I have an old Balvar 8A scope. It came on a rifle with a very cumbersome base for adjusting it. Is there a modern base that would work with this without too much frustration? Guess these were pre internal adjustments. Thanks for any help or thoughts.

I have one on a Savage 22-250, I put it on to see if it was competitive with modern scopes. I made it to the finally round of the Masters class at the PM Egg Shoot, so yes it is still a great scope. I have it in a Leupold windage adjustable scope and shim for elevation, you can see a piece of greased paper under the scope on the rear ring. We stopped on the way back from the shoot to kill a coyote with our competition rifles This is pretty much a set and forget set up but the rifle is flat shooting enough to hold on fur to 300 yards.




While the rifle looks pretty stock, it has a very accurate factory barrel, SSS Custom Comp trigger, XLR industries cheek piece and bedded factory stock with the barrel channel hogged out to fully free float the barrel no matter what. It will hold 5 shot sub-MOA groups off of shooting sticks if I cut back on the coffee that morning.

In automotive vernacular, "it's a sleeper"

Find an old Buehler Micro-Dial.

What kind of bases is your Balvar 8A installed in?


There were four reasonably common externally adjustable makes; B&L's own, later made/sold under the Kuharsky Brothers name, Buehler Micro-Dial, Leupold Adjusto-Mounts, and Stith Master-Mount.

About 30 years ago I went through an externally adjusted scope phase and found that while the B&L bases are a PITA to dial in, once you get them dialed in and locked down, they stay that way. That said, I prefer aesthetics of the Buehler Micro-Dial base, but the windage adjustments aren't any finer than the B&Ls. I don't care for the Leupold or Stith styles.

B&L advertised their externally adjustable scopes with the concept that you could buy one scope and swap it between any number of other rifles that were equiped with inexpensive B&L bases. The biggest negative that I have found is that the tapered crosshair reticle is so fine that it disappears in low light conditions.

PS - If you go with the Buehler Micro-Dial, ask the seller if he/she has the hooked shaped wrench that is used to adjust the elevation dial.

Thanks y’all. The current base is the B&L. The Buehler looks like it might work better for me. I appreciate the help!

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I have 1 or 2 adjustable base systms one of them is a bueler. I think one was on a mauser 98 and the other was on a magnum mark 5 weatherby action. What gun are you putting this on?

I got the Balvar on a savage 340. It has a kuhlarsky base. I swapped it out with a bsquare mount and scope that I was going to use for predator hunting. The gun felt top heavy with the kuhlarsky base.
I really like the tapered reticle of the balvar but not the base.

Debating what to do with it now. I have a Remington.222 that I could put it on. But need a base. Or put it back on the savage and set something else up for night hunting.

Any thoughts? Thanks!

Sell the Balvar and buy a modern scope so you don't have to agonize over the mounting system. Otherwise, use the Kuharsky or find a one-piece base and shim it for elevation (for the 340). Buehler didn't make the Micro-Dial for the 340 or for any short action rifle so you're probably going to be sol there.