How To Repair A Broken Crosshair

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REPLACING CROSSHAIRS IN VINTAGE
EXTERNAL ADJUSTABLE SCOPES
By Wayne McLerran

Posted iii/xi/19

I'thou a very agile big diameter black powder cartridge burglarize silhouette
(BPCRS) and

.22 BPCR silhouette rifle shooter with aging eyes forcing
me to use a riflescope which must have external adjustments per the
match requirements. Afterward researching the various scopes available,
rather than spend $one,000 plus for modernistic copies of external adjustable
scopes, I settled on J.W. Fecker vintage scopes which can be constitute in
great shape for $500 to $600. "Fecker's" were fabricated from the early
1920's to the 1950's, but nigh of the ones I've run across and
purchased were from the late 1920's to mid 1930'south. Around the aforementioned
time period, there were several other manufacturers of similar scopes,
Stevens, Winchester, Unertl, Litschert and Lyman to name a few of the
better known brands. Likewise standard crosshairs, examples of other
configurations included reticles with tapered or vertical post topped
with a horizontal crosshair and crosshairs with one or more dots added.

The vintage scopes have reticles with crosshairs made from fine wire,
hair or even spider spider web. I remember reading about an old scope and
transit repair guy that kept a few black widow spiders in separate jars
in his shop. When replacing crosshairs he'd open a jar and, using a
card with a hole in the center larger than the reticle, entice the
spider to crawl onto the card; then gently shake information technology off and so that it hung
on its spider web. He'd roll the card a couple of times and so that the spider web
crossed the hole and so drop the spider back into the jar. If a thicker
crosshair was required the card was rolled additional times and two or
more than of the silk webs were combined with tweezers. I presume the
bill of fare with the hole was gently positioned over the reticle and the web
strands glued in place.

Over many decades, the fragile crosshairs can become dirty or
damaged due to rough use. Damage tin likewise result from removing the
eyepiece (ocular) housing to make clean the inside of the ocular lens or
attempting to clean the crosshairs. It'due south also somewhat mutual for
the crosshairs to exist destroyed while removing the reticle housing
because ane or both of the small reticle locking screws were stripped
due to overzealous tightening after adjustment. The reticle housing is
typically made of contumely and has thin walls so it doesn't take much
torque to strip the threads. If the eyepiece and objective housings
are never removed than its unlikely the crosshairs tin become dirty.
When the eyepiece housing is removed on some scopes, Fecker's for
case, the reticle is exposed at the cease of the telescopic tube and there'
southward no protection for the extremely delicate crosshairs. See the photo
beneath.

For diverse reasons I've replaced the crosshairs in several Fecker's, a
couple of Unertl's and one Lyman. 2 scopes were purchased for a
very skilful cost knowing the crosshairs were damaged. Some arrived
with usable but dirty crosshairs, two of which I broke while attempting
to clean them. I had both

of the reticle locking screws stripped
and required repairs, and another had a wide vertical postal service I replaced
with a wire. Information technology's a delicate process and requires patience when
handling the extremely fine wire which is thinner than a human hair
and hard to run into even with the help of a magnifying drinking glass.

Several years agone there was a fellow on eBay that replaced crosshairs
if you lot removed and sent the reticle housing. But he'due south no long offering
the service. So you have three options depending on the situation.
Crosshairs that take accumulated lint or dust can be very irritating to
the viewer and may be cleaned if admittedly necessary, come across the article
titled

Wm Malcolm Style Scope Adjustments and Repairs . As noted
before, I've broken a couple during cleaning. Therefore, if the
crosshairs are dirty only usable consider leaving well plenty solitary and
alive with it. If they must exist replaced there are companies that
specialize in vintage scope repairs including crosshair replacements,
but the complete scope must exist shipped to them and virtually accept
substantial backlogs. The remaining choice is to do it yourself, which
brings me to the subject of this article.

If you've decided to attempt replacing the crosshairs yourself, where
exercise y'all starting time? What size wire is required and where can yous buy it?
Since I'd rather not experiment with black widow spiders, I've
purchased 3ft lengths of tungsten crosshair wire from a boyfriend on eBay
with the "handle" of "lostabundle". Search for "crosshair wire". He
describes his fine wire every bit having a diameter of 0.0005" and medium every bit
0.0015" bore. For target shooting or lucifer competition I prefer
the 0.0005" bore wire which I consider very fine. The 0.0015"
wire will too work. So every bit not to lose the crosshair in the paradigm
background, medium or thicker crosshairs are a meliorate solution for
hunting. Other sources of crosshair fabric include dental floss,
human or animal hair. Human being hair ranges from 0.0015" to 0.004"
thick. Dental floss is made upwards of many very thin strands which are
potent and effectually 0.0008" to 0.0010" thick and, if installed correctly,
can result in a nice durable crosshair.

"Speaking" of using Dental floss, in that location is a YouTube video that details
the process of using un-waxed dental floss to supplant crosshairs. The
link is

https: //www.youtube.com/scout?v=65Q-2E6Tz7M . The video
assumes the reticle housing is removed from the scope. Due to the
likelihood of dissentious the crosshairs when reinstalling the reticle
housing in Fecker scopes, I recommend leaving information technology in the scope tube
while replacing the crosshairs, which may not exist possible with some
scopes such as Lyman'southward and Unertl'due south. If the crosshairs can exist replaced
without removing the housing, wrap the tube to protect it and clamp
information technology in a vice as displayed in the following photo of Fecker crosshairs I
recently replaced. In the following photograph the 0.0005" crosshairs are
quite hard to encounter and portions appear to be slightly dirty or dusty due
to the reflected light, simply they are very clean.

If the Fecker reticle housing must exist removed, 1st completely
unscrew the eyepiece housing and prepare information technology aside. Now remove the two
opposing screws in the external knurled reticle alignment ring. Using
a hooked tool of some type, gently hook the front end border of the reticle
housing and pull it out. Some come out easily and others can be
tough to remove. There are four very small screws evenly spaced
around the edge of the reticle housing which are used to hold the
crosshair wires in place. I adopt to employ the screws as intended if
they can exist loosened, only the wires may exist cemented in place if the
screws cannot be loosened with the correct size jeweler'south
screwdriver. You may observe the screws missing if the reticles were
previously replaced. If non some may still find it easier to remove the
screws and mucilage the wire in place (centered) over the holes. If I
remember correctly, Lyman has a ring that holds the crosshairs which
are glued in place. The band is attached to the reticle housing with
two screws. Like to Fecker's, the complete reticle housing tin can be
remove or just the ring when replacing crosshairs.
By the way, at this indicate y'all will demand a magnifying head prepare or desk-bound-
mounted magnification lamp.

When wrapping the wires or floss around the screws, wrap in opposite
directions which positions the crossing betoken of the crosshairs in the
center of the scope tube. I.e. wrap clockwise around 1 screw and
counterclockwise around the opposite screw. If gluing, use a like
technique covered in the YouTube video but position the crosshair on
the left side of one screw and on the right side of the reverse screw,
or remove the screws and glue the wire in place over the center of
the holes every bit mentioned earlier.

The above comments are based on my limited experiences replacing a
few telescopic crosshairs and I accept no interest or desire to work on
scopes or supersede crosshairs for others. Therefore you'll accept to
tackle the job yourself or send the scope to a reputable scope repair
company. I hope my comments have provided some insight on the
process of crosshair replacement.

Wishing you lot peachy shooting,
Wayne