Period-style precision: "money well spent," is Clint's assessment of MVA's period-style scope

Guns Magazine, Nov, 2003 by Clint Smith

Accuracy has always been it's own best reward. Accuracy is by definition: "an exactness or correctness free from mistake." Accuracy, whether achieved with words, rocks, rifles or bombs is always satisfying as well as effective.

In the recent Iraq War the number of precision-guided "small" bombs was increased a nominal 80 percent over what was used in the earlier Desert Storm conflict. Historically, American aviators paid dearly in the beginning stage of World War II as they elected precision daylight bombing over Fortress Europe to gain the advantage of accuracy over carpet type bombing.

Accuracy or things that are accurate are still appreciated today.

In October 2002, a Confederate Whitworth rifle mounted with a Davidson scope sold lot $72,900 at auction. It appears to be one of only eight of its kind documented as surviving out of a possible 250 rifles used by the Confederacy for sniping in the War of Northern Aggression.

Little Known Fact

Unknown to most is the fact that a scoped rifle was present at the most famous of all American Indian, United States Calvary fights. First Sergeant John Ryan of M Troop, 7th Calvary carried a seventeen-pound, telescope-mounted Sharps Model 1874 Sporting Rifle chambered in caliber .45-70 onto the adjoining Reno Hill battlefield.

The day after the Little Big Horn fight. Company M--facing West-southwest--was still pinned down along with six other Troops by rifle fire from a ridge 600 yards away. Indians firing from the position now known as Sharpshooter's Ridge placed accurate enough or fire of enough volume that several troopers were killed in rifle fire exchanges.

Captain French, the troop commander, requested that the First Sergeant put suppression fire on the ridge, which he in fact did and caused the indigenous riflemen to clear the ridge. First Sergeant Ryan's story was vindicated by the finding of Sharps' projectiles on the aforementioned ridge during archeological digs at the battleground in 1985.

Moving the clock forward many of today's modern rifles carry optics of tremendous quality and sometimes size. These optics are very helpful in achieving accuracy and in fact help many a set of old eyes gain the advantage of continuing to shoot simply because the old eyes can see with the help of scopes. We all know that in fact scopes do not actually help us shoot better as far as the application of fundamental marksmanship skills. Scopes do however help us see better and seeing better is good!

A good scope used with good ammunition and a good rifle can help place accurate shots on intended targets. And in truth scopes let old or infirm eyes still participate in the game of accuracy.

Of Black Powder And Big Bullets

Over the last eight years most of my shooting has turned to rifles as much as I can and work will allow. This rifle shooting has also taken a turn toward the past as I shoot more black powder rifles than any other type. This has been a worthwhile progression, as I have gained great personal satisfaction out of taking animals such as bison, elk and oryx with black powder cartridge rifles. All of this work has been done with iron sights.

Recently, while dealing with my favorite iron sight vendor, they introduced me to the period-style scope they make for black powder rifles. After much hesitation I mounted a Montana Vintage Arms scope on my Shiloh Sharps rifle.

This probably seems like a small deal to most of you, but this was my very first Shiloh rifle and I have owned it for many years. I was guarded about drilling and tapping holes in the barrel of the old bison killer. The worry was for naught.

The Montana Vintage Arms scope is a steel tube 3/4-inch in diameter at the body. Overall length is a nominal 22 3/4 inches. Scope magnification is six power, and the field of view is 10 feet at 100 yards. The ocular and objective lens areas have approximately .950-inch openings. The scope has a Pope style under rib that the scope moves on at firing and is then reset by hand, drawing the scope rearward on the mounts to reset eye relief for each new shot to be fired.

Lest one think this is an awkward arrangement, I would point out that the 1903A1 Springfield rifle mounted with the Unertl scope used by the United States Marines in World War II and beyond was operated the in same way.

Highly Adjustable

The MVA scope can be adjusted for parallax by adjustment of the eyepiece knob and the range focus adjustment knob forward on the tube, which cures out of focus targets and eyepieces. The loosening of two setscrews and the rotation of the reticle level adjustment knob at the back of the scope tube can level the reticle itself.

The scope is mounted in Malcolm style mounts, which are made by Montana Vintage Arms and ale patterned after original Malcolm mounts. The current MVA production mounts are upgraded by the fact they are made on modern CNC machines. While operating these adjustments I noticed a slight backlash on the adjustment knob, but referring to the manual of all things, it states there is a slight backlash to compensate for possible binding during operation. This backlash did not have a negative effect on the operation or adjustment of the scope.