doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Winchester A-5 scope repair

Does anyone here know how difficult it is to repair the cross hairs in this scope and who does this work nowadays?

You might try Parsons scope service. The make no mention of the whether or not they work on Winchester scopes.

It is pretty easy. I do my own. Magnification helps, either a visor or a table magnifier or a dissection scope. A jig to hole the carriage that the crosshairs are attached to is useful - and can be made out of kindling if necessary. Nothing special to it.

Parsons is pretty much defunct now. After Gil's death his son tried to help keep it going, but he has his own construction business that took his time. Many scopes sent to him sat for much too long unfinished.
I wouldn't send any scopes to Parsons unless I heard something changed now.

Good to know! Thank you for the very valuable information.
Steve

Indeed. I was flummoxed by crosshair replacement for many years, having sent a couple out for professional help in that regard. Then two years ago I bit the bullet and bought some .0005" tungsten wire and dove into a Fecker and a Litschert. I won't say its easy-peasy but certainly do-able. Like Brent, all it took was a magnifier visor, a steady hand, and a jeweler's screw driver and it was done. I wouldn't begin to try it without magnification. I just set the crosshair carrier ring on the desk, with good light, and hunched over it and did it.

Could you elaborate on your jig, Brent?

Once I just used a couple of woodworking clamps to hold it to the table. A few times I have used a vise (dicey - you could "unround" the cylinder), but mostly I just have this wooden gizmo I made for holding shotshells when roll crimping. It will old round things pretty well, and I rubber banded it in position with some bicycle innertube. Not pretty, but effective.

I have tungsten wire, but have also had extremely good results with pantyhose thread. It is amazingly fine - if you thoroughly dissect the yarn down to the last fibers.

If the screws for the crosswires are hacked up, one can simply glue the new crosshairs with superglue. Either way, a hemostat can be very helpful for that work.

I sent my first broken crosshairs to Sexton (forget his company name now) in Tulsa. Took half a year or so. Won't be going back. Much easier to do it myself.

If you want center mil dots or something other than simple crosshairs, you need a pro. But I like stuff simple.

I use round wooden dowel turned down to just slip into the crosshair ring so it's held during the work. Clamp the dowel in my vise. Then I use small alligator clips hung on the end of each wire to add slight weight. Hang the wire across the crosshair unit and then put a drop of super glue on each edge. Clip off the excess and reinstall the unit in the scope.
Alcohol, or lens cleaner takes care of foggy lenses.

Yeah the gator clips are a huge help.

Without them I had a tough time getting the new tungsten crosshairs tight, and not breaking them. Just didn't have the ability to feel such a fine amount of tension.