at 9x. Eye relief is 4.2 inches at the low end and 3.7 at the high end. That 33 foot field at 3x is the number that matters in thick cover, where finding the animal quickly beats magnifying it.

The Leupold VX-Freedom 3-9×40 Hunt-Plex weighs 12.2 ounces and measures 12.49 inches, which is light enough that it does not change how a mountain rifle carries. Leupold rates it waterproof and fogproof and backs it with their lifetime guarantee.

Leupold designs, machines and assembles this scope in Oregon. That matters less for the optics than for the warranty: a lifetime guarantee is worth what the company behind it is worth, and sending a scope back to Beaverton is a known quantity rather than a gamble.

Leupold VX-Freedom 3-9×40 Hunt-Plex Turrets and Parallax

Both turrets are finger click at a quarter MOA, with 60 MOA of travel in elevation and 60 in windage. Parallax is fixed and set parallax free at 150 yards, so there is no side focus knob to forget. Inside normal hunting range the parallax error is small enough that it will not cost you an animal.

Three to nine power is the range most hunters should own and many talk themselves out of. The Leupold VX-Freedom 3-9×40 Hunt-Plex covers a shot at fifteen yards in timber and one at three hundred across a field with the same glass, at twelve ounces. Higher magnification buys precision you will rarely use and costs field of view you will miss.

Sixty MOA is less travel than the 4-12×40 in the same family offers, which is worth knowing if you plan to mount this on a rail with built in elevation or shoot well past 400 yards. For a standard two piece base on a deer rifle it is more than enough.

Leupold VX-Freedom 3-9×40 Hunt-Plex Specifications

Leupold does not publish a finish colour or a lens coating name for this model on their own site, so neither do we. Retailers routinely list matte black and a coating name as though they were manufacturer specs. They are not, and we would rather leave a row out than print something we cannot stand behind.

Buying from Mag5 Firearms

Optics need no FFL transfer, so the Leupold VX-Freedom 3-9×40 Hunt-Plex ships straight to your door. Full manufacturer detail is published on the Leupold product page.

If you are choosing between this and the 4-12×40, or between Hunt-Plex and a plain duplex, browse our optics selection and call us. We will ask what rifle, what calibre and what distance first, because those three answers decide it.