Telescopic sight having lens holder tube with half socket pivot mount

Abstract

A telescopic sight apparatus is described having a lens holder tube which is pivotally mounted at one end thereof by means of an improved half socket pivot means for windage and elevation adjustments. The telescopic sight apparatus may be a rifle scope. The lens holder tube contains image erector lenses which may be mounted for longitudinal adjustment to vary the magnification of the scope or may be fixed against longitudinal movement to provide fixed magnification. The half socket pivot mount includes a spherical pivot surface provided on one end of the lens holder tube which is resiliently urged by a socket compression spring into contact with a conical socket surface provided by an internal shoulder on a surrounding housing tube. The radius of curvature of the spherical pivot surface is centered on the sight point of a reticle when such reticle is mounted outside of the lens holder tube, to maintain the sight point alignment with the optical axis of such lenses in different pivot positions of the lens holder tube, so that the reticle remains centered in the field of view of the erector lenses. In the variable magnification scope the reticle is maintained at a calibration position in focus for both the maximum and minimum magnification positions of the erector lenses by means of a calibration adjustment spring. In the fixed magnification embodiment of the scope the reticle is mounted in the focal plane of the eyepiece lens system, while in the variable magnification scope, such reticle may be mounted in such calibration position slightly out of alignment with such focal plane.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.