Cheap Scope Monuted Lamp.

[Frenchieboy]

OK Guys, for those of you who like me are "careful with your pennies," or as the wife says "Tight as a ducks a**e" here is a Scope Monuted Lamp (With Filters) that is not only quite good to use but is also cheap and easy to make with very little mechanical or electrical knowledge.

I went to my local Car accessory shop and found a hand held spot light for only £7.50 that plugged in to the cigar lighter on my motor. This lamp was fitted with a 55 watt bulb which I thought could do with upgrading so I bought a 100 watt bulb at the same time ans swapped them over. Total Cost £11.00

Next was to get rid of the "hand held handle" and find a way of scope mounting it. This was sorted by taking the lamp apart and moving the switch and wiring before cutting the handle off with a junior hacksaw just flush with the main body of the lamp. I then made a metal brachet up from a 6 inch long piece of 1 inch wide metal about 2mm thick, bent in the middle at a right angle. It is important to get this angle at exactly 90 degrees or the lamp will either shine higher or lower than the line of sight through the scope. Next was to drill the bracket with 2 holes to allow you to screw the bracket to the back of the lamp and then 2 holes to fix the scope mountings. The scope mountings are 2 X 22mm nylon pipe brackets which came from the plumbing center at 12 pence each. The 22mm brackets fit quite tightly over a 25mm scope tube. These brackets are drilled and fitted so that one fits either side of the front mounting ring on the scope tube which should give you enough height for the main lamp body to clear the front lens of the scope.

OK with that done all I had to do was to rewire the switch. This was done quite simply by putting in an extension of wire between the switch terminals and the lamp and then measuring up the length needed to fix the switch to the forend of the gun. All that was needed now was a power source - This came in the form of a 12 volt 7 amper hour alarm battery with a short wire soldered to each of the terminals at one end with the other ends soldered to a male cigar lighter plug (Again from my local car accessory shop for about £2.50) Now the lamp simply plugs in to the battery for walked up lamping or straight in the cigar lighter if you are shooting from your vehicle.

Now we have a Scope mounted Lamp which has a Forend mounted switch that has a reasonably tight beam of well over 200 yards! This might have been good enough for some people but not me! I wanted coloured filter for it! I measured the diameter of the front lens of the lamp and found it to be close on 110mm, too small to use any of the gun lamp filters available so a quick search on good old fleebay found a full set of 8 different coloured filters which were the exact size I needed for the sum of £3.99 with free postage. (For those of you that are interested the item number is: 220512235528 or you can do a search by typing in "Coloured Light Filters")

As yet I still have to work a way out for fitting the filters a little easier, at the moment I hold them on with an elastic band, which does the trick fine and I have 8 different colours of filter to try depending on the circumstances. So far I have found the red best for rabbits but I use the amber mainly as it is better for foxes. These filters do however cut the range of the lamp down to around 120 yards of useful light. The swith again mounts on the forend with a rubber band so as not to mark the woodwork.

So, here we have a full Scope Mounted Lamp with Battery, stock mounted switch and a set of 8 different coloured filters for under £30.00. It might not be the best looking of lamps compared to those on the market, but they are costing at least £100 with just one red filter, and like I said, I am "Careful" with my pennies!

Here are a few pictures of the lamp fitted to my CZ\ ready for action.