What have frying pans and rifle scopes got in common?

Description:

Answer: BLACK BS

Most frypans now come with a dark 'non-stick' surface. It has a name sometimes applied to slippery politicians but Samuel B. Mann thinks it's about as useful as 'constantly centred reticles'.

It may let eggs slide around for a while but soon needs oil. If you don't use enough oil it's hard to clean the crap off - and you can't use steel wool because that would wreck the surface.

Eventually, nothing will keep it clean. Then it starts to bubble and crack, at which point (if not before) it is thought to release PFAS chemicals provably deleterious to your health.

In the wash-up, it's inferior to stainless-steel, which can be scrubbed with impunity and usually for less time.

SO, WHAT'S THAT GOT IN COMMON WITH SCOPES?

The darkness . . . think the black surrounding of scope tunnel-vision, real and metaphorical.

Because modern erector tubes transmit reflections if not aligned with the scope's longitudinal axis, their makers have long added heavy field stops to mask the flare. This, with the now-pervasive rubber eyepiece, often leaves you looking into a relatively small field of view surrounded by a black donut.

There has always been some loss to field stops beyond that from magnification but it could be as little as six inches (150mm) each side at 100 yards in the case of that old B. Nickel Supralyt 1x12 on the book's back cover, shown here. Nowadays a loss of 15 feet (4.6 metres) each side is not uncommon, even at 1x!

And the darkness continues, into places many shooters can't or won't look - or even think about.

The unseen erector tube weighs many times what could move in a scope before 'image-movement', and its inertia greatly increases the damage recoil can do to your scope.

Though these new scopes can be zeroed quickly, even in crooked mounts, experts warn that they, too, should be mounted bend-free and properly aligned to avoid optical and mechanical failure.

Can any of this be a threat to our health?

Well, yes, if you hunt dangerous game. Even at low magnifications that heavy, black ring around your field of view might hide a critter or two (other than the one you're aiming at) that might charge.

Worse, firing the shot may just be the moment you discover bad mounting/heavy recoil has wrecked your erector-tube assembly - and your chance of sitting at the campfire that night.

So, know your onions when it comes to scopes, frypans . . . and sausages.

'LIGHT AT THE START OF THE TUNNEL - Are rifle scopes off the rails?' (approx. A5, 152pp, incl. 28 colour pages) traces the descent of 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 the additions printed: $30-$45 posted.