I collect Japanese sniper rifles and am finding out the most of the surviviing Japanese rifles have mis-matched scopes. I have heard that if a sniper was killed …the bolt and many times the scope were tossed into the ocean to avoid being used by remaining military. Any credance to this story? Hemi
Hi.
IJA sniper rifles were somewhat top secret. There are no known official pictures of Type 97 and Type 99 sniper rifles in use in the field.
It is also said that the sniper scopes were at least partly specially adapted for the using soldier and the rifle it was used on. And that the scopes were part ot the personal equipment of the sniper. So if a sniper dies no other soldier can get same results regarding accuracy due to slight optical differences of the eyes.
And it makes quite sense to remove and destroy bolt and scope if there is no chance to prevent the gun from capturing.
Yours
tom! 
Did I once read of instances where U.S. marines or soldiers used Japanese sniper rifles due to a lack of their own? The Raiders maybe?
Unrealistic responses.
I have several T97s with scopes-not tossed in the ocean.
Most of the T97 and 99 scopes were non adjustable, like the Russian PU.
They were each adjusted to a specific rifle.
No reason why another soldier could not use it.
No explanation why almost all rifles and scopes are mismatched.
Any found matching are suspect.
A sniper rifle was treated like anyother piece of enemy equipment.
Legitimate souveniers. I have 2 from vets.
They are not rare, but a bit uncommon. Rifles are more common than scopes.
Not a good idea to shoot them as the reticles are painted and the old paint is fragile-they can actually fragment and cloud the inside of the scope.
There were adjustable scopes issued later with some T99s-these bring a premium.
Regular sniper stuff is not cheap.
German sniper stuff is astronomical and commonly faked-tread lightly in that area.