$15 Weatherby Pawn Shop Score!

So, I was looking for a vintage scope to top off my .308 Savage 99C, maybe something along the lines of a steel tube Weaver K6. Here's the gun before:


Was cruising the LPS yesterday and came across this for the princely sum of $15:


A Weatherby Imperial 2.75-10x, produced from the late 50's through about 1973.

Missing one turret cap, but otherwise in nice shape. These were German made and featured a unique turret-in-turret arrangement for the reticule adjustments and a separate focusing turret:


It features a very thin, and rather difficult to see "T" reticule, which was common back then, but the glass is quite clear with good light gathering to offset this a bit:

Power adjustment is made by turning the entire eyepiece, and eye relief suffers greatly above about 6x, so I'll just leave it there. I got lucky and found a nice one-peice Burris bridge mount for $30 a couple weeks ago:

This is a really nice steel unit with an adjustable center line. Here it is all mounted up:


Didn't turn out too bad for a $15 scope, I think.

Jim Watson said:

I've got one of those. I'll see if it is in my post-Incident junk box of scopes ruined by smoke and water. If so, I will give you a turret cap.

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That would be awesome, thanks!

red rick said:

Nice find , l am sure it is a quality scope coming from Germany .

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When adjusted for inflation, they went for about $500 new! Lol.

I6turbo said:

I like that whole rig!

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Thanks!
It's .243 brother is a laser with it's old Weaver K4. Can't wait to try this one out.

mdauben said:

Wow! Cool scope on a cool rifle. Its got to be extra satisfying to bring home a deer with that rig!

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I'm sure it would be, but ain't no deer round here.

My buddy has taken a few nice hogs with my .243. I told him he could take the .308 next time he heads north for Elk season. Hopefully I'll get some good pics!

Gordon said:

They were made by Nickel in West Germany. They have first plane reticules, The one you have was their top of the line. They can freeze up on the magnification turret because of the ancient grease if they haven't been used for years, gentle heat gun/hair drier warming usually frees them up. I had two like yours and half a dozen other ones over the years on my Weatherbys . I reccommend you sell it on Ebay for $300 , quickly, and buy a new Varix 2 or another modern $300 scope new as it will be much brighter and have a warranty. The cross hairs are NOT etched but usually suspended wire and when they break will cost $300 to repair and clean the scope. Parsons scope service ect..

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Thanks for the info!
I think I'm going to run with it for awhile. Brightness is definitely not a problem on this scope, lol! I was looking at these on Ebay and you are right, they command a couple hundred bucks, but then again I would have to spend that again to replace it. I am a big fan of Burris scopes and have several on my more modern rifles, but I like to keep period-correct glass on the older guns whenever possible.

I actually have a Weatherby Vanguard .30-06 that I thought about mounting this on, but decided that would just be weird.