I have a Weaver scope with one of these - how does it work? The SCOPE says Weaver k2.5, the screw on BOOSTER has marks like 5-10-15-20

Person I got it from thinks that is the 'new' magnification, but that can't be right, can it? It is basically a lens in a screw-on housing, so those are just focusing adjustments, like on a standard scope AO, right?

Any idea as to history of the thing? It is pretty neat!

Litschert Power Boosters were made to convert lower magnification 3/4", 7/8", and 1" tube scopes to 6x or 8x "varmint" scopes.

I've never seen Litschert Power Booster/Converter that was more then 8x. I have a couple of scopes that have them installed and think that they were sort of an era specific "patch" that was more "sizzle" then "steak". The idea being that you could unscrew the objective housing on your Lyman Alaskan or Weaver K2.5, screw on the Litscher unit, and go varmint hunting with a higher magnification scope. I don't recall ever seeing a Litschert unit with an AO feature, but the 5-10-15-20 might correspondt to 50-100-150-200 yards. I have some that are NIB, but they are buried in the totes in the storage unit, so it wouldn't be easy to get to them and see what the instruction sheets would tell us.

Jeff

I have a Litchert that came off an old J C Higgins 22. It works good enough that I'd like to find a couple more to buy in the bigger sizes. Also looking for an Edwards in any size.

Jeff..

I disagree about the "patch" or "more sizzle than steak" comments.

You have to remember the era from which those power booster units came.

From about 1945 to 1955 there were VERY FEW light, affordable internal adjustment scopes that were over 4x. Also until the late 1950s, most scopes were not fogged proofed and nirogen filled. So really , adding the power booster was a convenient and viable conversion.

Increasing magnifaction by adding one of those untis to an existing scope was no more frivolous to a shooter of that time than a rifle owner of today replacing a wooden stock with a synthetic. It only improved the performance of the scope if the shooter could handle the higher magnification.

Basically, as the 1950s drew to a close, Weaver, Leupold and Redfield and Bushnell all had nice 6, 8 and 10x scopes on the market which made the power boosters pretty much obsolete.

Also, as scopes became fogged proofed and sealed, such owner installed conversions fell out of favor.