Repurposed Mystery Optic

While tooling around in my extensive pile of “stuff” I found an old optic I picked up years ago from (somewhere? gunshow?). I vaugely remember the optic being described as an anti-aircraft optic which would seem more plausible if the reticule had some sort of lead adjustment, grid, or range finder. Instead the optic has a reticule that strongly (precisely) resembles that of the  PU Sniper optic (That’s the same reticule Vasily Zaytsev, hero of the Soviet Union, used during the Great Patriotic War/World War Two).

Obviously, this isn’t a proper PU scope due to the hard chrome finish, and variations on in the scope’s profile. It exhibits several features that lead me to believe that it’s based on a military design; these features include a heavy steel construction, smooth, consistent adjusting windage (most cheap knockoff optics have horrible, inconsistent windage adjustments), and a yellow “high contrast” hue that many communist-bloc era optics exhibited (I have used Russian PSOP scope, Yugoslavian ZRAK M-76 scope, and East German Zeiss Artillary Binocluars that all exhibit the same yellow hue). Plus it’s seen a few bumps and bruises; there are dings in the body of the scope, and the front element has some mild pitting.

While I am curious about the origins of the optic I’m not too worried about it. The biggest question is why would I have kept a seemingly serviceable optic around for 5+ years and not mounted it to something? Why the answer to that question and many others is “those pesky communists used a different diameter from anything in America.” Good reason, huh? It was too small for a Tasco Accupoint/Aimpoint CompM2 mount and it wouldn’t fit in any standard smaller size.

You’re probably wondering “But I see it right there in the photo! It’s mounted! You even said you had it centered in a mount! That’s a freaking Comp M2 Mount!” Well you’re right. I did mount it, and the solution to my problem was so simple I cant believe I didn’t resolve it YEARS ago. All that was needed to make the optic fit in the Aimpoint mount was a shim made out of the side wall of a soda can. That’s it. I just cut a piece of Redbull GENERIC ENERGY DRINK can, trimmed it to length, and wrapped it around the scope. Then I tightened the mount down like a normal optic and centered it. Now all I have to do is take it out to the range and zero it on something. Hopefully that AR-57.