L42a1 scope tin

[PrinzEugen]

Ironic really. The L96 got a £2,200 S&B when the next serious contender was a Bushnell for £35 (?) or so! And a very worthy contender it was. I saw one of the Bushnells used in the trials last Thursday. A bit beaten up but still serviceable...., now on a little .22 used for vermin on the Plain! Apparently, if they could have been persuaded to change the grat pattern and some other simple stuff, they'd have got the contract. Apparently Bushnell were difficult people to deal with. I think one of the US forumers spoke about this when the subject cropped up earlier.
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Interesting stuff Peter. I suppose a company selling, say, 300 scopes at £35 a pop is less inclined to bend over backwards and change things for bespoke output than someone selling them at £2k each (who knows, changing the production line might cost more than the cost of the contract). I wonder if the changes the MoD wanted were all that important.

[Peter Laidler]

Food for thought Prinz...... The first tentative trials for a replacement No32 scope that were conducted during the 70's and onwards excluded S&B offerings. One being that the lenses were plasticised............... Hey, haven't I alrteady gone into all this blurb recently? But it very prtobably adds credence to youyr suggestion about the volume/quantities required.

A US forumer - was it you JM? - mentioned that the problem was that the otherwise good Bushnells were all made in China so everything would have been a long winded affair for the relatively small quantity required for a UK order. I later learned that we also stipulated a spare parts undertaking for certain external items that were liable to get lost and damaged. I can only think of eye guard rubbers and range/deflection cap/covers.

Interesting thread

[Gil Boyd]

The scope tin and leather strap for the 4T..................now there must be an interesting decision making process on that one.

Yes I see the logic of having the scope in a protective tin when the rifle was disassembled, but never really fully grasped the reason why they even bothered placing a lovely leather strap around the tin at a length to be worn by the user around his chest, who would then rattle off into the sunset using all his covert skills as a sniper..............no doubt one of the wonders of the War Office mentality which will probably never see the light of day as to why they did that.

It made so much sense to leave the scope coupled to the rifle and build a chest to fit the same pairing, instead of a Heath Robinson Bren gun case adapted with two small padded bridges and blocks.
Apologies I tried to stay on the subject but rambled off slightly

[Peter Laidler]

You're right though Gil. The snipers all seemed to use an old webbing cross-strap in the tin....., you know the old drab/sandy 37 pattern with a wide bit that went across the shoulders. They'd come into workshops like this, even the L42's but because there was a protcol about the Out-Inspection regime that had to conform to Ordnance Standards, they all had to go out with the correct straps......, just like stripping all thge crap paint and sniper/tank tape off them when you KNEW that as son as the sniper took it back on the range to do his 'final' zero, he's put it back to what it was! For the same reason, the strap NEVER changed from leather. Nor did the eye caps. Daft or what..........

There were plenty of suggestions including several about the dire state of the replacement L42 fore-ends and handguards but the reports would always come back from 14MAG/REME Instectorate to the effect that ...... good idea and the person has been awarded, say, £25 for his efforts and that they appreciate the great deal of good work....blah blah blah (I know this because I used to write some of them.....) but the weapon is at the end of its service now and.......... and........ The other one was that the weapon or system is new and stockpiles of spares are high and that the suggestion will be looked at again in 10 years.......... You know the sort of thing!

It's like returning stuff to Ordnance complete to every part of the CES, even when it's written off or scrap! As soon as it gets into the R&I bay at the RSSD, it's getting the chop! Remember air dropped land rovers that have been extensively damaged or just piled in? Yep, returned to Ord complete, even with the jack, spanners and damaged beyong recognition canopy rails as I learned. And no amount of rank or status could shift the absurdity of the write-off Ordnance paper chain. Unless you were old, wise, knew the Ordnance chain/system and more importantly........., knew who to speak to that is............

[Peter Laidler]

Just had a thought though. At about the time when the plastic Scout Reg Scope tubes came on stream, they did try a plastic box for the No32 scope, so we're looking at the mid 80's now. The Sct Reg scope case semed to be OK but the L1A1 scope case to replace the old No8 was rubbish. The rounded corners had no give in them and they'd just crack and pop out as an almost complete circle as I remember. The ex Soldiers might remember the plastic cvased field telephones we used to use. The No8 case replacement looked a bit like that but proprtionally smaller of course. Had a strap similar to the old field telephone strap too

There, sorry to go off on yet another tangent but another bit of useless Enfield info

[Mk VII]

I was required to wash a worn-out pair of boot insoles I was turning in for a replacement - even though they would be going straight in the trash.

[Gil Boyd]

Ha Ha............now thats what you call service. Makes the DMS boot look unbelievably angelic doesn't it. The only thing that ever held them together was the insoles anyway. What a tragic reminder that boot was grrrrrrrrrrr.

Anyway, Peter, in answer to your reply, it was a pain certainly in our Battalions to strip the weapons continually for storage in armouries, and our Tiffy's allowed them to be racked with scopes in a section on their own. However, on inspection they were always then placed in the chests, which meant for accounting purposes the lids had to be opened and the numbers checked to ensure the scope and rifle and bolt all matched ha ha!! absolutely crazy, especially when you think all the SLR's alongside them had bloody great white numbers painted on the butts as their identifiers, and noone ever checked the working parts.

I vaguely remember an incident in the dim distant past of a DEAC being replaced on the stand as a windup which delivered the suitable bollocking to the armourer, which was the intention, as he was a real pain. "Shelves are for filling " syndrome, as he would only give egg cups of oil and treated 4x2 as if it was the shirt of his own back ha ha!! He sooned learnt.

The scope tins never really ever came out. They were marked spuriously as seen on many today in varying degrees of competancy of hand writing skills and various painted colours of the shade of green. Most of the WW2 - 1950's tins were the Austin Champ paint deep green, where other colours varied as to what was left over from painting sand green in hot countries whilst in jail

I do remember the scopes and the actions being bound in the thick blanket padding especially for parachuting, and it seemed to catch on later and was used as a substitute for the tin, contrary to SOP's at Warminster, but heyho we always were different

[chosenman]

I had to exchange a combat jacket once which was US being torn and unsightly due to jumping on a roll of barbed wire which had been thrown down a stair well during a CQB exercise. The rest of the section ran up by back to clear the upstairs and when finished they had to peel me off the wire. When I came to exchange it the QM sent me away and I had to get my housewife out and make good the numerous holes and rips be for he would exchange it!!

[Gil Boyd]

On the theme of L42A1 rifles....................I have just been offered one complete as issued, for............wait for it................£11,500 from a dealer in Devizes.
Now is that going to far or what?? or is this the future for this rifle at the expense of others like the Enforcer in fewer numbers??

[chosenman]

Unfortunately Gil I think that price bracket is becoming the norm. That's the fourth L42 kit I've come across in the last year being offered for this kind of money and they don't hang around either all go off the shelf swiftly. Your No4 T proceeds and some will get swallowed up by one of those beauties!!!!! I say buy, buy, buy because you'll kick yourself when you are having this conversation again in two, three years and they are at £15000. Devizes Guns also shifted one for a similar price earlier this year, I offered him £8000 and he chinned me off.