Some “old” scopes were dandies! Would the hunters who used them prefer top sellers now?
The Henriksen-stocked Mauser and its 6x Pecar scope were both heavy. But I was young and keen to scale the steeps for a bighorn ram. I found one in a nook, 250 yards below my path. Crawling to a perch, I shaded a tad low for the steep down-angle. The ram staggered at the .270’s sting, then fell and died.
In those days, I was also using a Mauser in 300 H&H, its feed ramp relieved to accommodate the long cartridges, as was customary. It wore a 2 1/2x Lyman Alaskan. Like the 26mm Pecar, that scope had a steel tube—though it was just 7/8-inch (22.2mm) in diameter and with no front bell. It sat lower and weighed less. Another rifle in my rack then was an early Winchester Model 70 in 30-06 with a 26mm Lyman Challenger. Above Oregon timberline, it downed a tall-racked mule deer at 30 steps. Another steel 4x sight—Weaver’s 1-inch K4—would later direct a Core-Lokt from a Savage 99 to a big Colorado elk.
Good grief! What an outdated roster!
Perhaps. But the elk fell just three years ago. Many scopes now thought obsolete are still useful and have fine qualities, if not the lens coatings and features of modern variables.
The very first scopes, dating in the U.S. to the 1840s, had little going for them. They were long, fragile, hard to attach and less effective than metallic sights. While snipers had scoped rifles as early as our Civil War, few hunters got on that wagon until smokeless cartridges in bolt-action rifles took root. A short “prism” scope from Zeiss, on the heels of its erector system in 1902, inspired early receiver-mounted scopes for the ’03 Springfield, then Winchester’s Model 54 and Remington’s Model 30 rifles of the 1920s. As magnification was limited by lens quality, hunting scopes of that day were of modest power.
From 1928 into the 1950s, a trim 2 3/4x Hensoldt (Zeiss) scope on a Griffin & Howe-stocked 30S Remington in 30-06 helped Grancel Fitz take fine specimens of every big game animal on the continent. This 8-ounce optic had a 7/8-inch steel tube and 19mm front lens. It served Fitz well on more than 40 trips from the tropics to the arctic.
Africa’s professional hunters of that era included John “Pondoro” Taylor, who wrote in his 1948 book, African Rifles and Cartridges, that the single purpose of a riflescope “is to give greater precision in aiming…. I have killed many elephant at ranges between 30 and 60 yards [with a scope] that I’m quite sure I would not have succeeded in killing with any other type of sight.” Open sights, he added, fell short when he was threading a shot through branches, or “skidding my bullet across the back of [an intervening animal] to get it into the big fellow.” Taylor named as his favorite scopes the Lyman Alaskan, Hensoldt Dialytan, Zeiss Zievier and “another small Zeiss that weighed only 7 or 8 ounces”—perhaps Fitz’s pick.
In 1941 Jack O’Connor began writing Outdoor Life’s “Arms and Ammunition” column. An admirer of fine custom rifles, he’d bought his first in 1934. Tucson’s Bill Sukalle did the metal work on the 1903 Springfield; Adolph Minar, of Fountain, Colorado, stocked it. A Lyman 48 aperture sight backed a 2 3/4x Hensoldt scope. It’s been described as Jack’s first scoped hunting rifle. The G&H Springfield given him by an uncle wore an aperture sight, as did O’Connor’s first .270, a Model 54 bought in 1925. The 30-30 and 25-20 Winchester carbines, 250 Savage 99, 35 Remington Model 8 and $1.50 30-40 Krag used on Jack’s earliest hunts had no glass. But 1934 also blessed the budding writer with a Winchester 52 Sporter. The $50 price for this fine .22 included a 3x Fecker scope.
O’Connor adored his 30-06, but in 1937 freshened ties with the .270. A Sukalle barrel fitted to a flat-bolt Mauser action earned a stock by the celebrated Alvin Linden. Adding a 2 1/2x Noske scope, Jack hunted extensively with the rifle. Late in life he said he’d shot more game with it than with any other.
