Mirrored coating on old Leupold Ocular lens

[CamoWhamo]

Hi All,

A customer brought in Anschutz silhouette rifle into the shop today and it had an old Leupold Vari X iii 3.5-10x40 mounted on it.
The scope had a fine target dot, adjustable objective and target elevation turret.

It also has some sort of coating on the ocular lens. When you look at it, it's mirrored and you cannot see through the scope unless your eye is perfectly aligned. If you shift your head even slightly the image is completely gone.

I've never seen a coating like this on any scope before and wondering if it's maybe something that Leupold offered through the custom shop or perhaps some other aftermarket company?

 

[Turbulent Turtle]

I'm going to add a few thoughts here, I'm not sure it explains it.

Depending on the age of the scope, it is very possible that the lenses are not multicoated, or even coated. When you say it's mirrored, that is what leads me to think it's not coated because that is exactly what coating is designed to address. An uncoated lens loses about 5% of the light to reflection at every air to glass boundary.

Perhaps it was coated as some point and got rubbed off or something, but mirrorring is a dead giveaway, in my estimation.

I would think that any coating that is designed to INCREASE the reflected light from a lens is counterproductive. But who knows what kind of fancy stuff people tried to pass off?

With that much mirroring going on, the light transmission of the scope is probably pretty low and that makes it difficult to line up behind it.

I have an ancient Leupold Vari something 3-9X40? that I keep around as a memento of what things were 40 years ago, and I'm pretty sure it's not coated, definitely not multi-coated. The eyepiece and the objective are pretty reflective.

Of course, I would not be surprised if another old time popped in and said, "ah yes, I remember that fancy coating, it was offered by Charlie so and so and it was all the rage for the guys who liked to look at themselves while hunting."

 

[bainp]

The scope has probably been modified to do the same job as this Gehmann Peep sight attachment for iron sight shooters.

Gehmann Mirror Disc Attachment For Rearsight

Gehmann Mirror Disc Attachment For Rearsight 509 Rearsight mirror disc attachment Brings a new concept to rearsight disc attachments with a reflective mirror towards the shooter's eye bearing a contrasting black insert disc Concentrates the focal point of the target in the...

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