Redfield Scope Model History

Redfield Scopes: A Practical Walk Through the Models

I spent about a decade working with vintage hunting scopes at a restoration shop, and Redfield was one of the ones that came through the door the most. They're everywhere in the used market right now, but the model history is messy because Redfield changed owners, rebranded, and re-released the same names so many times that a straight timeline basically doesn't exist. What follows is what I've actually found to be useful when you're trying to figure out what you're looking at. George Redfield started making scopes out of Chicago in the early 1930s, and the first real product people remember is the Redfield Imperial, introduced around 1950. It had a distinctive wide tube design and a first-focal-plane reticle that was fairly bold for the time. The Imperial was the company's flagship for maybe fifteen years before they started expanding into lower-priced lines. The Problem Solver came next and it's probably the most recognized Redfield model. It launched in the mid-1960s as an affordable hunting scope with an illuminated range-finding reticle. The reticle itself was basically a chevron in the lower crosshair with small hash marks. People still use those today on older mounts, and the glass quality was honestly decent for the price point, though the coatings weren't bright by modern standards. I can't tell you how many Problem Solvers I've seen with the objective lens coated in scratches from guys who never used caps.

Redfield also made the Contest line in the 1970s and early 1980s. Those were varmint and competition scopes with more refined turrets. The Contest had an air cushion recoil system that Redfield marketed pretty heavily, and in practice it worked okay on moderate-recoil calibers but I wouldn't trust it on a .300 Winchester Magnum being shot hard. I had a Contest with a cracked erector tube after someone ran it on a 375 Winchester repeatedly. The air cushion absorbed shock but it also introduced a little parallax drift at higher magnifications, which is something the ads never mentioned. When Redfield was acquired by Weaver in the late 1980s, the model lineup got shuffled. The Reconquest came out around 1988 as a mid-tier offering between the Problem Solver and the higher-end Contest lines. It had a simpler turret system and a somewhat different reticle option set. After the Bushnell buyout in the mid-1990s, Redfield as a standalone brand basically disappeared from new manufacturing. Some models continued under the Bushnell badge for a few years, but the quality control drifted and that's why you see so many late-1990s Redfields with cloudy erector tubes. The main thing people get wrong when trying to date a Redfield scope is the serial number system. Redfield didn't use a consistent serial format. Some early scopes have stamped serial numbers on the left side of the objective bell, some have them etched into the elevation turret base, and a lot of the 1970s scopes have no visible serial at all. I've seen folks try to date scopes by cross-referencing with Weaver serial records after the buyout, but those records are incomplete and the overlap period is basically a guessing game.

Here's a practical approach I use: check the reticle style first. If it's the classic Problem Solver illumination reticle with the range-finding chevrons, it's almost certainly pre-1990. If it's a plain crosshair with no illumination and a single-position turret, it could be a later reissue or a Bushnell-era production run. The tube diameter is another tell. Redfield stuck with the 1-inch tube for most of its history, but a few special-order Contest models used a 30mm tube in the late 1970s. Those are rarer and tend to hold value better. The illumination system on the Problem Solver is worth a separate note because it's a common failure point. Redfield used a simple fiber-optic or tritium-based illuminator that sat in a housing on the objective bell. On a lot of older examples, the fiber optic has yellowed or broken, or the tritium has depleted to the point where it's useless. I've swapped in modern LED retrofits from third-party suppliers like Swarovski-style fiber options, and they fit into the original housing with minimal modification. The original bulb sockets were a proprietary size, so don't bother hunting for replacements at regular optics shops. Parallax adjustment is another area where Redfield scopes show their age. The Problem Solver had a fixed parallax at 100 yards on the lower-power models and a side-focus adjustment on the higher-power variants. The side-focus mechanism on the older Contest scopes tends to develop play over time, and once that play gets bad enough the parallax adjustment becomes unreliable. I've had good luck replacing the entire parallax assembly with aftermarket units from companies like Kahles, but it requires a press and some careful marking of screw positions so you don't lose alignment.

If you're looking at buying a used Redfield right now, the models that are actually worth restoring are the Contest and the early Problem Solver from the 1960s and early 1970s. Anything after 1990 is generally not worth the effort unless it's in pristine condition and you need it for a period-correct build. The glass in the later Bushnell-era scopes just isn't comparable to what Redfield was producing before the acquisition. One more thing that trips people up: the mount footprint. Redfield used a standard 30mm ring setup for most of their scopes, but a few Contest models had a proprietary mounting base that doesn't match any modern ring system. I ran into this with a Contest 6x on a client's rifle and ended up having to fabricate a custom base plate because the original Redfield bases are no longer in production. Measure twice before you assume the rings will fit. The biggest pitfall in all of this is assuming that a Redfield scope with the name still on it is necessarily an authentic Redfield. Bushnell and other companies rebranded and restamped scopes during the transition period, so a scope that looks like a Contest might actually be a Bushnell 1995 production run with the old Redfield name still on the tube. Check the serial stamp depth, the engraving style, and the internal reticle mounting. Authentic Redfield scopes have very specific reticle attachment methods that changed subtly between the pre- and post-weaver eras.

For anyone who wants to dig deeper into specific model numbers and production years, the Redfield scope model history is documented best in the Weaver-Rifle scope collector guides from the late 1990s, though those are out of print now. The online forums like The Range Report and Antique Rifle Scope Collector groups have scanned copies of the old catalogues, which is where I pull most of my reference material from when I'm trying to ID a mystery scope that comes through the shop.