Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Old Weaver glass

I had the opportunity to pick up my dad's old Savage 99 for a Pa. deer hunt last week. I'd flown in from Minnesota, and in stead of flying with my rifles, I used one of my brother's guns, which was a 99 bought for him on the day he was born 65 years ago. The gun wears an El Paso K-4.

That gun hadn't been shot in over 20 years, and the scope was right on. I'm always impressed with Weaver's older scopes. They just plain work. Of course the coating package isn't as good as modern offerings, but the scopes just don't seem to move around at all. Kudos to Weaver for having had made a good, dependable product. I see why Dad hung a Weaver on that fine rifle.

When I was a kid, Bushnells and Weavers were the scopes of choice for the average casual hunter in New England.

Leupold, Lyman, and Redfield were a lot less common, mostly used by white-collar guys and professional people, like attorneys and physicians.

My Father and his 'chuck hunting crew were mostly shooting those long Lyman and Unertl scopes with micrometer elevation and windage rear rings. I know that Unertl sold "de-horned" elevation and windage rear rings, but I never saw a set of them in the field or at the range.

My Dad had a Pre 64 Featherweight with a Weaver K4 for probably 30 years. Fired it a few times every year. Once just to make sure it was still on and a couple times for the deer that year. Never once saw him have to adjust anything.

I still have and use three El Paso Weavers. One is an old 4X but refurbished by Mr. Ruiz before he retired. It works just fine. Another is a 3X all steel that came off a very lightly used .30-30 built in 1973. The other is also lightly used, a 4X MicroTrac that I bought new in the eighties.

These are not on primary hunting rifles but they serve a need rather well. The MicroTrac is a really good scope considering the coatings of the time.

I still have and use three El Paso Weavers. One is an old 4X but refurbished by Mr. Ruiz before he retired. It works just fine. Another is a 3X all steel that came off a very lightly used .30-30 built in 1973. The other is also lightly used, a 4X MicroTrac that I bought new in the eighties.

These are not on primary hunting rifles but they serve a need rather well. The MicroTrac is a really good scope considering the coatings of the time.

In the 80s and 90s our family hunted with a farmers family in NEPA. They all carried a j.c higgins in .270 and all used 4x weavers . Not fancy but they killed deer....

I keep an El Paso K-3 in Talley QD rings as the backup scope for my CZ 416 Rigby. Rock solid dependable.

405wcf

This an old Weaver K-1.5 on a very nice gun, JP Sauer 7x57R/16ga/16ga. The shown group was with factory PPV 139gr and the Weaver scope in a set of claw mount rings I made. The drilling also has a Hertel&Ruess 6x in the original claw rings. The old Weaver works much better for my style of hunting.

No doubt the old Weavers are tough scopes and back in the day were a great value for the dollar.

But as I've aged they don't do anything for me. The lenses are trumped by cheap foreign scopes now due to technology. I look through the last remaining Weaver that I have left (an old K8) and I can barely see through it. Soon it will probably end up on E-bay and will be replaced by modern lenses.

Much of it's my eyes and some of it is the age of the glass.

Even that old K8 still holds zero even though the target is a big orange blur.

Dan

I have two Weavers. A K6 that is the one I use every year for the first deer. I also have a K4 on a .22 that I use to shoot pests. My only negative thought about them is that if one gets broken it will cost more to fix than it is worth.

I must confess, that I have about a dozen or more old steel weavers in service on various vintage rifles... and I have at least 40+ steel weavers around here not mounted...

The old steel weavers were just simple, solid, reliable and USA made!

Sure wish they were still cranking them out down in El Paso.

yep, call me a scopaholic..I'll admit it.

dave

[quote=Dantheman
Much of it's my eyes and some of it is the age of the glass.

Even that old K8 still holds zero even though the target is a big orange blur.

Dan [/quote]

Have you tried re-focusing it as you aged? I put an old K3 on a Mauser build 18 years ago after first sending it out to be re-furbished. After many years spent gathering dust, I got the gun out recently and boy was the image not what I remembered. A simple focusing via the ocular ring sharpened up the image to what I remembered it to be.

Weaver made good scopes, I had a 330

Recently purchased an old Mausr(8x57) with an El Paso K4 on it, not as bright as my newer scopes, but plenty bright enough to punch deer at any legal light. It's going to stay on there too. Just can't bring myself to break the old girl up.

They're tough and they track well.

Glass is not the brightest, in fact dim compared to a new, cheap Chinese scope.

And they cost what they're worth (or more) to get serviced; last one I sent took nearly a year.

Nostalgic, but not something I'd be wanting to buy.

DF

Totally depends. Lumping all old Weaver glass into one category and then opining on it thusly is just plain wrong. Some models sport far better glass than others and some are every bit as good as mid priced scopes of today IME, and better than most Chinese glass.......