fighter fitted with a I.O.R. Telereflex
reflector sight The company was established in 1936 as a joint-venture between the Romanian industrialists
Nicolae Malaxa and
Max Auschnitt, engineer Petre Carp, with participation from the French companies
Optique & Précision de Levallois and Bernard-Turnne. In 1941, when Romania
entered the war alongside
Nazi Germany, IOR was militarised and was tasked to produce mainly for the
Romanian Army. The first military scopes were produced at this moment for what was then the standard Romanian sniper rifle, the
Vz. 24. After the war, though the production continued under
Soviet domination, the company maintained links to famous Western European firms such as
Carl Zeiss AG,
Leica,
Pentacon and
Schneider Kreuznach, which assisted IOR in its modernization and expansion in the 1970s. As a consequence of Romania's refusal to join the
invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union ceased sharing technical information and exporting military equipment (including the newly designed
SVD Dragunov). Accordingly, Romania designed the
PSL rifle as a substitute for the
SVD Dragunov, and IOR was tasked with developing a scope for the rifle as a replacement for the Russian
PSO-1. The result was the LPS 4x6° TIP2 telescopic sight, which became the standard Romanian sniper riflescope. The company is traded on the
Bucharest Stock Exchange. == Products ==