C3A1 Kahles ZF69 Scope

[Gil Boyd]

Agree in part, however at entry 2214 in Bill Smallwoods personal record of roughly December 1989 he has rifle 00341G listed fitted with that scope shown on the image.
So its a date thing here, do you hold any records to confirm the USO position your end?

[Lee Enfield]

Agree in part, however at entry 2214 in Bill Smallwoods personal record of roughly December 1989 he has rifle 00341G listed fitted with that scope shown on the image.
So its a date thing here, do you hold any records to confirm the USO position your end?

Gil,
The fact that "US Optics" itself did not exist in 1989 would raise some questions regarding the veracity of your records. I will have to scan the 2004 catalogue page for you stating 2001 when the USMC came to USO.
About


I would note that in the years since 2004, US Optics has "moved the date" to as early as 1999 - although this seems to be more related to their (unsuccessful) lawsuit defense when sued by Unertl circa. 2006.

From the 2004 US Optics catalogue:

In approx.2000, Major Tafolla of U.S.M.C. Systems Command approached Mrs. Unertl to continue to refurbish and
supply their M40 scopes. He was told she/they could no longer do the M40 scopes, as her husband had passed away
and they had no employees who could do the job satisfactorily. She said she was planning to sell the company. She
recommended us as capable of doing the job. In approx. 2001 Major Taffolla and his officers visited us, saw the
company and asked us to do the work. We won the contract for scope refurbishment, they ere extremely happy and
have been with us since then. We have made and refurbished many scopes, modified and made changes for the
corps and have a great relationship with them.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-williams-50a05411
Machinist, Assembler, Production Manager, R&D, etc.
U.S. Optics, Inc.
July 1990 – December 2013 23 years 6 months
Orange County, California Area
Before becoming owner and CEO I started from the ground up. I have always been versed in machining as I grew up with a machine shop in our garage. When I started working with my father at USO, I began by learning the art of manufacturing optical components. After that, I lead the assembly department, which only included myself at first, then grew rapidly. I was lucky enough to be in a situation where continuous growth was pushing the company, so I was constantly improving the products and coming up with new designs.


U.S. Optics

U.S. Optics has been building custom riflescopes and optics for 25 years.
Domestic Made Products
Every custom or commercial off the shelf (COTS) product is produced in the US.

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History
U.S. Optics Inc. was the brainchild of the former founder and President John Ben Williams Jr. The company had humble beginnings and was originally started from the garage of John's Fullerton, California's residence in 1990. The idea to create an optics company that would fill the gap to provide truly custom telescopic rifle sights designed by the shooter for the shooter was born.Website

235 United Drive, Kalispell, Montana, 59901

Website: U.S. Optics

[rgg_7]

I'm very familiar with 00341G. No I don't own it however somebody else does here in Canada (Purchased in the configuration shown by Gil from Highwood Classic). It was built by Bill Smallwood on date stated, sent to Canada and returned to Parker Hale for repair. This and one other was retained in their collection untill they ceased operations .It was purchased by a gent in the UK, rebarrelled, scoped with a USO MST-100 and restocked with a McMillan A5. The work described was done post sale as he was very active in the tactical arms business and had the connections. For unknown reason it was consigned to Highwood for sale last year.

Gil - you're correct that the rifle was build by Bill in 1989 however it lost it's original scope somewhere along the way.

Lee Enfield - your USO information is solid. USO never had any involvement in the C3a1 program.

USO has had a couple of recent offering of MST-100 with Marine and C3a1 markings. Oiginal serial numbers were not replicated and they refused to mark these anywhere close to the originals.

I see where there's confusion when something like 00341G surfaces.

Ron (Canada)

[mossin]

I have a letter from Unertl that was sent to Parher Hale about the design of the mount and problem they had on the M40 it came with 2 M40 unertl mounts showing the problems with the tolrances on the remington actions.

[Gil Boyd]

Lee Enfield,
I wrote that down above but meant to say the rifle is logged but the scopes are not which I passed to Ron. The paragraph sounds like the scope is logged to the rifle, it was the image I referred to.

Well in Bill Smallwoods defence these are HIS records NOT mine which he made on the production line as he built and tested each rifle.
All I have been asked to do is to retain these records and pass on what they say to those who are avid users of Parker Hale rifles as I am.
Ron raises some valid points, and I have to say I am not a follower of USO or indeed other scope manufacturers as there are too many. Even Peter Laidler will tell you, there are a mountain to choose from especially in those days we are now talking about, so I'll leave it to factual papers that can show their existance.

So where does that leave us with the USO scope shown on the rifle, is it a mirage?? answers on a postage stamp??

[Lee Enfield]

US Optics has offered custom markings and serial numbers since they started building complete MST100 scopes circa. 2002/2003.

US Optics puts spurious USMC markings on their MST100 scopes as their standard markings.

[Gil Boyd]

So in short, even if I have a rifle I want a scope for, they will produce it to whatever serial number I provide them from that rifle, thereby matching it?

[Lee Enfield]

So in short, even if I have a rifle I want a scope for, they will produce it to whatever serial number I provide them from that rifle, thereby matching it?

Yes, all sorts of crazy "serial numbers" from peoples names to their service numbers have been utilized.

From US Optics twit-ter feed a few years ago from the 2014 "pre-order" :
Attachment 99063

look at all the "C3" marked scopes...
Attachment 99062

[Gil Boyd]

Thanks for that. Probably the reason the rifle that sold with that scope caused so much anxt. Noone was sure where it came from!

[rgg_7]

Here's a summary of the Unertl event's for the C3a1 program (source - Without Warning - C Law)

1. DND issued contact W8466-7-EHB17 for 571 10x Unertl scopes.
2. Development and trails was not without issues. First trails of 4 scopes Feb -Nov 1990. 8 more trial and approved for manufacture Feb 1991.
3. First 50 scopes delivered Aug 1991
4. Next delivery Feb 1992 - 71 scopes.
5. Next delivery of 171 promised April 1992.
6. Contract complete late 1993 - total scopes purchased 571 ( 71 were spares).

Parker Hales C3a1 contract ( reference Gil's Parker Hale documents)

1. SOW was for 500 rifles.
2. Contract award: Nov26, 1987
3. Contract completion: Dec31, 1989
4. Delivery: 1990
5. First issue to Sniper Infantry School - Aug 1990.
6. Delivery completion: ?????
7. Unertl installation by Parker Hale: ?????

If you look at the timing - the earliest the Unertl availability was Aug 1991 - 20 months after the completion of the C3a1's. to bridge this gap Canadian used the ZF69 with the special mount that I've shown in the above thread.

Ron (Canada)

---------- Post added at 07:14 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:09 AM ----------

The scope on 00341G is a USO produced MST-100. Look at the turret details. The markings on this were applied at the customer's request. You could have what every you wanted except "original serial numbers".

Ron (Canada)