Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Going back a mile to get forward an inch

I recently purchased a rifle with a Kuharsky Brothers mount and a balvar 8A scope.
For those who dont know or are less than 50 years old the K-bros and Baush and Lomb system employed an adjustable scope mount and a scope with no internal adjustments, a strong uni-tube and perm. centered reticle.
The idea and practice was to be able to easily remove the scope from the mount once zero'd (with no tools) and place it into the mount of another rifle with no need to re-zero. this could be done with an infinite number of rifles and a range of 3-4 different scopes and even an auxillary iron sighting system.
The benifits as I see it is that I, a former Marine and multiple rifle expert , am unable to shoot more than one rifle well at the same time.
Go Figure.
So a person can buy Kuharsky or B&L mounts for each rifle, then purchase a 2.5-8, a fixed 4X and a Fixed 2X scope. Install the scope into the ring sets and equipt every rifle as they intend to use it with the scope they need at the time and never have to fire the rifle to rezero.
As well the lack of internall adjustments means nearly NO moving parts to ever wear, break or shift. Less parts means less breakage under harsh conditions.
The adjusment on the mount is made then Locked and is nearly immpossible to inadvertantly throw off.
The drawbacks...
well lets see...
Uh. A-hah! I can spend less money on scopes.?
No thats not it.
Oh, I know. its 2011. We are a nitch consumer. Berated by our peers and advertisers if we dont run out and purchase whatever new fangled product they foist on us to keep thier stockholders rolling in dividends.
Really, how long can a scope company stay in buisness if it makes a scope that wont break and can be used on every rifle you own or will own , forever?
NOT LONG!
No the concept was not good for the manufacturer.
But its the most sound system I have ever seen for the rifle Looney. In fact, wouldnt it be wonderful if , say, Warne or talley made a CNC produced, 1/4 MOA aluminum mount for modern rifles? And say Leupold and Zeiss made a perm centered reticle non adjustable scope w/ fully coated lens and nitrogen purged with a one piece aluminum tube.
In fact without the need for internal erectors I would suppose the cost of the best scope on the market could very well be 1/3 of its current price.
Nice huh? owning a schmidt and bender grade scope or two and having it perm. zeroed to every rifle you own. being able to pop it off and on at will without wasting a round of ammo.
a nice 1.5-6x36 and a 2.5-10x44. would seem to cover virtually every single hunting scenario i can think of. heck you could even switch in the field between AM and PM hunts. Between swamp bottoms and 3 acre food plots. between shooting a big brown bear on a river bank and going into the thick stuff to recover him.

Had the exact system on my Sako Finnbear.

What did you think of it JG ??

To be honest with you, I didn't test it out. I had a S&B summit in waiting so I pulled it off and put the summit on there. The glass was still surprisingly good considering it's age. I believe it was a B&L Balvar. It was a very solid system from what I could tell though.

here is my first one.
getting more mounts for a Browing BLR, marlin 336 and a Remington 740

Its a good solid system thats proven to work.
....if you can find all the parts.

In more current times BR shooter lou Merdica approached loopie about making a scope without adjustments,for the express purpose of running a external adjustable scope, and loopie turned him down.Said it wasnt needed because there scopes are perfict in every way.
Thats how you end up with pictures like this.

The pic is of top benchrest shooters at the super shoot that have converted to March scopes because of loopies inability to make a product that will work.
And then you have diehard guys like this.
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I have 30 VariX3's andVarixIII's. I have had many problems with their scopes. Scopes I have had problems with are 3.5x10x40, 4.5x14x40AO, 4.5x40x40LR, 6.5x20x40AO. 8.5x25x40AO, and 6.5x20x50LR.
I am on a first name basis with the head of Leupold Technical Services, Alan Ransom. I have even met him in person at Leupold headquarters, discussing the issues I have had with my scopes, this August. The issues: quality control on parts inside the scopes, not holding zero, tracking issues, erector systems, etc. I also have talked to him about MOA reticle. Leupold has fixed or replaced 9 or 10 of my scopes. For the last 2 years I have keep track of all emails and the blue sheets that they send back with the fixed scopes. They now put my scopes on their 40X 300 Win Mag to check it at their range. And they send back the target with the scope or send it in a email. I also do box drills to check scopes if I think they have a problem.
I do not have enough time to explain the problems i have had with each scope. And I have had problems with my friends and faimlies Leupold scopes.
I am not bashing Leupold, but I don't understand why I have so many problems. And yes I do know how to mount a scope. I shoot alot, not as much as some but alot more than others. I sent 1 scope in 3 times before they got it right. At the same time I sent in another scope and they replaced it because it would not hold zero.
These scopes are on guns from 223 to 375 ultramag. Only 2 have muzzle brakes, which are 338 &375 ultramags.
Don't ask me why I keep buying them. My loyalty has not gotton me anything. Try replacing 30 scopes with another brand I could afford. My friend has as many guns as I do and he has switched to Weaver Grand Slams and Super Slams.
I have thought about this very much before I posted this, because of I did not want to offend anyone that has not had any trouble with their Leupolds.
I will continue to buy Leupolds even with the trouble I have had. Todd

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You can read the whole mess here.
http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/f18/leupold-china-junk-79631/

But I do understand where your comming from.
Another option would be NECO and the claw mounts thay make.
Pretty expensive stuff.
I myself for the scope swap out thing, just run a rail.

