Recently, I was allowed to view an incredible collection of USMC sniper gear. In this collection were the Vietnam era Unertl scope repair records. Looking through the records, I was surprised to see that the old BS story about the Vietnam era armorers (one actually) using Black Widow spider webs to replace broken reticles, and there were a lot of broken reticles, was actually a true story. I decided to check out Black Widow spider webs to find out why they were considered to be the best substitute for factory reticles. A Black Widow spider web is the strongest web on earth, being 5 times as strong as Kevlar. The web is so strong, scientists have substituted the spider's web gene into the silk worm, which subsequently makes cocoons made of Black Widow web material. The cocoons are unwound and the resulting thread used to produce a thin cloth that is now considered the best bullet stopper on the market. I wonder how many other stories we now consider BS are actually factual? Food for thought.