Telescopic Sights

Early on Stevens offered scopes on their rifles made by William Malcolm. Then Stevens offered scopes by Mogg and Cummins. Cataract Optical Company of Buffalo, New York, went bankrupt. Stevens obtained their assets and optical expert, Fred Smith. Smith came to Stevens about 1901 or 1902. He developed a line of telescopic sights for Stevens that were among the finest of their day. Smith created what was the first scope mounting system to use scope blocks. That is revolutionary in and of itself. Before that, scopes were always attached directly to the rifle.

Pope also developed a scope mounting system using semicircular cuts in the barrel into which the rings clamped. These were of limited production.

Scopes were offered in 3 different diameters, from ½ inch to 5/8 inch to 7/8 inch.