They dont repeat right on.But there close enouh that you dont have to mess with them to much.

dave

ringworm
Nice rifles.

dave

its not about swapping.

If you bought two brand new consecutive number remington PSS rifles and bought 2 US optics rails and brand new rings and mounted them.
Took a 2000 dollar scope and zeroed rifle #1 with it when you moved it over to rifle number two there is no reason it would be zero'd for it.

With the Balvar and the Kuharsky set up I can take the scope zeroed for POI @ 300 yards off a 22-250 model 700 and put it on an FN safari grade 375 H&H that has the mount set for 55 yards and it will be dead on. I can then switch it to a 35 remington marlin and be zero'd for 100 yards. never needing to fire a round or confirm zero.

Sounds like a plan.
Can you still find the Kuharsky mounts?


dave

for most stuff. 700's, 110's, 70's. nothing really recent.

Ringworm: I mildly disagree with your assessment of the reason/intention of why the Bausch & Lomb folks made several models of their scopes back in the 50's that had NO internal adjustments and relied on various models of mounting systems with adjustments therein.
I was alive and well in that time era and have used MANY of those mounting systems that had adjustments in them.
Back then virtually no one had TWO Rifles to Hunt with let alone need to switch a scope from one Rifle to another!
The purpose of those mounts in reality was to bypass the need for additional "holes" in the scope tube thus making it easier for a scope to stay fog-free, waterproof etc!
I still have a couple of these mount systems and a couple of the Bausch & Lomb adjustment-less scopes!
In my lengthy circle of experience I have never seen or heard of anyone using the adjusto-mounts as you indicate they were made for (swapping one scope to multiple Rifles) - it might work, I don't know, but I was around for the advertising and word of mouth and that was what the Balvar line was trying to do - make themselves a scope which was fog-free and weather-proof.
Which, if YOU recall, was a problem of significance back then.
And now to your contention about the "adjusto-mounts" of various manufacture being "the most sound system for the rifle looney" - again I beg to differ!
I know a number of systems that are far superior to the old "adjusto-mounting" systems!
One thing I do agree with you on is a "fixed power fixed crosshair" offering in a scope would be an interesting and reliable scope - if a "sound" mounting adjusting system could be engineered into the ring/mounts?
Some years back (2,001?) the youngest VarmintSon was along Hunting with me and killed a BIG Boar Badger with a Marlin 22 Magnum Rifle that had a minty Balvar 4 power scope (that had NO internal adjustments) on it.
I had mounted the scope in Millet ringbases which had a little horizontal adjustment built into them and used shims inside the rings to "zero" the scope to our chosen ammunition and the Rifle.
This Balvar scope by Bausch & Lomb had the wonderful fine tapered crosshairs and has not succumbed to the "flaking" of internal finish that afflicts so many of those older Bausch & Lomb scopes.
Older is NOT always better.
And another bone of contention I have with your posting is this - you imply that all "modern" scopes are failing in one regard or another!
I currently own and am shooting 84 (eighty four) Rifles with scopes attached to them and I am experiencing exactly NO problems with the scopes on any of them!
Indeed many different scope manufacturers have made money off of me with their "new fangled" offerings!
But I would MUCH rather go afield with (TRUST!) a Hunting Rifle fitted with a one piece base and good quality non-adjustable base/rings and a new Leupold 4.5x14x40mm variable scope that has the side focus and maybe an illuminated reticle or a "Big Game reticle" - than one with an adjustomounted Balvar scope!
And almost finally there is this - you allude to (or perhaps I am misunderstanding your post?) where you can leave ones adjusto-mounts at a particular locked down setting and then swap between "3 to 4 different scopes with no need to re-zero" this is false - if you wanted to swap scopes on an adjusto-mount equipped Rifle you have to re-zero said Rifle!
And lastly, not all adjusto-mount systems of old were without problems - I won't go into detail here but they were comprised of springs, turnwheels and detents that all held inherent functional weakness - this is why, I assume, that they are no longer produced (the inherent flaws) NOT solely because the scope manufacturers want to sell us more scopes.
I look forward to your observations regarding my impressions from over the decades and my current contentions.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I had one of the old Balvar8 scopes on my first centerfire rifle. I loved the scope and felt then that it had the clearest optics of anything then available. I particularly liked the tapered reticle. I remember taking the scope on and off several times and it never lost its zero. In concept it was a great idea and perhaps with modern design and manfacturing methods someone could bring something like that back. (I am not familiar with the March bases.)