Costly Griffin & Howe QD side mounts let a hunter quickly ditch a failed scope and use iron sights.
In 1957 an auto accident put Jack in hospital. He said his recovery began when Spokane gunmaker Al Biesen brought to his room what Winchester claimed was the last Model 70 in 7×57. Al had worked his magic on the metal and a fine stick of figured walnut. Jack scoped the rifle with a Weaver K4. That 7×57 followed a 1953 Model 70 in .270 from Biesen’s shop. Jack added a 4x Stith Kollmorgen in Tilden mounts. He would describe these Winchesters as his pets for mountain hunting. He took the .270 on hunts abroad. In 1959 he bought a new Featherweight Model 70 and asked Biesen to “make it up like the first one.” With a 4x Leupold Mountaineer, “No. 2” became Jack’s pet. It collected three Stone’s rams.
O’Connor hunted sheep with Prince Abdorreza Pahlavi of Iran and wrote that his highness used a Weaver K4 on a trim 7×57. Al Biesen once told me that his connection with O’Connor had brought five rifle orders from the Prince.
Despite an affinity for the .270 and other frisky cartridges, O’Connor didn’t celebrate long shots at game. His first ram fell at 30 yards, his last desert ram at “not over 30” and his best Dall’s at about 40. “It isn’t once in three blue moons,” he declared, “that anyone is justified in shooting at game at over 300 yards.”
That conviction informed his choices in optics. Jack was slow to embrace higher magnification, starting his career with
2 3/4x sights, finishing with 4x. “A most excellent compromise is the 3x,” he wrote in The Hunting Rifle, published in 1970. But, “in fairly open mountain and canyon country, then the 4x is the business…. I rather doubt if more power than 4x is needed for any big game hunting….”
Warren Page, a contemporary of O’Connor who wrote of firearms for Field & Stream from 1947 to ’71, likewise favored the 4x, though his 7mm Mashburn wildcat shot as flat as the .270, and as a Benchrest competitor he knew well the advantages of higher magnification.
Why didn’t these sages use variable scopes? After all, Zeiss had cataloged them in the 1920s, and variables have now all but buried fixed-power scopes! Well, the Depression of the 1930s left many hunters short of lira for rifle sights. True, 24-year-old Bill Weaver had kicked off the decade by designing, then building by hand, the first affordable American scope of merit. His 3x Model 330, complete with its wiry “grasshopper” mount, sold for $19. Less than half the price of a Zeiss! Weaver equipped the 3/4-inch tube with internal windage and elevation adjustments: 1-inch graduations for windage, 2-inch for elevation.
Still, the 330 and later 440 were pioneer products in an industry that hadn’t proven the viability of glass sights on hunting rifles. While a Zeiss engineer would soon find that coating lenses with magnesium fluoride dramatically reduced light lost to reflection and refraction in a scope, scope production presented mechanical challenges too. Early tubes were poorly sealed, and moisture caused fogging. Crosshairs were hairs. They collected dust; recoil snapped them and tore them loose. Windage and elevation adjustments moved reticles off-center. Changing power in variables shifted impact. Few rifles were factory-drilled for scope mounts, and hard receivers such as the Model 70’s brought to grief hobbyists tackling that project in the garage.
Hunters also had to be taught to aim through scopes instead of looking into them; and rifle-stocks needed higher combs to bring the shooter’s eye onto the scope’s axis.
Rudolph Noske was one of few men who risked pioneering in the riflescope market of the 1930s. His well-built 7/8-inch scopes got sunny reviews. But a 4x cost $70! The war finished Noske and some of its competition but Weaver, Lyman, Redfield, Unertl, Leupold & Stevens and Bausch & Lomb endured.
