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I saw one of these in the Steyr arms museum and I was very impressed. Some years later I saw an identical model in NZ, one of the early ones, for sale. Needless to say, I wasted no time acquiring it.

I have a scope and mounts that came off this Steyr Zephyr as I replaced them. The scope is a low-power Pecar of that era with a 3/4" centre tube or metric equivalent. The straight centre tube is blued like the rifle. I have an old 1950's/60's Shooter's Bible where the US agents were advertising them new and had a picture of presumably the Chief Executive polishing one. His scope looks much the same as mine. The size of it matches the fact that it's a .22, not too large.

The mounts are not claw but dovetail mounts of that period. They look the part. I'd have to check on the brand, but it's English, probably Parker Hale. They're a bit more complicated than your average mounts, nicely blued and also slim. I was about to sell this scope and it's mounts locally. It would suit any classic .22 of this era. The problem would be selling it between countries, getting permits and etc.

The problem with the Steyr Zephyr is that there's not much dove-tail on the front receiver and so, although I have a great set of mounts off a Walther Hornet, for instance, they just won't fit. From memory, the dovetail width might have been different too, something to be aware of. Ausinel mounts (and the various other names these go by according to company name changes), do fit and will get you out of trouble. They don't look too bad either. If you want to fit, say, a 4x32 / 4x40, they'll give you the extra height.

Before I had these mounts, I took the rifle for a hunt with unregulated open sights. I had no idea where they were sighted in for. I might even have stripped them to clean beforehand. I saw a hare at 100m and realized I wasn't going to get any closer before he bolted. I thought, I wonder how close this thing will shoot at that range. If the dust rose from within a meter I would have been happy just to have fired it and got a feel for the sight adjustment required for next time. Well, he fell over stone dead - perhaps from sheer surprize.

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