The Forgotten Four

Warren Page once wrote: “I had thought the question of scope power for selective shooting of open-country [deer] had been settled … the 4x is just about right, my own personal choice and enough magnification for ranges to 450 …”

When Gun Writers Were King

Page, long-time shooting editor of Field & Stream, was not alone in his affection for 4x scopes in big places. Jack O’Connor at Outdoor Life had a well-known sheep-hunting itch. He scratched it on trips into the mountains with fine custom rifles, most famously .270 Winchester M70 Featherweights from Al Biesen’s shop. He scoped his favorite with a 4x Stith Kollmorgen in Tilden mounts. In 1954 Jack killed a Wyoming elk with this rifle, later a Dall’s ram in the Yukon. He used it in Africa and India too.

Colonel Townsend Whelen, whose published opinions on rifles brought millions of shooters into the O’Connor era, favored 4x scopes on hunting rifles too. “When I was ordered to duty at Springfield Armory in the fall of 1929, I determined that I would have made the finest possible .30-06 Springfield hunting rifle.” He sent Griffin & Howe an un-numbered action. It came back with a matted receiver ring, turned-down bolt handle, Lyman cocking-piece sight and trigger-guard safety. Alvin Linden fashioned a stock of dark walnut. Whelen added a 2¼x Zeiss scope in double-lever mounts, but later found it wanting at distance. He replaced it with a 4x Lyman Challenger.

A Scope For Every Man

Then 24-year-old Bill Weaver designed a scope for the masses. At its 1930 debut his 3x Model 330 sold for $19, including the mount. A 4x M440 came three years later, when Bill moved from Newport, Kentucky to El Paso, Texas.

Weaver’s 1″, steel-tube K2.5 and K4 appeared in 1947, the K6 a year later. Weaver replaced its 330 and 440 with 3/4″ J2.5 and J4 rimfire scopes, supplanted in 1954 by the B4 and B6. For four decades, Weaver’s fortunes rode on the success of its 4x scopes, especially the hugely popular K4.

Bushnell’s first offerings were 2.5x, 4x and 6x Scopemasters. It was 1953, five years after Dave Bushnell had overcome daunting obstacles to import Japanese-built binoculars. The Scopemaster line became the Scopechief. A 3-9x variable joined the series in 1959. One of my first scopes was a 4x Scopechief. Had I used it exclusively for the next 48 years, I’d no doubt have killed as much game as has fallen in front of other glass. By 1960 Bushnell optics were selling at 18,000 dealerships worldwide.

In 1949 Lyman’s best-selling 2½x Alaskan moved aside for the steel-tube, 26mm 4x Challenger. An alloy Stream-Lite 4x trailed in 1953 and by 1955 all had alloy tubes. Lyman didn’t field a variable (a 3-9x) until 1973.

In 1959 the Redfield Gunsight Co., founded in 1909, began building scopes too. In 1962 Redfield’s first variable, a 3-9x, had the first constantly centered, non-magnifying reticle of any maker.

Don Burris, one of Redfield’s managing partners, started his own company in 1972. Early on, it offered only iron sights and scope mounts. In 1975 a 4x scope appeared, with 2-7x and 3-9x variables.

The Downsides

Liabilities of a 4x? Well, you can’t change magnification at a whim. You get to choose just once, as when you pick the color of your refrigerator. You can’t spin up power to fill the field with ribcage as your pulse throws the reticle from one end of it to the other. My rule of thumb: Scope magnification for big game is sufficient to handle the same number in hundreds of yards. So 4x is power enough for sure kills on deer to 400 yards. But it’s a long poke, edgy for other reasons, but you’ll see plenty of rib around the crosswire.

Sadly, you’ll find few 4x scopes on the market now. My repeated pleas to re-introduce the best of the discontinued prompts a collective shrug: “Everyone wants variables now. The bigger the better.”

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