Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Have scope lens coatings/glass quality peaked?

Back 30 years or so ago it seemed like every couple of years a scope manufacturer would come out with new products touting upgraded or enhanced lens coatings and optical clarity. I'm sure there's probably a limit to what can be done to make a quality piece of glass - has that limit been reached?

The past 5-7 years it seems like new reticles and dialing mechanisms are what the manufacturers have spent their efforts on. Just give me a good duplex or 4A reticle and I'm happy.

Who knows? Considering the way things are accidentally discovered and attempts to improve technology in one area spill over into another, there may still be plenty of surprises in store. I think that when it comes to optics, we'll see some surprises over the next few decades. Hope I'm still around to take advantage of them.

Scopes have really gotten better over the last 50 years or so that I have used them.

I had one of my late 1980's Burris handgun scopes die. They replaced it with a new one. Wow the new one was much brighter than the older one. I have ordered more of them since then. I have several Leupold scopes that are 30+ years old. The new ones are noticeably brighter.

Way back in 1984 I got the wife an old Winchester 100 in 308 and put an old Weaver K4 on it that I had laying around. Before deer season in 1986 I had her getting some trigger time in with a Browning bolt action in 257 Roberts AI with a VX-III Leupold on it. When done shooting she informed me that she wanted a scope like this one, that she could see through on her deer rifle. Before deer season 1987 I got her a Browning BBR in 270 and installed a Leupold VX-III on it. It is still in the gun safe today. The last two years she has hunted with a Howa 1500 Mini Action in 7.62x39. It has a new Weaver Classic Extreme 2.5-10X scope on it. The Weaver glass is noticeably cleared than the older Leupold VX-III. The difference between the old "probably 1970's" K4 Weaver and the new Weaver Classic Extreme is very impressive. Back in the 1970's I was impressed with the Weaver K4, today it does not compare with the new offerings.

I would not bet that scopes will not continue to improve.

Bob R

I never assume that anything remains static. Even if stuff doesn't markedly improve, we can hope the prices drop a bit. For certain, peaked or not, there’s a lot of good glass out there at some pretty good prices. Thise coatings that shed external water and vapor are nice too.

The next big advancement is likely to be colorless AR lens treatments. Instead of the green/purple/bluish tints, they’ll be completely clear.

The clear lens treatments will then precipitate re-engineering the glass itself to maximize resolution with the colorless AR.

True that. $500 today will buy you a scope that was likely unattainable at any price 30 years ago.

WWII vintage 7x50 binoculars made for the U.S. Navy still impress me, even in low light.

Zeiss top end for many years was the T* coatings. They are still great but they now have the HT (high transmission) which are a step up accordingly to them.

I think it gets to a point where any R&D money spent on improving light transmission or hydrophobia through more or better coatings would be better spent on durability and repeatability. The clarity of modern scopes seems to be to the point where they human eye can’t differentiate between better clarity or more light than currently available optics.

I’m more than satisfied with the optical quality of modern scopes is excellent, it’s durability, repeatability and weight that now could be improved upon by all manufacturers.

I get pissed off from time to time because I can't tell the difference in clarity from a cheaper scope than a scope I paid high dollar for! But bottom line, I'm a Zeiss guy on all of my big game rifles. I might put a Burris or a Leupold on an Ar or a .223 bolt but my deer, antelope and elk rifles all have Zeiss scopes on them.

I have always found that the optical technology used in riflescopes is downstream from the technology used in photographic lenses and it's delayed by about 10-20 years.

The most recent advances of which I am aware are in the field of glass material and shaping. ED glass, Super ED glass, Fluorite crystal glass, aspherical lens, phase fresnel lens, and so on. Some of these new technologies has made it into riflescopes, others may never make it. If we stay with non-powered, purely optical design, we may be near the peak of what is possible.

If we talk about coatings, there's not much room left for improvement. Coatings are used to reduce or eliminate the reflection of light entering and exiting a lens. We have gone from near 5% per glass/air surface for uncoated lenses to small fractions of 1%. It is my understanding that overall light transmission can reach a maximum of about 98% or so. Many riflescopes are already near that value. Coating technology may change or evolve (and probably will) but the results are not going to be leaps and bounds above the current state of the art.

One aspect of bending light is the CA that is produced by that action. This is where glass material comes in and the one material that virtually eliminates CA is fluorite crystal with an Abbe number of 94.99. Pure fluorite crystal is not well-suited for riflescopes, but Super ED glass is, and its Abbe number ranges from 99.44 to 99.70. For comparison, ED glass has an Abbe number in the low 80s. Non-ED glass will have an Abbe number in the 50s.

If you want greater resolution, currently the only way to do that is with a larger objective lens. If there's a way around that without CPU assist, I am not aware of it but would love to be surprised.

In the last several years, we have witnessed the expansion of state-of-the-art technologies onto lower cost riflescopes. Very few riflescope makers have embraced the newer material technologies but those that have done so have produced amazing results, but for a high price. In time, these innovations may filter down to the cheaper products.

One technology that I thought would be cool was phased fresnel but currently it's very expensive to create. The benefit would be lighter smaller optics with better performance. One can dream.

Again, if you want to see what's coming in lens technology, look at the camera lens technology leaders. Usually, the sports optics like spotting scopes and binoculars will get those advances before riflescopes. As an example, Kowa has pure fluorite crystal spotting scopes and they are amazing.

We had some of these back in the 90's at the Federal Prison that I worked at. They were made by Bausch and Lomb, and were very clear for their age.

Dan

Are you saying we've surpassed actual diamonds used in the coating?

Very informative quote FTR - thanks. One of the disappointments for many of us is Nikon's exit from sporting optics sector. Their products seemed to follow your suggestions above regarding lens tech trickle down from photog industry. And at terrific price points.

I completely agree with you kappa8, Nikon had made some great contributions to the optical performance of riflescopes without having to sell kidneys. Nikon was a leader in coatings and ED glass in camera lenses and they brought those technologies over to the riflescopes and sports optics. The Monarch series was quite the impressive line up. I still remember when they had the Monarch 3 or 5 with ED glass for about $700. I recommended it to some people and they loved that scope. Still do. I still have a few Monarchs from the early 2000s, excellent scopes. They still make some nice spotting scopes, but I have gone over to Kowa since then, never looked back.