When the muster dogs blinked

Description:

DOES TUNNEL VISION BUG YOU?
Would you like a scope that was tougher, had no tunnel vision and a 15 per cent wider field of view, without needing a bigger eyepiece or shorter eye relief?

Well, such scopes were made before 'constantly centred reticles' swamped the market. As evidence, the 4x fields of view in one famous brand dropped from 35 to 30 feet after it changed over, yet the scope dimensions and eye relief remained virtually the same. Some other brands have been even worse , with FoVs as small as 23 feet from full-sized 4x40 scopes.

Because the loss to FoV is caused by addition of a heavy field stop, it is usually surrounded by a big black ring, blocking peripheral vision.

Think about the vision of a sheep that missed the muster for shearing or crutching.

When you patent something, it pays to mention every aspect of the invention, even ugly crutches and bandages needed to make it work.

Why? Because if you don't, someone else might patent the 'crutch' as an improvement and make you, the initial inventor, pay to use it.

So, the inventors of 'constantly centred reticles' mentioned the need for a diaphragm (a field stop that limits FoV and adds tunnel vision) in the early patents regarding their new technology . . . but they fudged the real reason for needing it. Field stops had been used before but rarely so constrictive and never for the same embarrassing reason - to exclude reflections from the interior of the new articulated erector tubes, if left crooked when the clicks are maxed out after bad mounting.

But you don't need to be crutched, because you're not a sheep. Though almost everyone buying a scope now has to look through that tunnel, if you've managed to read this far, just maybe you don't need to follow the mob.

'LIGHT AT THE START OF THE TUNNEL - Are rifle scopes off the rails?' (approx. A5, 152pp, incl. 28 colour pages) traces the descent of modern riflescopes from their golden age after WWII to the dubious 'advances' of today.

The $20 price, plus $4.30 postage, includes 24 pages of additional information to be sent by email; other options with additions printed: $30-$45 posted.

The first text shown h/w is a fragment of Redfield's variable-scope patent 3161716, filed Feb 1962. The second is from Weaver's US patent 2949816A, filed in Jan 1956. The scope drawing is from the Kollmorgen/Redfield patent US2955512A, filed April 1956, showing the restrictive diaphragm (50) specified in that patent as well.