diff --git a/CHANGELOG.rst b/CHANGELOG.rst
index a415bee3..19d9ff25 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.rst
+++ b/CHANGELOG.rst
@@ -7,6 +7,17 @@ Changelog
 .. This document is user facing. Please word the changes in such a way
 .. that users understand how the changes affect the new version.
 
+version 1.3.0
+-----------------
++ Gzip headers are now actively checked for a BGZF extra field. If found the
+  block size is taken into account when decompressing. This has further
+  improved bgzf decompression speed by 5% on some files compared to the
+  more generic solution of 1.2.0.
++ Integrated CPython 3.11 code for reading gzip headers. This leads to more
+  commonality between the python-isal code and the upstream gzip.py code.
+  This has enabled the change above. It comes at the cost of a slight increase
+  in overhead at the ``gzip.decompress`` function.
+
 version 1.2.0
 -----------------
 + Bgzip files are now detected and a smaller reading buffer is used to
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 9179a620..95d574d2 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -135,7 +135,7 @@ def build_isa_l():
 
 setup(
     name="isal",
-    version="1.2.0",
+    version="1.3.0",
     description="Faster zlib and gzip compatible compression and "
                 "decompression by providing python bindings for the ISA-L "
                 "library.",
diff --git a/src/isal/__init__.py b/src/isal/__init__.py
index ca2025f0..34f3a553 100644
--- a/src/isal/__init__.py
+++ b/src/isal/__init__.py
@@ -27,4 +27,4 @@
     "__version__"
 ]
 
-__version__ = "1.2.0"
+__version__ = "1.3.0"
diff --git a/src/isal/igzip.py b/src/isal/igzip.py
index 167c1f4f..7c650ce7 100644
--- a/src/isal/igzip.py
+++ b/src/isal/igzip.py
@@ -220,20 +220,80 @@ def write(self, data):
         return length
 
 
-def detect_bgzip(header: bytes) -> bool:
-    if len(header) < 18:
-        return False
-    magic, method, flags, mtime, xfl, os, xlen, si1, si2, slen, bsize = \
-        struct.unpack("<HBBIBBHBBHH", header[:18])
-    return (
-            method == 8 and  # Deflate method used
-            flags & 4 and    # There are extra fields
-            xlen == 6 and    # The extra field should be of length 6
-            si1 == 66 and    # BGZIP magic number one
-            si2 == 67 and    # BGZIP magic number two
-            slen == 2        # The length of the 16 bit integer that stores
-                             # the size of the block
-    )
+def _read_exact(fp, n):
+    '''Read exactly *n* bytes from `fp`
+
+    This method is required because fp may be unbuffered,
+    i.e. return short reads.
+    '''
+    data = fp.read(n)
+    while len(data) < n:
+        b = fp.read(n - len(data))
+        if not b:
+            raise EOFError("Compressed file ended before the "
+                           "end-of-stream marker was reached")
+        data += b
+    return data
+
+
+def _read_gzip_header(fp):
+    '''Read a gzip header from `fp` and progress to the end of the header.
+
+    Returns None if header not present. Parses mtime from the header, looks
+    for BGZF format blocks and parses the block size, setting it to None if
+    not present. Returns a tuple of mtime, block_size if a header was present.
+    '''
+    # Do not use read_exact because a header may not be present. Read twice
+    # since fp might be unbuffered.
+    magic = fp.read(1) + fp.read(1)
+    if magic == b'':
+        return None
+
+    if magic != b'\037\213':
+        raise BadGzipFile('Not a gzipped file (%r)' % magic)
+
+    common_fields = _read_exact(fp, 8)
+    (method, flag, last_mtime) = struct.unpack("<BBIxx", common_fields)
+    if method != 8:
+        raise BadGzipFile('Unknown compression method')
+    block_size = None
+    if not flag:  # Likely when data compressed in memory
+        return last_mtime, block_size
+    header = magic + common_fields
+    if flag & FEXTRA:
+        # Read & discard the extra field, if present
+        encoded_length = _read_exact(fp, 2)
+        extra_len, = struct.unpack("<H", encoded_length)
+        extra_field = _read_exact(fp, extra_len)
+        # Bgzip file detection
+        if extra_len == 6:
+            s1, s2, slen, bsize = struct.unpack("<BBHH", extra_field)
+            if s1 == 66 and s2 == 67 and slen == 2:
+                # Bgzip magic and correct slen.
+                block_size = bsize
+        header = header + encoded_length + extra_field
+    if flag & FNAME:
+        # Read and discard a null-terminated string containing the filename
+        while True:
+            s = _read_exact(fp, 1)
+            header += s
+            if s == b'\000':
+                break
+    if flag & FCOMMENT:
+        # Read and discard a null-terminated string containing a comment
+        while True:
+            s = _read_exact(fp, 1)
+            header += s
+            if s == b'\000':
+                break
+    if flag & FHCRC:
+        header_crc_encoded = _read_exact(fp, 2)
+        header_crc, = struct.unpack("<H", header_crc_encoded)
+        crc = isal_zlib.crc32(header) & 0xFFFF
+        if header_crc != crc:
+            raise BadGzipFile(f"Corrupted gzip header. Checksums do not "
+                              f"match: {crc:04x} != {header_crc:04x}")
+    return last_mtime, block_size
 
