Here we have the laughing skycoon.
@jerry It's been a few decades since I was into photography to the point of buying lenses, but I once got a telephoto lens that I also felt wasn't right. I took it back and we tried a few others of the same brand and found a bad batch. Lens quality was bad unless the stock was older.
This was at Wolf Camera which used to be in front of the Tara Theater on LaVista. I had to look it up to see if it was still there. Looks like Wolf has moved. That used to be my favorite place to get fancy gear.