Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics External adjustable mounts

Digging through a drawer and found an old B&L scope with external adjustments. Back in the dark days before the internet, many folks felt the external adjustments were more reliable. I see the extreme long range people are using mounts with a great deal of elevation adjustments. Seems like a very rugged scope and adjustable mount could be produced for which there would be no market what ever. Luddites Unite!

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I have a pristine M722 with a Balvar 8 and B&L mounts.

For hunting the mounts are exposed in a fashion that would make them more susceptible to bumps and hits, dirt or even ice. Keeping them lubed would be important to prevent rust, which of course would attract more dirt.
Plus the whole set-up is heavy.

But the rifle with the scope is cool as can be!

B&L tried to sell the externally adjusted scopes as an economic way to outfit multiple rifles with quality optics. You could buy one B&L scope that can be quickly swapped between multiple rifle with inexpensive B&L bases. The bases are a PITA to zero, since there is no "feel" to the adjustment and the calibration marks don't indicate a specific change, but they can be finely zeroed and once zeroed and locked, they hold their zero.

Around 30 years ago I went down the B&L Balvar rabbit hole and was fortunate enough to hook up with THE expert on them, a guy by the name of Fred Warren, who lived in a suburb of Cleveland, OH. Fred had an encyclopedic knowledge of all things related to the Balvar externally adjusted scopes and knew the people who made the mounts, Kuharsky Brothers in Erie, PA. B&L didn't make the mounts, the bases and ring sets, in house, they contracted with Kuharsky Brothers to make them. After B&L dropped the externally adjusted Balvar line, Kuharsky Brothers continued to sell the mounts under their own name and later on, when Kuharsky Brothers stopped making the mounts, an outfit called "Pimm" made them. I don't know the specifics about "Pimm", but they made bases and a ring set that combined attributes of both the plunger and spring style ring set that were made by Kuharsky Brothers and sold under the B&L name.

I am long past my B&L Balvar phase, but still have dozens of scopes and many dozens of mounts and ring sets in 64 quart plastic tote boxes.

Is there a market for vintage Weaver scopes with the external adjustments?

Good stuff 260. I didn’t know about the Pimm part of the story.

The only externally adjusted Weaver scope that I know of it the V8 and they are generally not thought of as being in the same league, optically speaking, as the B&Ls.

Pimm also made the bases and rings for the B&L Trophy line after Kuharsky Brothers got out of that business. I have wondered if Pimm was a business established by someone who had a personal relationship with Kuharsky Brothers. Sadly, when Fred Warren died, he took his knowledge with him to the grave.

I have a Savage 10 22-250 that I set up with a Balvar 8 for an egg shoot, I wanted to shoot with the oldest scope. .I didn't win but made it to the third round. Later that day I killed a coyote with it and several since. I couldn't find a base so I used a Leupold windage adjustable base and rings and shimmed for elevation. It works well. I call the rifle "Turret Twisters Nightmare" I get some real odd stares when they realize there are no windage ore elevation adjustments.

The external mounts were also a way to get around crosshairs/reticles that didn’t remain centered when you made adjustments.

The scope on my first centerfire was an OLD Tasco with a non-centered crosshair. I learned a lot about scopes and mounts trying to shim those Weaver bases and rings to bring the crosshair relatively close to center.

I have a small collection. and have them mounted on a few Winchesters. M670 carbine 2.5-5 and M70 2.5-8.

I learned early on the Buehler Micro Dial was the way to go, much easier to adjust vs the B&L/Kuharsky, Stith Master or Leupold Adjusto-mount.

I agree that the Buehler Micro Dial base is the best way to go if you'd not going to take advantage of the feature that allows you to transfer the same scope between multiple rifles which was the primary selling point that B&L emphasized in their advertisements.

I have a Buehler Micro Dial on a pre-'64 Winchester 70 with a Balvar 8A. It looks and work good and would be my choice if I wasn't going to take advantage of ability to transfer one scope between multiple rifles.

IME the Buehler and B&L adjustable bases are more user friendly than the Leupold Adjusto and Stith Master mounts.