The Little-Known History of Optics

Trying to give a narrative history of optics is no small feat, and while I wouldn’t dare say I’m going to be able to put together something all-encompassing and definitive, I think I can give it a fair shake. So, let’s go back to the beginning.

Origins

At its very core, it makes perfect sense that the overall concept of a rifle scope was born from that of the astronomer's telescope. If seeing far-away things up close is the goal, then that’s a good place to start. By the 1600s, telescopes were in common use within the scientific community, and it was a spider that gave us the first fleeting glimpse at what was to come. An English astronomer left his telescope case open and discovered that a spider had spun a web in front of the lens during his absence. When he looked through the telescope, he noticed that both the web and the objects at a distance were in focus. This gives us what is perhaps the earliest reference to the basic concept of crosshairs or a reticle.

In early 1776, painter Charles Willson Peale worked with astronomer David Rittenhouse on a rifle scope design. They spent a great deal of time testing their creation with live fire demonstrations on what was then the State House yard. Today, we know it as the green in front of Independence Hall.

They struggled to get the gun sighted in properly and even suffered from what is probably the earliest recorded incident of “scope bite” on February 9, 1776, when Rittenhouse noted that they were “making piece [sic] with springs to prevent the Eye being hurt by the kicking of the Gun.”

It would be another half-century before the first viable scope hit the market in the 1830s to 1840s. It was designed by John Chapman and Morgan James, but it is William Malcolm’s design from the 1850s that is seen in photos and illustrations of Civil War-era snipers. These are the ones with really long, thin scope tubes. Despite being relatively weak in terms of magnification and light-gathering capabilities, they were considered to be cutting-edge technology for decades to come. Given that scopes like these were used by market hunters who drove the American bison to the brink of extinction, it’s pretty safe to say that these optics were exceptionally effective.

Visionary Concepts

In 1901, an article in the Royal Dublin Society’s journal on scientific transactions talks about the creation of a “collimating-telescope gun-sight” designed by Sir Howard Grubb. As the term is a bit esoteric today, collimating sights allow the shooter to see an illuminated aiming point aligned with the gun it’s mounted on with little parallax.

The article waxes poetic on the history of telescopes and iron sights and how, at that time (in 1901), it had never been easier to adapt and adopt some kind of telescopic sight, but also prattles on about construction, average shooters, and military constraints. If that all sounds a bit too familiar, it’s because the more things change, the more they stay the same. The important thing to note here is that the idea of illuminated crosshairs and red dot optics dates back more than a century.

Trench warfare in World War I really proved the importance of rifle scopes on the battlefield. Since both sides were dug in, snipers utilized their magnified scopes to take out soldiers who carelessly popped their heads up over the trench.

By World War II, scope technology had advanced by leaps and bounds. During that time and the years that followed, magnification increased. A Lyman 2.5x, made from the late-30s to the mid-50s, could be mounted to the M1; a Zeiss 4x mounted to the 98k; a Unertl 10x to the M40 used by famed Vietnam sniper Carlos “White Feather” Hathcock. Today’s military sees soldiers using the ACOG and other advanced optics on their M4 rifles.

Civilian markets kept pace with military development, as is so often the case. The Nydar Model 47 was a reflex sight designed for use on shotguns, but it owes the concept on which it was based to aerial bomb sights used in aircraft during World War II. While the idea of mounting any kind of an optic to a shotgun was a bit out there when the Nydar was released, today’s turkey hunters can get a brand new shotgun that’s been drilled and tapped for a red dot - sometimes even buying one that’s already got a red dot mated to it from the factory.

Fixation on Fixed

For the majority of scope history, magnification was fixed. A Weaver K4 was a popular option for deer rifles in the mid-20th century, but it soon gave way to variable power scopes, with the 3-9x40 becoming the do-all standard against which all others are judged. Today, magnification has reached unprecedented levels, with long-range hunters and shooters utilizing scopes that are crystal clear with magnification of 30x or more.

Reticles, too, have seen tremendous expansion from the centuries-old design of a simple crosshair. Some have become incredibly complex, like the “Christmas Tree” reticle that gives the shooter an incredibly accurate reading in terms of elevation and windage out to great distances. Some scopes are even designed with their reticles designed around certain bullet weights, with the hash marks corresponding specifically to a particular bullet weight from a particular type of rifle. While this can be limiting, the ability to calibrate something like this from the factory is impressive; neither Peale nor Malcolm could have ever imagined such precision.

Technological Advances

Electronic optics have become the norm today, but they’re still a relatively new concept in the grand scheme of things. Generally speaking, the electronic optics era began 50 years ago in 1974 with the Swedish company Aimpoint. Their first offering, called simply the Aimpoint Electronic, was the first electric red dot sight system that utilized an LED to emit a red dot. It weighed about 12.5 ounces and was more than 6” in length – and these specs don’t include the added weight and bulk of the mount. By today’s standards, that’s massive for a red dot, but it was innovative then. Life in general has never been more intimately linked to technology than it is right now, and we embrace it because we’ve been told it makes life easier. Optics have followed this trend, too. Some have rangefinders built in, connected by Bluetooth to an app on their phone or smartwatch. Others are linked to Kestrel devices that factor in the wind and other atmospheric variables before adjusting the crosshairs in the scope. Sir Grubb would be gobsmacked.

The same developmental arc has been followed with optics that make seeing at night easier. The basic concept began almost a century ago in Hungary in 1929 and was used for anti-aircraft defense. By World War II, the night vision technology was being used in tanks. In the United States, a Starlight scope was available for the M1 carbine, designating the gun as the M3. It relied heavily on an external source of infrared light, which made the unit large and cumbersome, essentially undoing all of the benefits provided by an M1 carbine in the first place. Still, technology has to start somewhere.

The Current Temperature

Today, night vision and thermal imaging have taken the world by storm, with products coming down both in terms of size and price. For example, you can get a solid entry-level thermal optic for less than $1,750 and they weigh right around one pound.

Where we go from here is anyone’s guess. Personally, I don’t think it’ll be much longer before we have a red dot optic that is capable of making real-time adjustments all on its own based on gun, bullet, environmental, and even species factors within the unit itself. Essentially, the optic will do everything except pull the trigger. We’re most of the way there now as it is.

Bells, whistles, and do-dads are great, but there is such a thing as too much advancement, and you can easily get to a point where the technology is far too complicated for the average user to properly utilize. In actuality, we’re probably there already. For as much as technology has advanced and gotten more complicated, there’s still a market for simple, fixed power scopes and low-power variable optics.

Take a look at the various setups you see at your local range or hunting camp. Invariably, I’ll bet you see a lot more simple setups than overly complicated ones. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Peale, Malcolm, and Grubb would be proud.

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