Your Docter scope is not made by Zeiss. Docter traces it's origins back to the old Zeiss factory in Jenna East Germany but it is a totaly non Zeiss affiliated company(it has even moved manufacturing from the original factory). Quality is certainly better that Leupold, with the exception of Leupolds LPS series. But quality is not comparable to Zeiss or any of the other high-end European scope manufacturers. Scope glass is made at different levels of quality, this has to do with impurities in the glass and the grinding and polishing proccesses (along with a few others such as coatings). By definition, Docter glass is second tier European glass. That is still very good quality, just not top quality. Docter also uses wire cross hairs instead of etched glass, I doubt you will ever have a cross hair problem with a scope of this quality, but it is a possibility that you don't have to worry about with etched glass. The biggest problem with Docter is their customer service. B.C. outdoors merely reps the line in the U.S. All repairs are done in Germany and B.c. will not ship just one scope back for warranty work. In essence, if their magic shipping number is say 25 units, your scope will sit on the shelf until another 24 need repairing. Once received in Germany, no scope is shipped back until all are repaired and they are shipped in bulk rather than to the individual owners. If you do have a problem, good luck trying to get Cress Lorenzo of B.C. outdoors customer service to return a call. If you have a problem with Docter, expect a long wait. All of that being said, they are very good scopes and you probably won't have any problems with it. They were a lot better deal a couple of years ago when you could buy your scope for around $250.00.
