GUNS Magazine The skinny on scopes

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The Weaver T-series scopes with Micro Trac adjustments were introduced in 1977.
It was one of the first mass-market scope with accurate, repeatable and reliable adjustments.

The first time I tried using a rifle scope must have been around 60 years ago. The father of a friend had somehow managed to attach a 3/4″ tube scope made for .22 rifles to his old Savage 1899 in .303 Savage. I remember how excited I was at the opportunity.

Being nearsighted from an early age I found it hard to use iron sights, even with glasses. I was sure a scope would solve all my problems. Put the intersection of the crosshairs on target just as pictured in the ads and press the trigger — what could be easier? My high hopes made the reality all the more crushing.

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Two landmarks in scope development, the Weaver T-10 Micro Trac (below, top)
and the 2.5-10x42 Nightforce NXS. Both have reliable, repeatable and durable
adjustments and can be dialed for different distances and wind conditions.

Lights Out

At first, I couldn’t even see an image. The eye had to be in exactly the right spot or the image simply blacked out. At best it was dim and out-of-focus. The intersection of the crosshairs was off in a corner. It was quite a blow to a naive and trusting farm boy.

The scope had just about every fault a scope can have. Happily, even at the time (circa 1960) clever engineers and optical designers were solving the issues. Scopes became tougher, more resistant to recoil and accidental impacts. Eye relief became much less critical. Moisture-proofing became much more effective. Permanently centered reticles became the norm. Better optics and optical coatings greatly improved image quality and low-light capability.

One issue didn’t get much attention, mainly because shooters didn’t ask for it — the issue of reliable, repeatable adjustments. Don’t get me wrong, we wanted adjustments, but we weren’t very demanding. As long as we could get the rifle sighted-in, we were satisfied. Our hope was, once sighted-in, we’d never have to touch the adjustments again. It didn’t matter if the clicks weren’t quite the value the maker claimed, or if adjusting to the right also moved point of impact up a bit.

Makers had little incentive to improve the adjustments since most shooters didn’t care. There were a few serious target shooters who did care but they used scopes with sophisticated external mounts, too heavy, bulky and fragile for hunting use. Then, a new form of rifle competition — metallic silhouette — became popular in the 1970s. Competitors engaged targets offhand at 200, 300, 385 and 500 meters. They needed reliable, repeatable and durable scope adjustments. Moreover, the scopes and mounts couldn’t be too heavy as rifle and sights were subject to weight restrictions. The only problem was such scopes didn’t exist.

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The repeatability of the Micro Trac system popularized the idea hunters could
actually dial their “dope” in the field rather than using hold-over or special reticles.

The Micro Trac set-up quickly became popular with metallic silhouette competitors
and proved so successful it became standard on Weaver hunting scopes as well.

A New Day

In 1977 Weaver announced its T-series of scopes with what it called the Micro-Trac system. If there were ever a scope Hall of Fame, the T-10 Micro Trac would be the one I’d nominate. The Micro Trac used a carbide ball bearing on the reticle cell. The adjustments were what competitors were demanding — accurate, reliable, repeatable and durable. The T-series proved sensationally successful in competition. Many are still in service; in good condition they still sell readily.

I have a T-10 on a ’50s era BSA Hunter .222 Rem. It has its faults. The parallax adjustment is a ring on the objective end of the scope, less convenient than a knob on the left side, and the 2/3-minute dot and fine crosshairs can be hard to see in field shooting. It’s long compared to current designs. Optics are good though not quite up to current standards. But it is still a useable scope.

A few avant-garde varmint shooters began dialing scopes for field shooting. For old timers such as myself this seemed downright foolhardy. Decades of experience had shown us not to touch the dials except to sight in. The concept of twisting dials and then expecting the scope to return to zero seemed impossible. In fact, for many of the scopes we used, it was impossible. Even if the scope did dial accurately, the relatively soft contact surfaces wouldn’t hold up for long.

Shooting innovations are generally spurred by either competition or war. Interest in long-range shooting was already growing in the 1990s and after 9/11 there was increased military interest as well. Precision shooting was seen both as a way of protecting troops and for taking out enemy targets without a lot of collateral damage. Scope makers, notably Nightforce, developed scopes to meet military demands — not only extremely precise but incredibly tough. For those of us who still regarded scopes as fragile, delicate instruments, the toughness was hard to believe.

The final hurdle was price. These money-no-object military scopes come with price tags in the range of $2,500 to $4,000, and yes, they truly are spectacular. Modern competitive rifle shooters, and those of us who shoot paper, prairie dogs and pronghorns don’t need the toughness military use demands. We do need precise, repeatable and durable adjustments at a price we can afford. Established makers such as Bushnell, Burris, Leica, Leupold, Nightforce and Zeiss are making them for us, along with relative newcomers like Athlon, Maven, Primary Arms, Sightron, SWFA, Tract, Vortex and others. Exciting times!

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