It is amazing the things you discover meeting people. Previously I had posted about Keith Biddle and his machine shop. While talking about guns with him, he showed me this rifle that belonged to his Uncle.

The rifle is a 6mm bolt gun and it even bears his Uncle’s name. Ok, the gun doesn’t but the scope does. Keith’s Uncle was John Unertl Jr. To be honest I have not heard of the Unertl Optics Company before as older guns are a little outside my wheelhouse. Looking them up, they were based in the next town over in Mars, Pennsylvania and supplied a lot of scope for the USMC Scout Sniper program.

MIles V told me that the scope on Jackson’s sniper rifle, in Saving Private Ryan, is an Unertl scope.

This scope is a little different. The first thing that jumped out at me is the recoil spring. Almost like Nielson device, the scope sort of free floats as the rifle recoils rearward.

The scope covers are machined steel and screw into the scope.

Unfortunately after Keith’s Uncle passed away they found out that most if not all of the scope designs were never committed to paper. The designs were all in his Uncle’s mind. Interesting local history with an unfortunate ending.