Hi all,
What's the word on the street regarding Bausch & Lomb
Balvar scopes and their interesting mount/adjustment system? Are the mounts subject to other optic brands or just B&L? Finally, are they worth more than 4 dead flies, painful, erratic, or admired?
Thanks,I hope,
Stephen

I'm a big fan of the old Bausch & Lomb 'Custom' concept and wish it had continued to evolve. They were, instead, blown away by the fool's paradise of 'constantly centred' internal adjustments and the (reverse?) acquisition of the B&L scope business by Bushnell.

The 'Custom' B&L scopes I've got blend the internal and external fields as well as the old Zeiss scopes and one has better head-position flexibility (eye box) than most Nickel Supras.

It would be hard to use their Custom mounts on a scope with turrets because the rings are close together.

Kuharski Bros also made mounts to fit the B&Ls and during the 1950s Stith, Bushnell, Lyman (and Leupold into the early '60s) sold hunting scopes with no internal adjustments as well, and mounts to go with them.

Some business acquired the remaining stock of the old stuff from B&L but its warehouse burnt down maybe five years ago, so now you might best look to eBay and Numrich.

You can still find mounts for rifles made before 1970 but I know to my cost that those made for the Remington 760 don't fit the screw holes in the 7600.

The scopes were originally steel, I believe, but were light alloy in the '60s and the mounts changed from having cotton-reel cones each end to cones at the front and a closing cradle at the back in the later, daisy-wheel version.

I've heard it said the alloy scope tubes could get gouged by the cones (probably under the second recoil impulse) and one of my scopes does have a mark. However, if you have the tapering reticle you could simply turn the scope around 90 or 180 degrees if this interfered with function.

I like them. Have them on a m70 257, M670 30-06 and a win 100 308. I think i have Mauser and BAR bases floating around and 2 - 2.5-8x scopes.
They work fine. All with Kuharski rings.

The old Rochester, New York B&L scopes had excellent optics. They were pretty well bullet-proof, also, since they had a solid tube and no opening for adjustment turrets.

You can find the B&L and (perhaps more popular) Kuharsky mounts on Gunbroker and eBay quite often -- the problem might be finding the proper mount for whatever rifle you want to use it on.

The biggest drawback to the B&L and Kuharsky mounts is that they placed the scope rather high off of the receiver. Leupold Adjusto mounts and adjustable mounts from Williams (and one other maker that slips my mind right now) sat a little lower.

Weaver.

Yes, Stonecreek, some of the B&L mounts are a little high for smaller scopes, and I think the cones could have been farther apart.

However, thinking of Ray Atkinson's point about bumps knocking scopes out of whack, spring-loaded mounts like the B&L are the only ones with a chance of 'bouncing' back.

I like Rich's Weaver mounts, too. At least they put the fiddly stuff on the outside where you have a better chance of noticing if something goes wrong.