Looking to start a clone smle sniper.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

Composites and modern adhesives are wonderful things, but attempting to hold a scope base and rings on a .303 cal rifle would be a true test of the engineering and chemistry.

The BIG problem with things like the Australian "HT" snipers and the Brit No4T series is that incredibly fiddly procedure to collimate the scopes, not entirely to the bore, but to the TRAJECTORY of the bullet. There is NO windage adjustment in either system; the scope had to be "optically centred and then the BASES were "tweaked" to bring a "nominal" zero onto the same POA as the previously adjusted "iron" sights. The original optics are of the "reticule-moving" type, not the more modern, "image-moving" items seen everywhere today. Thus a "perfectly zeroed" Patt 18 or No.32 may be seen with the "reticule" off-centre, both vertically and horizontally. A "perfect" set up would see the the reticule perfectly centred, On these old girls, this is achieved with LOT of tinkering with the bases / pads.

Maybe some enterprising chap could take up my wild idea of building adjustments into a modern "clone" of the bases / rings, rather than fool around trying to re-engineer the old scopes.

Does anyone have anything on the late use of scopes on the L-42 (A1) other than the "L1" optic?

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[Promo]

Recoil and forces about a radius......... Nope. Ain't convinced me yet. Boeing might have done it and MINI might have done it with their cars but no one making sniper rifles has done it with steel yet. Sorry to be so vehemently against the idea. Call me old fashioned and all that.............

Hey Peter, remember that most of the weight of the A5 scope moves anyway upon recoil, so the mass it has to hold is by far less than on any other mount. And as tiriaq mentioned, modern adhesive is far from what we were used to. He said he will do an experiment, and I'm really looking forward to his resuls!

The BIG problem with things like the Australian "HT" snipers and the Brit No4T series is that incredibly fiddly procedure to collimate the scopes, not entirely to the bore, but to the TRAJECTORY of the bullet. There is NO windage adjustment in either system; the scope had to be "optically centred and then the BASES were "tweaked" to bring a "nominal" zero onto the same POA as the previously adjusted "iron" sights. The original optics are of the "reticule-moving" type, not the more modern, "image-moving" items seen everywhere today. Thus a "perfectly zeroed" Patt 18 or No.32 may be seen with the "reticule" off-centre, both vertically and horizontally. A "perfect" set up would see the the reticule perfectly centred, On these old girls, this is achieved with LOT of tinkering with the bases / pads.

Hey Bruce, another big advantage of the Whitehead mount is the simple fact that you can choose yourself where to drill the holes for the commerical bases, if you anyway do a reproduction. And if it were me, I'd fit it exactly parallel to the scope tube, and also zero it that it hits exactly the same offset than the scope from the barrel on target. This is just something you have to remember, but then gives the same offset on all distances.
Talking on the Australian SMLE mount you are of course fully correct. But I also like it for that reason, because that allows to spot fakes rather easy since nowadays gunsmiths are not used to such work.