The Coolest Part of a Vintage Gun Just Might be the Scope.
We've all heard it said that a lever gun is a lever gun is a lever gun. Or, that there's nothing new under the sun in bolt action rifles. Most of us know that this is not true. We find the differences that make a difference to us and we buy them, collect them, use them. All of them. Or at least as many as we can afford. Scopes, on the other hand, have changed a lot since the middle of the last century, offering collectors a chance to seek out and own many beautiful and unique examples of hunting and shooting Americana.
I believe it was 1984 when Al, my 80 year old gunsmithing, reloading and shooting mentor gave me the news. Weaver Scopes would be closing their doors. His opinion was that they would probably continue in some fashion but with aluminum tube production in Japan like everyone else. It sounds a little odd to me writing this now but I actually remember that as a somber moment. Weavers were favorites for both of us. Especially the stubbornly accurate and rugged fixed powers. My favorite was the Straight 6, a bonus if you could find one with the TV screen, but that was not easy to do. I was sixteen at the time. Al gave me the wise advice to buy up every new in-the-box Weaver that I could get my hands on because I would probably never live to see quality American made scopes like this again. I did, but still it was the end of an era. And a cool one at that.
Back then most of the folks in my circle shot either Weaver or Redfield; both amazing choices. Both leaders in innovation. Not only were they beautifully blued or finished to match nearly any gun, they had cool features like TV screens, fine crosshair, post reticles, dots, crosshair dots, Accu-trac, Micro-trac and Accu-range. When it was time to talk about buying a new rifle the conversation about which gun to get was not as drawn out as you would expect. The caliber conversation was almost certainly longer. But when you talked about what scope brand, which crosshair, what power, which rangefinding system, the conversation was long, detailed and sometimes filled with debate. Back then there were still a few things that were for sure. The scope would have a finish that matched the gun. It would be gloss black (or blued) beautiful. It would be made in a factory where everyone knew exactly what a scope needed to do - either Denver or El Paso. And normally, since there were so many innovations happening, it would have at least one feature that was brand new to you and you couldn't wait to see how well it worked.
Fast forward about 40 years and the collecting of the guns that were coming out when I was a kid is just gaining steam. Blued guns with great wood and high gloss finish made by iconic firearms manufacturers. Rifles that were bought new for 300 to 500 bucks are now commanding real dollars because of the quality of the craftsmanship, the vintage, retro look and let's face it, the fond memories that we all have of those glory days of hunting and the people that we shared the field with. I am very much looking forward to this next era of gun collecting. A little bit for the guns that I grew up knowing and using, but mostly because that was the great era of the scope. An era of innovation and coolness. An era when scopes matched guns. Yes, I am looking forward to this one. It's going to be fun collecting cool scopes of the greatest scope era ever and putting my old favorite guns under them.
Long, blue and made to match a rifle. Here a Weaver K12-1 sits atop a Ruger M77 in 6mm. Not only are the old scopes beautiful, and do they complement and complete and old rifle, they bring back period correct functionality and help tell the rest of the story about what hunters were doing with their guns back in the day.