No32 repro's. A few thoughts

[Peter Laidler]

Here’s just a few thoughts on the proposal somewhere in the world to remanufacture No32 tele sights. A similar event occurred in England during the 70’s when clones of the monster MGB GT V8 (remember the big Buick/Rover V8 engine?) ceased production after 2591 were produced. Then several thousand more were produced by all manner of people, using ‘parts’ and standard MGBGT’s. The fact is that there is only a finite amount of the REAL McCoy. I wonder just what pattern he’ll reproduce. The rarest and most expensive must be the Mk2/1 that uses the most expensive options of all the scopes. But, the cheapest will be the Mk3. And will it be an exact replica. Has anyone any experience of these repros in the past. Are the threads the same or do we get metric equivalents.

I wonder if they’ll be so good as to fool most of the people, down to makers marks and serial number ranges. There are plenty of gaps in the serial number ranges that I have collected over the past 30+ years but like the prototype M1 carbines we have at Warminster, nobody knew or even bothered to ask if we had them (number 11 and 13) when all of a sudden, number 11 suddenly ‘appeared’ in a collection in the US! There can’t be TWO prototypes numbered 11 can there? There can’t be TWO Mk2 scopes numbered 14825………….. or can there…..?

Personally, I can see no harm whatsoever with a repro in use on a rifle on the shooting ranges or in a collection. The trouble is 25 years hence, when the good repro is suddenly for sale as an original, factory fresh!

As an aside, I suppose it’s a bit like repro brackets. Certainly at least 50 of the FIRST repro brackets manufactured by Roger Payne (I’m sure he won’t mind me mentioning his name and my apologies if this is seen as advertising……….) in the UK in the 80’s were purchased by the UK MoD to refurbish wanting and needy L42’s prior to their being preserved in Ordnance stores as WAR RESERVE or MOBILIZATION stocks. You could, quite rightly, say that these were original. Indeed, there will be, by definition, 50 or so owners of L42’s with these brackets but they’re certainly not fake. On the same subject, here’s a little known snippet. In order to keep costs down for the final L42 War Reserve FTR programme, the MoD procurement people ordered the brackets LESS the 8x cradle screws, 2x thumb screws and double coil clamp washers! That’s what I call penny pinching…………

Any more views on the subject?

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