Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Glass question for JB

Hopefully, John Barsness can answer this. While reading a couple guys on here going back and forth as to where glass is made for Zeiss, Swarovski and Schmidt-Bender and probably NightForce, was wondering if you could shed some light on this. Other than S-B, doesn't most come from Japan[Nikor?]. Thanks.

I'm not JB but my understanding (from my conversation with a senior executive at a U.S. riflescope manufacturer while on a hunt) is that most Japanese-made scopes are made on contract by Light Optical Works (LOW). I suspect that SWFAs, Nightforce SHVs and other companies' products are made by LOW, but don't know for sure.

http://www.light-op.co.jp/english/

I believe the original question is literally about the glass material for the lenses.

Pretty sure they make the lenses also.

I mean the glass itself the lenses are ground from.

Probably a glass factory.

Can't help you, there. Schott, maybe?

That's the company, not the where. Schott, and I suppose other, glass companies have various production facilities around the globe.

No shit Sherlock!

Just trying to help while JB is out hunting!


Schott

Hoya

Kinda figured JB would be in the field about now[after I posed the question!]. I got time. He mentioned where most glass/lenses came from a few years ago in a great optics article, just don't recall the details now. Curious is all. He steered me towards a birding site for binocs; "A better view desired".

I have a friend who is a renowned engineer in the electro-optical/laser field. This gentleman deals in huge dollar amounts with all of the major glass producers worldwide and is intimately familiar with their procurement supply chains. When I asked him this question as regards sports optics he replied that it is common knowledge that all optics companies acquire glass from various sources. He cited the "Leica Handbook", which he described as Leica's supply specification manual, as listing supply from Schott Jena, Mainz and Singapore; Corning USA and France; Hoya Japan and Ohara Japan. He also says the Schott Catalog cites supply from both Hoya and Ohara.

This is hearsay of course, albeit from a source I very much respect so I tried to verify it on the internet and the only absolute concrete evidence I found is from some of the annual reports of the companies above. Hoya for instance shows their largest sales outside of Japan as being from Germany.

Thanks Journeyman, good info. I thought I remembered something about Japan as being a source. Interesting things we learn.
Thanks again.

The largest suppliers of raw glass are Schott, Ohara, Hoya and Corning, although Kyocera supplies a fair bit as well. There are some indigenous Chinese glass suppliers as well, and they are getting better. At least one I can think of in Taiwan too.

Most of these have facilities in multiple countries and offer a large variety of different glass types.

As far as Japanese scope OEMs go, there are three primary ones I am aware of: Light Optics Works, Kenko and Japan Optics Limited. They all can make very nice stuff. LOW is best known and, generally, the highest end stuff from Japan is made there. However, I have seen some recent Kenko scopes that are absolutely world class. JOL is getting better too, but I have not tested their most recent stuff.

ILya

rifletom,

Sorry for not responding, but I try to spend as little time as possible on the Optics Forum.

To tell the truth, I haven't been keeping up with the nit-picky details such as where riflescope "glass" is made in the past few years. This is partly because I don't write as much about optics as I used to, in part because I grew weary of such details. It's been a long time since any reputable scope company hasn't used fully multi-coated lenses in their scopes, even $200 models, and just as long since the "secrets" of making optical glass have been limited to one company, much less one continent--as was commonly believed when I started writing about optics 30 years ago.

Yet many hunters still judge scopes by optics--and apparently disregard more important stuff, such as whether the adjustments work consistently, and whether the scope will hold up more than a few hundred rounds. This is partly because I've now had 20 brands of scopes (not individual scopes, but brands) fail from basic use on my rifles, including plenty of expensive models--some within less than 100 rounds. Because the difference between optics in scopes has narrowed so much in those 30 years, that has become far more important in my testing than knowing where the glass was made.

Thanks John. Totally understand your reasoning for the waning interest in scope glass, I'm sure there are more important things going on than that. I thank you and others here for the responses. Well ,I suppose we're pretty much done with this one. Maybe those two posters in my OP will read this and understand.

I understand it completely. Worry about what you know or don't know.

Not worried at all. Just found it mildly amusing you two were having a back and forth on the subject, so, wanted to get some other thoughts on it. I did and now it seems I'm done with it. Carry on.

I find it amusing that you would open a thread about that . What did you learn?

Well, not wanting to start a pissing contest, but, It did confirm that a lot of glass/lenses did come from Japan. Not all. Seems over time, that logistics indicate those items come from various sources such as Journeyman and koshkin mentioned earlier. That is what I have learned.