Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Lead in Glass...still used?

IIRC, older optics from outside the USA sometimes had lead in the lens.

How does that affect the optical properties? Add much weight? Are any still being mfg?

Thanks.

It increases the refractive index. Roughly, a design can bend light more using less glass.

IIRC, European manufacturers had to remove lead from their lenses several years ago due to draconian environmental restrictions.

Thanks guys - I was under the impression 'regs' stopped it just like in gas.

Next question, not picking on a mfg, but when you look at scope weight - some reputable brands/models have far more weight than say Leupold's - is that weight concentrated in any given component? Tube material and thickness, and internals, or glass thickness and number of lens? Curious why some models might weigh say 14-16 oz, and others well over 20......? Thanks in advance.

I think most Leupold scopes have pretty thin tubes. They also use more polymer internal parts as opposed to many heavier scopes which tend to use metal parts to control adjustment.

There is a lot of lead in crystal. Unfortunately, there are too many windowlickers...

Lead in glass has been pretty much outlawed in many countries for a long time due to the release of lead fumes into the atmosphere during manufacture. Once in the glass it is pretty much inert.... and the amount of lead used wouldn't be enough to create an appreciable weight difference in most lens groups IMO...

I'm pretty sure from what I've read, that most heavier scopes use heavier tubes, reticle adjustment systems, and lens group mounting braces and adjustment tubes in order to make their scopes more robust and unbreakable. But all that comes at a cost... a scope used in combat, for instance, needs a system that is practically unbreakable compared to a scope we tote to the range or to the field a few times a year. Stick is about the only person on this site who tests his equipment in realistic fashion to see if it holds up as advertised....

Thanks for the feedback folks.

I seem to recall, from memory.....that a lighter scope has less inertia to overcome during recoil, so it might put less stress on them....or is that correct? Is it purely a function of recoil velocity? Perhaps the heavier components are as much to do with long term durability with knob twisting for adjustments? Yes/No?

Thanks.

Forces break things, and these arise as the product of mass and acceleration. So if we're considering the weight of the scope as a whole unit, then lighter scopes put less stress on the mounting system during the acceleration of recoil. As far as the durability of the scope it's the relationship of the mass*acceleration of a given part vs the strength of whatever is holding it in place.

I set out to build my ultimate whitetail bolt action 7mm-08 and early on I put a Zeiss Diavari VM/Z 1.5-6x42 30mm scope on it. I hunted with that rifle for a few years and liked it a lot. Since lighter weight was my original plan for that rifle I saw that Zeiss introduced a no lead in the glass Diavari VM/V T* upgrade that was about 4 ounces lighter in weight than the VM/Z. My buddy bought the VM/Z from me and I bought the lighter VM/V model. Optically I couldn't tell any difference.

I don’t understand bending light or stacking lenses and getting a closer image of what you are looking at, all I know is what I have seen with German Diavari scopes, is the image quality is superb.

I don’t know how water that is heavier than air gets into the sky and comes back to earth as rain either and I don’t spend much time pondering these phenomenon, I just take advantage of them and don’t ask questions…

The water question is simple. The Ideal Gas Laws say a given volume of a gas at a specific temperature and pressure will have the same number of molecules as a similar but different equal volume composed of different games.

Water evaporates into air, taking heat energy with it. As frank water it was obviously heavy. Broken down as H2O vapor each molecule weighs far less than the average molecule of air.

N2 is two atoms at 7 which equals 14... 78% of the atmosphere
O2 is two atoms at 8 which equals 16... 21% of the atmosphere
H2O is two atoms at 1 and one at 8 which equals 10.

21% of 16 + 78% of 14 equals 3.36 and 78% of 14 equals 10.92. The combined gases average 14.28. Compared to water vapor it is significantly heavier. As it evaporates the wet air gets lighter.

That’s just another way of saying that you don’t know either…

Lead in glass is for sissies. Real men use lenses with Thorium (radioactive).

From the 40s to the 70s, many camera lenses were built with thorium oxide dissolved in the glass.

Sorry, I thought I dumbed it down enough... I actually understand it pretty well. I left out Avagadro, Boyle, Charles, Buys Ballot, moles, and quite a bit more which I routinely explain, sometimes in depth.

Ray Wylie Hubbard said the trouble with irony is not everyone gets it...

Lol. Well, the above seems quite heavy in humidity for some of us average folks 😉

Good stuff! I was about to say mathman had some Physics background and then another poster may be a meteorologist 😁

All good stuff folks I do appreciate the information! Learn something new all the time!

I suppose a user could consider stress on mounts, parts, and yet also optical quality as well.

Art, you may be confusing atomic number with atomic weight.
"N2 is two atoms at 7 which equals 14... 78% of the atmosphere
O2 is two atoms at 8 which equals 16... 21% of the atmosphere
H2O is two atoms at 1 and one at 8 which equals 10."

Atomic number of Nitrogen is 7, but atomic weight is 14.007. Thus molecular weight of N2 would be 28.
Atomic number of Oxygen is 8, but atomic weight is 15.999. Thus molecular weight of O2 would be 32.

H2O would have a molecular weight of 18.