The problem, with the B&L system was that it was a bear to sight in -- or it least that was my experience. A friend who had the same scope and mount said much the same thing. I found that the adjustments did not always track predictably and sometimes a small tweek would move the bullet a lot and sometimes a lot of adjustment would move the point of impact not so much. It was a frustrating experience.In the end I traded the rifle and scope off and switched over to a Leupold with a plex reticle and have never looked back.



I have talked to others about the B&L mounts. Some claim to have never had a problem with them. Others did have issues. Curious what other's experience has been.

when the mounts for the other 3 rifle comes in I have decided to do a complete trial with them switching between a 376 steyr, 30-30, 308 and 30-06 rifles. and a Balvar 8A scope. I will be please to offer the article to The fire here in the optics forum.

For a time before March came on the scene.Cecil Tucker did conversions that solved alot of the floating erector problems that every one was having.
It was found to some degree that after many tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of rounds fired in competition that a very slight amount of flattening would come about on the o rings he installs on the erector.It has never been proven that this leads to accuracy issues of any kind, but.it did lead some very anal Br shooters to freeze the erectors in place. ..Cant remember there names now but there were two guys making mounts for frozen scopes.Sounds about like the same type of thing.
Limited adjustment.Adjustments are a PITA.
All the March scopes I know of are internal.
I never could figure out how owning 100 scopes of a brand had anything to do with anything as far as how well they held up.
As usual loopie had the first and best shot at making this stuff.But turned it down as they cant admit they have serious problems.Its a shame as they could have made piles of cash.


dave

I startd big game hunting in 1956 with a B&L adjustable mount, and a Balvar 4, which was a 2.5-4X scope. It had a thick post w/ a crosswire to warn you if you were canting the rifle.
First of all, that scope, I think we had two, worked on something like 4 rifles. It did indeed come to zero assuming you placed it in the spring loaded "V" block properly. We had two 721 Remingtons, a .270 and an '06. We also had a Win M70 in .22 Hornet that used the same scope. None were zeroed the same and all held zero fine.
Later we got a then new 2.5-8X Balvar 8. It was used on both of the Remington 721's and a new 740 Remington Woodmaster 30'06. All of them were zeroed for loads that they liked and all of them were different. The two bolt guns were zeroed for 100 yds. I zeroed the 740 at plus three inches at 100 yds. with our 150 gr. handload. I killed my first buck with that rifle. My uncle killed done at 300 yds. with it.
I later used the same scope on both a Remington 700 in the then new 7mm Remington Magnum round and still another rifle, a Browning BAR in 7 Mag.
The poster that pointed out they were a real pain to zero was right. Not consistant. But once zeroed, they stayed put.
A very tough, bright and flare free scope. However, I did have a reticle break up in one of the two that I eneded up with.
I used a Beulher (SP ?) Micro-Dial Mount with the last rifle I used it on, a Weatherby Mk.5. Worked fine.
I gave my last Balvar 8 to an old hunting partner along with another Micro-Dial Mount for his custom Mauser. Got the mount from out very own Mule Deer. E

I am inspired. I think when we look to the top of the page we will see the heading "hunting optics". I am not doubting that benchrest shooters desire and need to have a much higher degree of accuracy to bring home an award. my award has a larger target area, so, MOA accuracy will suffice.

Yeah, sure Dave. You know more about building and testing scopes than Leupold does.
Must be why they dominate the short range, benchrest game.
BTW, how come the great March scopes are only warrantied for five years ? E

I am wondering if B&L didn't make their scopes and mounts that way to remove the break down from recoil problem. It might help.
They are also first focal plane scopes. The tapered crosswire apears larger as you increase the magnification. Helps to see the reticle in bad light. Not that the scope needs much help in bad light.
I stopped using B&L stuff when they were no longer availiable much during the 80's. Went to Leupold and haven't had any reason the change. E

ringworm
Its goof proof if you can live with the adjustments.
That why the BR crowd went that way.
dave

Ahh thank you E.
All complemants accepted.
Its pretty much over for loopie in the BR game.
To many failures.
March users at the supershoot.

The March scope is built in Japan.
5 years is the way they come.
They dont have the inferior chi-com parts that loopie does.So im betting the failure rate will be very low.

dave