Better pictures of my zf4 set up and questions

[Caesar1]

Here are some better pictures of that zf4 scope and mount. Question, are the sunshade and eye cover real? The rubber eye shade has a yellow lens that I tried to get a picture of. There is a faint mark on the bottom right corner of the mount, is this the remnants of the eagle 214?

 

[sturmgrenadier]

Eyecup and covers are good. You lucked out with the amber lense filter, those are tough to find on their own.

 

[Slash]

I don't see anything that resembles an eagle 214. And the location is a bit off as well .....

 

[mdarnell19]

Yes leather covers, rubber eye cup and amber filter are original. Although I am not sure about the piece of the covers that clips to the scope. It looks newer and the larger button is odd. I am still convinced that the mount is original also. However, that is not an e/214. First time I've seen one missing the e/214 or e/359.

 

[Tiger 2 Tank]

“First time I've seen one missing the e/214 or e/359.”

The numbering is in typical BLM style. Interesting it isn’t proofed.

 

[Absolut]

The surface on the bottom of the mount looks different to me than what I'm used to with BLM mounts. It appears to have been grounded and overall refinished, then rifle serial number applied. But it looks period done. Maybe someone did a pantograph error and therefore they grounded an refinished the lower half of the mount and therefore the Eagle 214 mark being gone.

 

[mauser99]

lots of oddities with this rig... I asked him to look at the numbers with a loop to see if they are pantographed correctly or done with a ball dremel.. But, he doesnt have a loop.. Mount is a bit odd and the round edge mount with center bend lever is real odd. The scope cover is presstoff and looks ok I have seen other ww2 period snaps with that design on the top..

 

[Caesar1]

Would they have ever repaired and re-issued these to another rifle or no?

 

[mdarnell19]

I personally don’t see what Georg sees. It looks like a typical BLM mount to me, just missing the e/214. They made mistakes and stuff got missed. Damon here has a beautiful byf45 turret sniper. It’s all matching but is missing the e/135 on the receiver. Stuff happened.

As for repair and re-using mounts. I am sure they did. Mauser did on turrets.

 

[Absolut]

I personally don’t see what Georg sees.

I highlighted red where the surface is filed/milled smooth whereas in blue part you can still see the traces of the original casting:

Compare this with something else, maybe something that you have on your website:

and

... that was what I was referring to.

 

[mauser99]

Interesting.. I see what your talking about. One or two things about round edge 214 mounts is they are very rough and almost black in finish.. Unlike walther who's forgings are a little smoother and grey/green phosphate.

Looking at photos isn't always the best way to get to the bottom of things.. As I said lots odd off things going on with this rig..

 

[mdarnell19]

I highlighted red where the surface is filed/milled smooth whereas in blue part you can still see the traces of the original casting:
View attachment 363092
Compare this with something else, maybe something that you have on your website:

and

... that was what I was referring to.

I understand what you are referring to and did notice it before. I still don't think that is necessarily means the mount was ground down and renumbered. I've seen plenty of mounts that look just like this that have the e/214 proof. It could just be variations in the manufacturing.

Brian K and I have talked about this several times and one theory we have is that there were 2 different manufactures of these mounts. Perhaps that is why we see square and round mounts until the end.

It's also possible that it is what you say. Perhaps this was a more common practice then we think, mounts numbered to rifles and later re-used on other rifles. Either way, I still feel confident this is a real mount and it is leading to good discussion on G/K43 mounts.

 

[Caesar1]

Thanks for all the information. Here are some more pictures as close as I could get

 

[Absolut]

There must had been some misunderstanding. I said:

The surface on the bottom of the mount looks different to me than what I'm used to with BLM mounts.

and thought that this was what you had referred to in here:

I personally don’t see what Georg sees.

Hence I had pointed it out in detail. The second part of my post was just a suggestion, that it could had been factory scrubbed and reserialized. Maybe it wasn't taken as a suggestion and rather a claim. Sorry if that was the case.

Some more thoughts: from a macro picture I did of one of my 359 accepted mounts it had appeared the acceptance was under the finish. Meaning it got accepted prior to being finished. If we are to assume this has happened to the 214 accepted mounts too, then maybe the later absence of an acceptance might had not bothered anyone. Checking around a bit more it does appear as if BLM did tend to do cosmetically machining/filing on bottom of the mounts, maybe to have a better flat surface for putting the rifle number there. One would need to do a detail check on one of these to find out whether with those the 214 acceptance was possibly partially grounded off from factory, meaning that the one we are looking at here just was so uneven that the marking got fully grounded.