Japanese 1980's Bausch & Lomb Balvars

[crookedcreekrol]

I have purchased a few of the 1980's Bausch and Lomb Balvars, and have three in 2.5-10x (one an AO), one 3-9 and a compact 2-8.  We hunt in northern Minnesota, and the ability to grab the entire eyepiece and give a twist to change the power makes this much easier in mittens!  

The scopes are clear, expensive on Ebay and long.  What kind of experiences have you had with these?  If you have had other premium scopes, how do they compare to the Balvars?  What kind of accident and repair record have you had?  Would you buy on again?  

Does anyone have any information on how these scopes are constructed compared to other scopes, as to design and materials?  
thanks!

[gewehrfreund]

I have one of the 3-9 Balvars, but have not had much chance to play with it on my Ruger #1S 7mm Mag. The clarity is great, it has a fairly fine crosshair (fine for my purposes of mostly target work), and seems to be top  of the line Japanese work.
What I would like to find is one of the 1.5-6 Balvars; nice little compact scopes that cover most of the magnification that anyone would ever need, but I have yet to see them anywhere except in older gun magazine articles. Makes me believe that the gun writers got all of them that came into the country!

[bikered]

Gents, I have two of the 2.5-8X scopes. They were bought about 1960 and are the ones made in Rochester,NY.  One is on a .30-06, FN Mauser and the other an FN Browning Medallion, also a .30-06.  I took the Mauser to the snage this past season and it still fires MOA @ 100-yds.  The scopes are totally sealed and I've never had any problems with fogging.  The mounts are fully adjustable.  I'm sorry they did away with this design. ED