History of The Telescopic Sight

The telescopic sight, more commonly known as a scope, has always been the true hunter's guide to game. Have you ever wondered, while looking through your rifle scope, how the optical aiming aid (a.k.a the scope) was ever developed?

The first experiments to give hunters a better chance at catching game dates back to the 1600's when they had the target and aiming aid held at the same level. Hunters have always tried to create some simple form of an optical aiming aid.

Over the centuries, they have tried using primitive magnifying glasses, short range telescopes, and even magnified dioptres , which is a curved mirror that magnifies things through light. But none of these had great success due to technical difficulties.

Great Discovery by August Fiedler
Towards the end of the 19th century, some light was shed on optical aiming aid technologies. Commissioner August Fiedler (Stransdorf), a forestry commissioner of Prince Reuss of Germany was able to come up with the first proper telescopic aiming aid that worked as it should.

Comm. Fiedler's great discovery sparked the beginning of a new era for telescopic sight and the start of many great scope manufacturers. At the start of the 20th century, one of the rather more famous manufacturer's was known as Karl Robert Kahles. This Austrian made his scopes by hand and they were of premium quality.

Swarovski
Kahles's company, "Optical Manufacturers," was later taken over by Swarovski, a company known today for being the manufacturer of rifle scopes of the highest quality. Over the years, rifle scopes have been perfected and now they are long lasting and nearly perfect in every which way.