Freebie scope mounting

[Pew Pew Plates 358]

Sort of a strange request....

 

I'de like to write an in-depth article on how to mount a scope (the right way). To do this, I would like to take step by step photos. Instead of taking off my 700's scope and doing it all over again, I may as well make my time usefull and just do it for somebody else. We can meet at my range in bridgewater and do it. It is not a 10min thing, this will take well over an hour. Heres what I'll do

 

Loctite and torque base on

Mount rings to base

lap&line rings

level crosshairs to the reciever of the rifle

loc-tite and torque the screws

laser bore sight

live fire sighting at 100 yards in a wind free underground tunnel

 

 

Heres the requirements (hey, your getting alot here so I can be picky )

 

I would like it to be 308 (this is the caliber bore sighter I have)

I require it to mount with a seperate base (like a picatinny for example). I dont want to do an AR with a flat top since I cannot document installing a seperate base then.

Must be a 1" tube scope

 

No walmart rings! No quick detach rings!

 

 

Virgin unmounted scopes will yeild you the best results but I honestly dont care if its virgin or not.

 

PM me if interested and with what rifle/base/rings/scope you have

[kenw 293]

Look at this. He sees his name in print (pixels) and all sorts of lights go off in his head.

 

Nice, Glenn. I'm looking forward to seeing the results.

[vladtepes 1,060]

lets cast aside most of your qualifying points and do my DPMS 308 with Larue quick detach mount....

[lunker 274]

Good project Glenn. I skipped the ring lapping when I mounted mine (didn't think my EGC rings needed it), and I'm sure my crosshairs may not be perfectly orthogonal to the rifle. I didn't laser bore it either, just worked my way to zero. But it will be cool to see it done the meticulous way.

[bry@n 195]

I'd be down. I have a remington 700 I need to install a mount, scope etc...I will pm u later on.

[Pew Pew Plates 358]

I'd be down. I have a remington 700 I need to install a mount, scope etc...I will pm u later on.

 

 

awesome. SPF

[Pizza Bob 1,488]

Loctite and torque base on

Mount rings to base

lap&line rings

level crosshairs to the reciever of the rifle

loc-tite and torque the screws

laser bore sight

live fire sighting at 100 yards in a wind free underground tunnel

 

 

Pretty complete, but I have one question and one disagreement.

 

Question: What do you intend to "line" the rings with - unless you meant "align"

 

Disagree: You should never Loc-Tite the ring screws - bases yes / rings no

 

Otherwise, have at it.

 

Adios,

 

Pizza Bob

[Shane45 807]

+1 for no loctite! I dont lap either unless I see an issue that needs corrective lapping.

[Pizza Bob 1,488]

I will lap steel rings if the scope tube is aluminum.

 

I have been using either the Burris Zee rings, which have plastic inserts and thus do not need to be lapped (plus you can make small adjustments for windage or elevation with asymmetrical inserts, or TPS rings, which are guaranteed concentric to .0002". I have mounted and demounted scopes from these rings and there have been no ring marks.

 

Adios,

 

Pizza Bob

[tony357 386]

I use purple loc tite on the rings..

 

blue on bases..

[Old School 611]

I will lap steel rings if the scope tube is aluminum.

 

I have been using either the Burris Zee rings, which have plastic inserts and thus do not need to be lapped (plus you can make small adjustments for windage or elevation with asymmetrical inserts, or TPS rings, which are guaranteed concentric to .0002". I have mounted and demounted scopes from these rings and there have been no ring marks.

 

Adios,

 

Pizza Bob

 

I used the Burris Zee rings the other day for the first time. They are the Cat's A$$. I have a buddy that bench rests with them and they don't move a $hit. And he's shooting a 308 which has reasonable recoil.

 

Damn it Bob! On the money again!

[Pew Pew Plates 358]

Pretty complete, but I have one question and one disagreement.

 

Question: What do you intend to "line" the rings with - unless you meant "align"

 

Disagree: You should never Loc-Tite the ring screws - bases yes / rings no

 

Otherwise, have at it.

 

Adios,

 

Pizza Bob

 

I use the purple stuff so its barely anything, but it gives me peace of mind.

I ment align, kinda misused the term. I have the pointed bars but will probably wind up using the square ends on them due to stuff I have read on them.

[vladtepes 1,060]

I think that my cross hair might not be totally even.. like the scope might be turned a hair to the left.. is there a trick to getting the cross hairs completely even dead level?

[lunker 274]

I think that my cross hair might not be totally even.. like the scope might be turned a hair to the left.. is there a trick to getting the cross hairs completely even dead level?

 

I have seen a level that screws onto the vertical turret and is at a right angle to the rifle. There are even some scopes that have built-in levels.

