K2.5 From A Battleship?

A Weaver K2.5 c.1941-49 with Battleship Gray Parkerizing.

Every once in a while we stumble across something truly unique here at Vintage Gun Scopes. Part of the beauty of vintage guns and their scopes is that there were a lot of interesting variations, retrofits if you will, for specialized purposes. Finding the history of these relics is an interesting and fun part of the business, as well as hearing from those who have firsthand knowledge of that history.

In a box packed up and sealed since 1984 from the El Paso, Texas Weaver plant closing, we came across this interesting gem. On first glance, I assumed it was one of the literally hundreds of Weaver scopes we have found that home-grown “custom” paint jobs. From camo to matte to O.D. but there was something very different about this one.

My next thought was that someone may have parkerized this scope for a vintage war rifle. That theory was also quickly dismissed as this box has been sealed since 1984 and was obviously very old and well-used even at that time. Doing that kind of a modification just for fun back then would have been very unlikely. Further, there was a homemade, (in the field type) crosshair inside.

The homemade crosshair conjured up images of an in-the-field replacement, possibly of horse hair, like what may have happened in battle, but I’ve seen no information that weaver K2.5’s were ever issued to infantrymen.

So, I have been searching for information on this scope, and have read some first-hand reports from Navy men that these scopes were used as rough sighting devices for the guns on battleships, which would explain the battleship gray parkerizing, which, by the way, after disassembling, I see was done professionally, inside and out, tube, ocular and block, which means the tube had to be completely stripped and re-assembled. Not anything feasibly done back then by anyone other than the Weaver company.

A professional parkerizing job was done to this scope, prior to assembly.

If there are any sailors out there that served in the 1950’s who can verify this theory, or Weaver factory employees that may have information about this, please email us at vintagegunscopes@summit360.guru. We would love to perpetuate the history of this scope variation.