From Telescopes to Rifle Scopes - An Early History

The Bullet:In

CMP has announced the dates of the National Matches at Camp Perry. As I’m sure you can expect, the matches are in the middle of summer when humidity is simply astounding. Remember to bring plenty of water and a change of clothes. If last year is any example, I’ll be planning for rain too.

The Marine Corps League El Toro Detachment 017 (@mcas017) showed off what might be the most secure Santa I’ve seen this holiday. I’m sure he doubles as security when the packages are en route.

And in other news, our new TD-3C red dots are a mere week away from going out. This red dot builds on the TD3 platform with a user-selectable circle reticle. Get your optics-ready pistols and your competition shotguns ready.

And on to the main story: As ubiquitous and varied as rifle scopes are today, there was a time when a “Riffle with a Tellescope to it” was quite a sight indeed. Starting with Charles Willson Peale in 1776 and his eye-catching experiments with a rifle telescope, we’ll take a look at the early designers in the field of rifle optics. Also joining the party will be John R. Chapman and Morgan James, the creators of the 1800’s Chapman-James rifle telescope. A mere decade after Chapman-James, we get to meet William Malcolm, one of the most famous names in pre-1900 optics.

While early scopes were plagued with issues (otherwise known as learning experiences), modern scopes draw a vast amount of their design from these simple, early scopes.

From the National Eagle Newspaper of Claremont, New Hampshire, dated October 17th of 1861: “The best marksmen of the state are invited to enlist, after passing a satisfactory examination, and complying with the following test: Each applicant, when firing at a rest with a telescope rifle, at a distance of two hundred yards, to put ten consecutive shots in a target, the average distance not to exceed five inches from the center of the bull’s eye to the center of the ball.”

Do you think you could pass the original sharpshooter test?

We hope you’ve enjoyed this look into the world of firearms. If you’d like to view this in a different format, it’s available in other convenient locations. To read the blog, stop by the website. For the video version, take a peek on our YouTube. Don’t hesitate to drop by our instagram for more photos, at @LeatherwoodOptics. And you can find our entire collection of articles on our website at the blog page.