 
 class _PaddedFile(gzip._PaddedFile):
@@ -266,14 +326,21 @@ def __init__(self, fp):
         self._new_member = True
         self._last_mtime = None
         self._read_buffer_size = READ_BUFFER_SIZE
-        if hasattr(fp, "peek") and detect_bgzip(fp.peek(18)):
-            # bgzip consists of puny little blocks of max 64K uncompressed data
-            # so in practice probably more around 16K in compressed size. A
-            # 128K buffer is a massive overshoot and slows down the
-            # decompression.
-            # bgzip stores the block size, so it can be unpacked more
-            # efficiently but this is outside scope for python-isal.
-            self._read_buffer_size = 16 * 1024
+
+    def _read_gzip_header(self):
+        header_info = _read_gzip_header(self._fp)
+        if header_info is None:
+            return False
+        # Get the BGZF block size from the header if present. If the read
+        # buffer size is set to exactly the block size, there will be less
+        # overhead as reading the file will stop right before the gzip trailer.
+        # On normal gzip files nothing happens and this optimization is not
+        # detrimental.
+        last_mtime, block_size = header_info
+        self._last_mtime = last_mtime
+        self._read_buffer_size = (block_size if block_size is not None
+                                  else READ_BUFFER_SIZE)
+        return True
 
     def read(self, size=-1):
         if size < 0:
@@ -299,7 +366,9 @@ def read(self, size=-1):
             if self._new_member:
                 # If the _new_member flag is set, we have to
                 # jump to the next member, if there is one.
-                self._init_read()
+                self._crc = isal_zlib.crc32(b"")
+                # Decompressed size of unconcatenated stream
+                self._stream_size = 0
                 if not self._read_gzip_header():
                     self._size = self._pos
                     return b""
@@ -363,61 +432,22 @@ def compress(data, compresslevel=_COMPRESS_LEVEL_BEST, *, mtime=None):
     return header + compressed
 
 
-def _gzip_header_end(data: bytes) -> int:
-    """
-    Find the start of the raw deflate block in a gzip file.
-    :param data: Compressed data that starts with a gzip header.
-    :return: The end of the header / start of the raw deflate block.
-    """
-    eof_error = EOFError("Compressed file ended before the end-of-stream "
-                         "marker was reached")
-    if len(data) < 10:
-        raise eof_error
-    # We are not interested in mtime, xfl and os flags.
-    magic, method, flags = struct.unpack("<HBB", data[:4])
-    if magic != 0x8b1f:
-        raise BadGzipFile(f"Not a gzipped file ({repr(data[:2])})")
-    if method != 8:
-        raise BadGzipFile("Unknown compression method")
-    if not flags:  # Likely when data compressed in memory
-        return 10
-    pos = 10
-    if flags & FEXTRA:
-        if len(data) < pos + 2:
-            raise eof_error
-        xlen, = struct.unpack("<H", data[pos: pos+2])
-        pos += 2 + xlen
-    if flags & FNAME:
-        pos = data.find(b"\x00", pos) + 1
-        # pos will be -1 + 1 when null byte not found.
-        if not pos:
-            raise eof_error
-    if flags & FCOMMENT:
-        pos = data.find(b"\x00", pos) + 1
-        if not pos:
-            raise eof_error
-    if flags & FHCRC:
-        if len(data) < pos + 2:
-            raise eof_error
-        header_crc, = struct.unpack("<H", data[pos: pos+2])
-        # CRC is stored as a 16-bit integer by taking last bits of crc32.
-        crc = isal_zlib.crc32(data[:pos]) & 0xFFFF
-        if header_crc != crc:
-            raise BadGzipFile(f"Corrupted gzip header. Checksums do not "
-                              f"match: {crc:04x} != {header_crc:04x}")
-        pos += 2
-    return pos
-
-
 def decompress(data):
     """Decompress a gzip compressed string in one shot.
     Return the decompressed string.
+
+    This function checks for extra gzip members. Using
+    isal_zlib.decompress(data, wbits=31) is faster in cases where only one
+    gzip member is guaranteed to be present.
     """
     decompressed_members = []
     while True:
         if not data:  # Empty data returns empty bytestring
             return b"".join(decompressed_members)
-        header_end = _gzip_header_end(data)
+        fp = io.BytesIO(data)
+        if _read_gzip_header(fp) is None:
+            return b"".join(decompressed_members)
+        header_end = fp.tell()
         # Use a zlib raw deflate compressor
         do = isal_zlib.decompressobj(wbits=-isal_zlib.MAX_WBITS)
         # Read all the data except the header
diff --git a/tests/test_igzip.py b/tests/test_igzip.py
index 138979d8..ece01d10 100644
--- a/tests/test_igzip.py
+++ b/tests/test_igzip.py
@@ -392,8 +392,10 @@ def headers():
 
 
 @pytest.mark.parametrize("header", list(headers()))
-def test_gzip_header_end(header):
-    assert igzip._gzip_header_end(header) == len(header)
+def test_read_gzip_header_position(header):
+    fp = io.BytesIO(header)
+    igzip._read_gzip_header(fp)
+    assert fp.tell() == len(header)
 
 
 def test_header_too_short():