An Odd Characteristic of the SMLE

[Peter Laidler]

What earthly planet were they on to teach this ludicrous method of zeroing an offset telescope? Is that a recorded fact Simon? Zero an offset foresight (that's all a grat is of course.....) at 300 yards! You'd only ever be able to at BEST, guestimate anything beyond that with the accumulative effect of the error and........ and........................

It's a good job that they didn't utilise that ludicrous notion with the Bren gun - and don't forget, the grat of an optical sight is always a foresight. Just take the Bren Gun........ The rear and foresights are exactly 1" to the left of the mechanical/true axis of the bore. It is sighted at the aiming point and the MPI of the shots must fall 1" to the right of the POA. And it'll hit 1" to the right all the way out to wherever, the bullets fall 1" to the right of where you're aiming. Not that it makes any difference with a Bren of course.

But what it does mean is that from 25 to 1000 yards, you'll be hitting the man 1" to the right of where you actually aimed. But at least if they used the same forumla, even if it's 1.5" offset with the offset telescope you'd still be hitting the man at 600 or even 900 yards albeit 1.5" to the right. Which in my humble opinion is better than guessing a) the range and b) how much to aim off

Or am I missing something?

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[Simon]

What earthly planet were they on to teach this ludicrous method of zeroing an offset telescope?

Peter,

I couldn't agree more!!!! Lets face it though the whole concept of offsetting the scope is ludicrous and resulted in British loophole plates having a condiderably "bigger ole" than the German ones. I do recall seeing the zeroing criteria in print in a manual / title of that era, please don't ask which one though as it could take weeks of trawling to find it again.

Out of curiosity perhaps one of our cousins from over the pond can comment on the zeroing criteria of the M1C and M1D as the en-bloc loading of these weapons required the scope to be slightly offset.

Cheers,

Simon.