Early 32 Scope?

[Roger Payne]

Even with pix it would probably have to be a speculative response, but without photographs........?!?

Information

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[CINDERS]

Well you gotta thank and doff your hats for the PBI that stuck it out through the island campaigns & New Guinea in WWII and those that followed on that Asian sojourn in the 60's - 70's as they had no choice in the matter but to press on.

[mrclark303]

You're right there Ron. I read an account recently regarding the Australian troops fighting the Japanese in Papua New Guinea, now that really was a living hell.

So many men still lost there.

[Roger Payne]

The tube looks to me as though it is based on the No32/42/53 series, certainly in the ocular housing & parallel sided part, although the front end assembly looks rather different, as do the drums. The style of engraving on them (drums) makes me wonder too, if the scope could be Canadian, in spite of the lack of a 'C' anywhere in the designation. And it would not be the only 3.5 power experimental scope coming out of Canada. Is the parallel part of the tube 1" in diameter? My hunch is it will be. Will it fit into a conventional No32/No4 (T) scope bracket? It isn't dated, but the general look of it suggests WW2 era to me.

Anybody got any thoughts?

[Peter Laidler]

Agree with DRP. The engraved markings are Canada/REL without any shadow of doubt. Problem number 1 would be lack of any form of stop rings. Without stop rings it WILL slide within the mount during recoil. The flimsy turrets sticking out like a bulldogs balls would be as recipe for a speedy failure too

Given that the range drum is graduated to 1000 yds presumably would be the reason why the azimuth or deflection is only 24 MoA as opposed to the usual 32 MoA . That's for mechanical/tech reasons that I won't go into. I wonder what the FoView is too.

[rgg_7]

maxman - what country was this purchased? Did the previous Owner have any info? REL marked everything they produced. What is overall length? tube diameter? What's in it for a recticle? Maybe with a little more info the guys on this board can determine it's origin. Ron (Canada)

[Lee Enfield]

The turret housing and tube assembly method looks identical to the 3.5x "Gimbal" trials scopes. I was thinking that the dimensional differences may be related to attemps to improve waterproofing.

Canada made a big push of Tropical treating equipment in late '44 & '45, in the run up to the planned shift from the ETO to the Far East in preparation for the invasion of Japan.

[Surpmil]

A very interesting addition to our knowledge base Maxman, thank you. Looks like it adorned someone's hunting rifle for many a year after the war ended and interest was lost in tropicalized scopes. No doubt you've received offers from certain members already!?

So 24 minutes of windage adjustment and what to the range markings go up to please?

From the dirt in the screw slots it seems to have held zero pretty well.

Rather like the No.32 with the slipping scale mods that turned up a few years ago. Never say never.

Of course what was really needed was a fulled sealed and zeroed scope with no external adjustments as was used on the Arisaka. Simple enough to put the range markings up to 1300m on the reticule itself. Much quicker and easier to use as well. I believe the latest ELCANs incorporate such a reticule.

Another example of R.E.L. "getting on with it".

I happened to see for sale a set of "rabbit ear binoculars" made by them recently; something I had never seen any mention of before as one of their products.

[Surpmil]

There's another interesting facet to this story of the H&H contracts: why would they be seeking thousands of scopes and rifles from Canada at all if 800 a month were coming out of H&H?

This begs another question: how many No4(T)s had if fact been produced by H&H when the contracts ended in 1946?

I am thinking it must be some thousands fewer than previously believed, when I recall that H.W. English had over 5000 MkI scopes they purchased loose from surplus sales after WWII.

We have always assumed that the number of rifles converted was similar to the number of scopes produced, but most of those MkI scopes were in a used condition they must have been from rifles that were refitted with Mk.3 scopes post-WWII

This can only(?) mean that many Mk.3 scopes were available "loose" to be used for such refitting, and that therefore the number of No.4(T)s produced must be commensurately less than the total number of scopes produced.

[CINDERS]

So if they had made 0000's of surplus scopes and H&H were only churning out 800 T's/Mth that means the other players building the T's must have been working at light speed I lifted this off another site on the purported No.s of T's produced if anyone can put a finger on it. On might assume due to the machining and work going into producing a T they would have kept exacting records of serials rather than just a standard No.4.

Ammoland,

A sniper variation of the Lee Enfield No 4 Rifle was used in World War Two, that used the No. 32 3.5x power scope and had a wooden cheekpiece. This model was adopted in 1942 and it was known as the No. 4 Mk 1 T. The earliest sniper rifles were converted from the Trials No. 4 Enfields at the Royal Small Arms Enfield Factory. Later that year Holland and Holland was contracted to convert select No. 4 infantry rifles to No. 4 Mk 1 T sniper rifles. British and Savage made rifles were selected for conversion. Somewhere between 23,177 and 26,442 rifles were converted by Holland and Holland. Long Branch made a small number of sniper rifles late in World War Two, in addition to those that were converted by Holland and Holland.