Broken Pentax PF 65WD (1 Viewer)

(Title was supposed to be 65ED)
My 2007 Pentax 65mm scope broke in two. It was not even knocked over at the time, just a cold morning. Taking it out of car to go for hike the front piece came off in my hand. It's traveled a lot in the car in 11 years. I usually leave it attached to tripod to tripod. It's had its hours on the road. So now it broke and the two parts are in fact attached in the middle where the mount piece goes around. Both parts are plastic and the thread is plastic.

Negotiating with Pentax for repair or replacement. 25 year warranty.

I had a similar issue, three times, each time Pentax repaired it for about $20 (US) fee....replacement time took 6 to 8 weeks. Just some back ground... I purchased it in 2009 and the scope took an bad fall (on rock) in 2010 but with no apparent issues at that time for another 5 years of regular use. It broke in half in the fall of 2015, I could not recall any hard hits, but thought that old 2010 incident might have been the route cause (fair enough). In the fall of 2016 it broke in half again, I could not recall any "hard hits", Pentax fixed it again.....then again in the fall of 2017 it broke yet again (after the first break I had treated it with extra tender care!) Pentax fixed it again.

Seeing each break happened in late fall, I realized I MAY have been packing it incorrectly for hikes up to a local hawkwatch, perhaps too much pressure on the compression straps of my pack....maybe...maybe not. Each break occurred exactly in the location shown in Tero's photo. That said, the tube connecting the eyepiece assembly to the objective assembly is plastic....that seems very thin. I still use it for the hawkwatch but pack it differently. While optically this is a decent scope it is NOT robust.


I have since purchased a Nikon Monarch 82A with the standard 20-60 zoom and 38X WA.... which is a very nice unit.

I will definitely carry it separately in a case in the car from now on . That way the mount is checked every time it goes on the tripod.

We've seen similar breaks in quite a few different make telescopes in our workshop.
If the spares are not available, we have made a successful repair with 2 part epoxy resin.
This used to happen quite a lot with the B&L Discovery 15x-45x scope and that had a metal
casting joining the front to the prism housing.
I always cringe when I see someone carrying their telescope over their shoulder and fitted to their tripod.
Don't turn and look behind when walking through the woods.

I have a sort of wimpy tripod that works well with this and does not weigh much. I can leave a gap in the middle with my fist around the tripod central pole. It is pretty well balanced by wight. To do much anything, I need to set it on the ground. Though I can handle binoculars one handed with the other hand.

This scope is small enough to carry in a standard size back pack, the kind most people carry books and laptops in. I still carry the tripod in hand. Once I forgot the tripod and had to go half a mile back.

Broken Pentax PF-65

What did you end up doing to repair the scope?