I agree they would probably sell a lot more scopes too if they didn’t charge that much extra for illumination. The cheapest non illuminated tmr is 1800 & illuminated is $2200. Tremor is 3 is $2050 non & $2400 illuminated. If they sold them all at $1800 no upcharges they would probably be the most popular scope
That's kind of where I'm coming from as well, or let's not say $1,800, because I can believe that there's some licensing with proprietary reticles as well as additional expense incurred doing illumination. But if we said, $2,000 for illuminated tremor 3. They'd be the most popular scopes there.
It's really easy to just always say "If they dropped their highest end price to the lowest end price they'd be the most popular." Sure, but let's assume they're not just doing it to make more money, that there is some cost, but we can probably agree that they're overcharging for that additional cost.
Mark 6's were a big blunder on leupolds part if you ask me, but the mark 5's have been phenomenal. Short of ATACR's, S&B's, USO B25s, Khales 624i's etc, I think they're the best on the market.
Plus when you get a 50% discount for military / LE or a 60% for dealer they are absolutely unbeatable.
When I was shopping for a new scope recently I was trying to find anything even close, but even with just 50% off that would make a mark 5 5-25 ~$1,650 after tax. I know there are a lot of military / former military on this forum, I seriously don't think you can get a better scope for that price. You have to get to ~$2,500 budget wise to get a scope that is tangibly better than a mark 5 in my opinion. Maybe I'm too much of a leupold fanboy.
I think the only competitive or maybe better scope price you can get would be vortex 50% off for military / LE on the AMG which makes it ~$1,800 (though that's before tax).