No4 T telescope

[Peter Laidler]

I always had the gravest doubts about these telescope 'bushing' trials, especially within a standard mount. It was doomed to fail and that would have been as plain for all to see as the nose on your face. I said it when I first read it and read it again open mouthed!

The taper-lock cradle screws can only be locked until the taper binds and this was just sufficient to ensure that you could not ever exert sufficient torque to crush the telescope tube - even slightly. The tube was retained fore and aft by the segment cover rings and the turret and against rotation by the stop screw. On the other hand, the others had none of these and unless you could clamp the telescope down with sufficient loading to prevent this, it WOULD fail. It is really simple school boy mechanics.

So even given bushed split-rings to clamp it into the No32 bracket, the very limited torque you can impart onto the taper-lock screws, the telescope WOULD move. You see it all the time. Call me an old cynic, but even the poorest engineer at LB would have known this and I'd say that unless anyone comes up with paperwork to substantiate this doomed to fail at the outset 'trial', then I suspect that these bushed rinmgs are a post war idea from someone that's been accepted as fact.

Just my bleedin' obvious been doin' it a long time take on things - that I am apt to do when the need arises

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[Lee Enfield]

I always had the gravest doubts about these telescope 'bushing' trials, especially within a standard mount. It was doomed to fail and that would have been as plain for all to see as the nose on your face. I said it when I first read it and read it again open mouthed!

The taper-lock cradle screws can only be locked until the taper binds and this was just sufficient to ensure that you could not ever exert sufficient torque to crush the telescope tube - even slightly. The tube was retained fore and aft by the segment cover rings and the turret and against rotation by the stop screw. On the other hand, the others had none of these and unless you could clamp the telescope down with sufficient loading to prevent this, it WOULD fail. It is really simple school boy mechanics.

So even given bushed split-rings to clamp it into the No32 bracket, the very limited torque you can impart onto the taper-lock screws, the telescope WOULD move. You see it all the time. Call me an old cynic, but even the poorest engineer at LB would have known this and I'd say that unless anyone comes up with paperwork to substantiate this doomed to fail at the outset 'trial', then I suspect that these bushed rinmgs are a post war idea from someone that's been accepted as fact.

Just my bleedin' obvious been doin' it a long time take on things - that I am apt to do when the need arises

Well the war-time trial reports and instructions to return the rifles after completion to the officer who dispatched them to the trials are excerpted in the neat little book called "without warning". There are contemporary? photos of the bushings which were used on the Lyman Alaskan scope, which was reported to have light gathering abilities superior to the comtemporary No32 scope.

Without referring to the book, I believe that you are correct in pointing out that the bushed mounts were rejected as a solution, along with the Weaver scope.