Lyman’s 7/8-inch, steel-tube 2 1/2x Alaskan, introduced in 1939, became a top seller after an “All Weather” version appeared in 1953 with a moisture-proof turret and caps. The Lee Dot joined post and crosswire reticles. Soon hunters who’d shied from Depression-era scopes scooped up Weaver’s K4, B&L’s variable Balvar, Unertl’s 4x Hawk, Redfield/Kollmorgen Bear Cubs.
Marcus Leupold’s hunt for a better scope began in 1947. His 2 1/2x Plainsman pared weight with a 7/8-inch alloy tube; still, it fogged. Rather than relinquish internal adjustments for an air-tight tube, Marcus thought back to his days in the Merchant Marine. He traded the air in the tube for nitrogen. In 1949 the 7-ounce, 2 1/2x “Leupold Riflescope” became the first fog-proof scope made in the U.S. The company followed with a 2 1/2x Pioneer. A High Power Converter boosted magnification in either scope to 8x.
Leupold announced its first 1-inch scope, the 4x Mountaineer, in 1954. Fully committed to riflescope production by 1960, it followed with the M7 3x and 4x. A 3-9x came in 1961, the Duplex reticle in ’62. M8 fixed-power scopes appeared in 1964, the Vari-X II soon thereafter.
Industry-wide, coated lenses and nitrogen purging made scopes practical for hunting. Constantly centered reticles and repeatable clicks in windage and elevation dials followed.
Early windage and elevation dials, here with stamped-steel indexing, were crude and without caps.
By the mid-1960s almost every rifle that didn’t spew empties out the top was drilled for a scope mount. Hunters stampeded to buy variable scopes. Warren Page at last installed a 2-7x. The 3-9×40 was a hit. No heavier than early steel-tube 4x sights, variables had the glow of versatility.
In my stint as a hunting guide, I had to remind hunters to set power rings on variables at 3x or 4x, ready for a fast shot. Gently, I told them for a long poke they’d have plenty of time to dial up. “But when a deer or an elk blasts from cover, you’ve no time to dial down!”
To the stubborn, I’d say that in decades of hunting in North America and Africa, I’d shot just two animals that required more than 4x magnification.
Since then, variable scopes have become bigger and more complex. The three-times power range (top power three times the bottom) has given way to four-, five- and six-times ranges.
Mark Thomas founded Kruger Optical in Sisters, Oregon, and has designed more than 300 riflescopes. He says:
“A three-times range is really adequate for a hunting scope. Few hunters need more field than you get at 3x, or more power than 9x. Wider ranges beg more lenses, some to correct for aberrations that appear as we demand more of each lens. Bigger tubes are necessary.” His colleagues add that limiting parallax and holding focus become difficult as ranges grow. Lenses in six-times scopes move twice as far as in three-times. “The requisite tolerances weren’t even practical before CNC machining,” says Thomas.
While reticle illumination, parallax correction and trajectory-matched elevation dials help make some shots easier, the main functions of riflescopes were, arguably, fulfilled by glass of the past. Multi-coated lenses and mechanical refinements have improved on early, basic designs without adding weight or complexity. We have the best rifle sights ever despite features we seldom use to advantage.
To traditionalists, the paucity of fixed-power scopes now makes shopping for them dispiriting, if easy. But trim, lightweight variables still abound! A 1.5-5×20 Leupold VX-3i weighs less than 10 ounces, as do 2-7×33 VX-1 and VX-2 models. They’re the modern version of the 2 3/4x Hendoldt. Hunters can set the power ring at 3x and pretend they’re Fitz, Taylor or O’Connor. Leupold’s 2 1/2-8×36 and its 1-inch 3-9x40s, with Swarovski’s 3-9×36, come in at 12 ounces or less, Burris’ 3-9×40 at 13. Dial any to 4x, and you’re as prepared for success as the legions of hunters who have filled freezers and records books using old Weaver K4s. The only difference: You’ll see the target more clearly.