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I have been offered a couple of needy, poorly maintained Scout Reg telescopes including one marked as a Mk2 as opposed to the usual Mk2s.
Reasonable(?) money, but what should I really be looking for? I know little about these.
Really looking at what the pitfalls might be to make up one good one and what I need to know about the bits I can't see!
Anyone know what's what with these? Wish I had taken pics... :(
I uncovered a load more bumph on these tele's in UK service in al old V5 I&S EMER miscellaneous instruction couple of weeks ago so it's a timely question Clav. Give me a few days to sort through and I'll come back. One interesting note put into writing a suggestion to help prevent the OG lens cracking. Wait out if he'll hang on to them for a while in the meantime!
In the UK, a good one fetches $300 - $450 from a dealer. They come up on ebay regularly, and fetch a wide range of prices - if you look for "completed listings" you will see what they have fetched.
They can be had on that auction site for very little at times, all depends on what its listed as and listed under.... last one I bought as spares but just needed a lens in he eye piece, think the postage was nearly the same as my bid.
Before I get to the nitty gritty, bear in mind that B&C made and marketed several commercial telescopes after the war based on direct copies of the Scout Reg scope for several of the big London and provincial stores. If not direct copies, then using the optics. I had one where the old military markings were still very feintly visible. Nice new lush embossed leather covering and GAMAGES shop logo on the draw - but underneath the crap it was just a Sct Reg Scope!
Anyway, here we go........
Thanks to WO Tony B. who has recently given me some relevant late EMER information on the Telescope Sct Regiment that’s worth passing on and to Claven for asking at an opportune time and prompting me to get my bottom into gear! It appears that until the early 70, there really was no general spotting telescope issued to the UK Military except for the old and obsolete Telescope GS. While the Tele Sct. Reg. was there, in the system so to speak, they were always kept deep in the sniper rifle chest and well looked after. When the need for a powerful telescope arose in earnest, in Northern Ireland, the obvious answer was the Scout Reg scope. And it seems that all of a sudden, there were plenty available. The reason for this apparently was at the time the old No4T’s were being withdrawn for conversion and due to the smaller number of L42’s being converted there was a surplus of Sct Reg Scopes for issue. That is my view but from the early 70’s onwards, there were certainly more available for issue, that’s for sure! I also confess to padding some of this old paperwork out in a bleedin’ obvious way to make a bit of terse official gobbledegook become logical……
The downside was that being of the ‘captain pugwash’ extendable type, being quite delicate, when the scope was issued to the front line crunchies, the attrition rate was quite severe. The main problem being that the large diameter 53mmF/L OG lens set was at the front of the scope and unprotected. As soon as the telescope fell or was dropped, it was always on the heavy OG end, so the OG lens got it! New lens sets and carriers were made available from Broadhurst Clarkson (now the only remaining supplier) which was all very well, but it didn’t answer the problem. For a start, they were VERY expensive and the problem was ongoing! The second was that it soon became clear that there were several manufacturers of these telescopes and while the new OG lenses MIGHT fit into another housing – if it wasn’t damaged, the new HOUSING certainly wouldn’t fit/thread into some of the other telescopes.
Something had to be done……. The first thing was that any Sct Reg Tele other than the regular B&C became obsolescent, meaning that if spare parts were not available or would not fit, it was returned to Ordnance or scrapped as what we called ‘classified scrap’. More later. But the problem was still there so a Miscellaneous Instruction was issued. This said in effect that telescopes used in an ‘observation role’ in the new watch towers (surely……, they were all observational…., that’s why they are telescopes!) as opposed to those forming a narrow CES (that’ll be the sniper role then) should have a band of brass or other suitable metal, 1.5mm thickness and 12mm wide to be rolled and brazed to form a circle and assembled onto the ocular tube, behind the front shade………. With me so far? So what you’ve got is a band of brass or alloy that prevents the front ray-shade from being pushed fully to the rear. In effect a protruding shield that will take the punishment if the telescope fell. As a matter of interest, while I had heard about this modification and seen it, I never saw it mentioned in the Modification instructions, just assuming that it was a tacit thing done at the experienced workshops – as you do! But the answer is clear. It was a Miscellaneous instruction and not an across-the-board modification instruction
This is a long winded way of telling you that, if like Clav, you’re offered a few odd telescopes as either parts or the hope of making up a couple of good ones, then be warned that the parts are not interchangeable. Obviously with our parts coming from the remaining wartime supplier, it was fine – if you were dealing with B&C telescopes but otherwise don’t expect any favours is my advice, especially at the ocular, field and erector lenses that are housed in roll sealed threaded housings!
Another repair pointed out was one that we’d been using for ages. That was due to age and operational use, troops were pulling the draws out harshly and in doing so were pulling out the threaded inserts that are sweated deeply (1” or so……, hardly deep) inside the draws. These can be repaired by carefully cleaning the thread insert area inside the draw and the outer area of the internally threaded ring. The threaded ring must be inserted exactly to depth and square and……. Anyway on and on it goes as they tend to do. We’d been successfully repairing these since the 60’s and I won’t repeat it all unless someone has got a threaded insert problem!!!!!!
Here’s another small point. The EMER notes mention Tele Sct Regts Mk1, Mk2 and 2s types in service and now available! It was my belief that the Mk1 doesn’t have the little thumb clearance in the rear draw to make removing the ocular and field lenses easy
While the Mk2 was an upgraded Mk1 – with the thumb nail cut-out…..
While the Mk2s is identical to the Mk2 (or Mk1) but modified with the ‘shutter’ as indicated by the ‘s’ suffix
Anyone out there got any other ideas as while I have seen some simply marked Mk2, they all seem to have the ‘1616’ shutter housing of the Mk2s! But I ain’t losing any sleep. There’s also a hand written note to the effect that the cases (the leather case) are in short supply and replacement stocks are being sourced. So where telescopes are issued from Ordnance on an exchange basis (I presume this means a scrap or obsolete exchange) units should retain the original case for the replacement telescope. The replacement cases that eventually came on stream were the khaki plastic type case that you’ll see occasionally, marked V5/1240-99-966-0837
If I glean any more from the bits and pieces.notes I’ll pass it all on
Thanks Peter - much obliged :)