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I have the same model scope with almost identical Thos. Bland mounts. Sadly it is only the scope, mounts and case; the rifle was probably reworked after import to the USA and the scope discarded.

The markings should be in hand-engraved cursive script below the adjustment knob on the rear face of the housing. They can be hard to see! I believe the very last units of this model had the typical Carl Zeiss Jena prism trademark on the side of the scope body, as the later prismatic scopes did. I could be wrong, but I think I see hints of that marking in one of the photos.

On mine the knob or dial is hand engraved from 1 to 10 and with the distance between each 50 yard(?) marking slightly increasing throughout. This suggests a high velocity cartridge calibrated to 1000 yards, but I find that hard to believe for a rifle assembled before WWI.

The case is marked to Thos. Bland also and when I got it there was a name painted over in black enamel that I was able to remove without doing any damage. The name was that of a wealthy surveyor who lived in London in the late 18 and early 1900s. He was a friend of Anthony Gathorne-Hardy, the well known outdoors author of that time, who was in turn a friend of H. Hesketh-Prichard, who was also a travel and sporting author before he became more famous for his sniping exploits in WWI.

The people who have the Thos. Bland records were kind enough to tell me that they could not find a rifle order for that name, (Naylor) and that some of the records were missing. A pity, because it would be interesting to know more of the history.

Bland fitted some of these scopes to SMLE rifles in WWI, but only a few it is believed. There is a photo of one such setup in "Sniping in the Great War" and it appears to be a similar mount.

I've made a bit of a study of the Zeiss prismatics and there were four basic models, which from the "G.Z...." markings on them, were presumably known simply as "Gewehr Zielfernrohr". This is the second model, or "G.Z.II", the "Teleweit" is marked "G.Z.III" and the "Telekipp" is marked "G.Z.IV". The very last production of these models were also engraved with those model names (which were probably telegraphic codes as much as model names)

There is some evidence these were used on Gew98 rifles in WWI, but no photos have surfaced yet apparently. There is a photo of both the Telekipp and the Teleweit in Senich's "Pictorial History of US Sniping" as being among "captured ordnance" sent to the USA for study after WWI.

Hope that's of interest and what a beautiful rifle! Is it built on a purchased action or a captured Boer Mauser?

The calibre was designed to evade the ban on .303 sporting rifles in India? Interesting that the slugs are 215gr.: identical to the most popular .303 loading of that time.

Edited by Old_Glass (24/09/14 11:25 AM)

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