303 sniper

[Peter Laidler]

The telescopes were examined at the makers, passed and transported directly to H&H in corrugated cardboard boxes, protected with rolls of corrugated cardboard. Each box contained, so far as Sid Harvey remembered, about 30 telescopes. And the hard cardboard boxes all went back too! Such was the dire need!

He didn't remember anything about the different mark of scopes but suffice it to say, as the telescopes went to H&H straight from the makers, it's unlikely that they'd be wildly out of sequence. I dare say that some telescopes were diverted at the factories to Weedon as simple spares stockholdings. Big sacking material bags of leather eyecaps were also supplied directly and these came in the Royal Mail no less......, being pretty light I would assume. These were fitted at the end of the line, after the out-inspection.

As a matter of interest, when we had telescopes available from Ordnance as replacements as and when the need arose, they came in a little cloth bag with a fold-in top, approx 3.5" wide by the length of the telescope. You could JUST fit a telescope plus bracket at a squeeze but they didn't come with the bracket. The cloth bags were a very tough but rough off white/pale cream colour material that I think was called 'sailcloth' They were wrapped with a piece of string on which the little OHMS label was tied. Sometimes, the telescope number was stencilled on the bag. I wonder if they were supplied to Ordnance in these bags.............

There, another little bit of useless Enfield info