Who can remove soldered-on rings from vintage Soviet PEM sniper scope?

[Marcus]

I have an otherwise very nice WW2 Soviet PEM sniper scope with a set of German "half-rings" soldered on it. From the placement of the rings this is not something that was done for use on a military 98k sniper, but rather for a vintage hunting rifle or drilling.

Which leaves me with a rather valuable and hard to find scope that I would really like to use on one of my genuine original Mosin PE/PEM snipers, but am unable to due to these rings.

Is there anyone out there who has the knowledge and experience to remove these rings without damaging the scope?

[joem]

Bot that's a tough one. Some soldier melt at lower temps and some as much as 750 F. If it's silver soldier it even higher. Good Luck and let us know how you make out.

[Twinson]

well, they soldered it with out damaging it didn't they. I would wrap the scope with clay except for the soldierd area. The clay will help reduce the heat on the scope that it covers. .02

[jgaynor]

If done at the factory they just might have stripped the scope before the mounts were soldered on.
Regards,
Jim

[joem]

If done at the factory they just might have stripped the scope before the mounts were soldered on.
Regards,
Jim
If it was done at the factory, they may have done it before assembly.

[Marcus]

This is what I am dealing with. The rear ring is pretty close to the center section and prevents the rear part of the scope body tube from being unscrewed from the center section. The front ring is soldered to the front lens housing .

[joem]

Odds are it was attached before final assembly!

[Simon]

The mount installation is typical of that done post WWII when all sorts of surplus and captured scopes were installed on sporting / hunting rifles. The mount style installed on this one bears all the hallmarks of being the work a German gunsmith.

The scope would have been stripped of all its internals before having the mounts soft soldered to the tube. Silver solder was NEVER used on scope tube as the tube is to thin and the heat required for Silver solder would warp of even hole the tube.

I could do the job for you but as I'm in the UK logistically it's a bit of a non starter. Look for someone on your side of the pond who restores old scopes, I've seen folk mention names such as "Parsons scope services" on some of the forums but obviously I can't vouch for them.

Cheers,

Simon.

[coastie]

Try something.
Warm the scope.
Freeze the scope.
Warm the scope.
freeze the scope, tap the mounts, again.
Gawd knows if this will work, or what heat, freeze, and thawing will do to the internals,
but I have had success in the past with cold soldier and with rusted or baulky fasteners.

Of course call Parsons or other scope expert before even trying this.

Good luck, Paul