On mine I just eyeballed it. Pretty scientific, huh?

[vladtepes 1,060]

I have seen a level that screws onto the vertical turret and is at a right angle to the rifle. There are even some scopes that have built-in levels.

On mine I just eyeballed it. Pretty scientific, huh?

 

 

that is what I did.. eyeballed it.. but just feel it is not perfect.. lol I do not have a good sense for eying up things like that..

[Shane45 807]

Yes there is a trick. Provided your scope is a quality unit and the bottom of the turret housing is flat, quick and dirty, eyeball level and tighten enough so that the scope can be turned but not turn freely on its own. Stack playing cards in between the flat of the scope and the flat of the mount. A little more technical, use a feeler gauge on the same flats.

[vladtepes 1,060]

Yes there is a trick. Provided your scope is a quality unit and the bottom of the turret housing is flat, quick and dirty, eyeball level and tighten enough so that the scope can be turned but not turn freely on its own. Stack playing cards in between the flat of the scope and the flat of the mount. A little more technical, use a feeler gauge on the same flats.

 

 

WOW ! it is epic advice! that is going to make it SO much simpler!

[Pew Pew Plates 358]

I have a bubble level that fits into the reciever and another than you place on top of the turret. Level the rifle, level the scope, tighten and you are good to go.

 

Aside from being annoying to see, a non level scope will mean your adjustments are off. exaggerated for the sake of example, if your scope is 45 degrees off to the left, when you adjust "up" you are actually going up AND left. So if you are zeroed at 100 yards with a very slightly off scope, figgure that its X amount of clicks to hit paper at 800 yards, you will adjust and find you are not hitting paper because your elevation also threw in some windage for you...

 

 

Vlad, when you finally make it up here we can do whatever you want with your scope. Pick a day you jerk!

[JonF 79]

Burris Zee rings...

Adios,

 

Pizza Bob

 

 

I used the Burris Zee rings...

+1 on the Zee rings. Its all i'll use and frankly, aside from specialty rings, all other rings are now obsolete.

[Shane45 807]

Not to sound like an optic snob but.... when your mounting a +3k scope, its gotta be in rings/mounts up to the task. So here is my opnion on ones I have used.

 

Accracy International.

This mount depite its pedestrian appearance was excellent. It just flat worked. As a bonus it left no ring marks.

 

Larue.

I did not care for this mount. I didnt like the clamping mechanism. I didnt like the rail interface. I didnt keep it long.

 

Leupold Mk V.

Meh.... Did the job but werent as precise as I like.

 

Desert Tactical Arms.

Pass. I actually had an issue with mine and had to do corrective laping. Suprising for the price of the mount. Not thrilled with it. Will replace in the near future.

 

Ops2Inc

In my opinion, simply the best! I exlusively use these mounts/rings/Rails if they are available for my application. They are always precision bored as a matched set. I can truly say that there is no biase here given my relationship with the company.

 

Seekins Precision

A very good set of rings among his other items. If Ops2Inc where not available, this would be my next choice.

 

Badger Ordnance

Although some swear by them, I found them to be behind the curve in regards to their precision.

 

 

A word on ring marks. In my opinion ring marks are a civy concern. Most military/le use manufacturers dont really care bout ring marks but since the civy world gets their undies in a bunch about it some try and pay some attention to this. But some consider ring marks as postive grip on the scope. Just for clarification im not talking about ring marks that are the result of improper mounting and movement. Im more speaking of a little bit of "bite" that can show on the anodising. If you were to go deep into the engineering of rings and get into the depths of tube deformation etc etc, it becomes clear why this happens. Personally I would choose operationally sound over asthetic integrity.

 

 

For somehting that seems so simple on the surface, I can tell you the subject is deeply comlex and that there are only a few companies out there doing it right! Rings that are precision bored as a set when sitting on a one piece base are highly concentric and accurate. Add a quality scope with little tube varience... well I have never had to lap this scenario.

 

 

In this close up, you can see the attention to detail paid to clearance and tight tolerance of ops2inc rings and rails. The tighter the fit, the less oportunity for shift. If the pic below looks familier to you, you were probably involved in the FBI Sniper Rifle contract as this was the ring rail combo that won the contract in conjunction with the FN SPR A3G.

 

[vladtepes 1,060]

 

Vlad, when you finally make it up here we can do whatever you want with your scope. Pick a day you jerk!

 

I want to.. trust me.. but what days/times are you available.. any time earlier in the day?

 

thanks as always!

[Pew Pew Plates 358]

any time after 5pm most weekdays

[JonF 79]

Shane, what good is that level of precision when your mounts are two piece or there is variance to the rail itself due warpage of the mount or receiver? You can hone it all your want on the bench, but that doesn't assume your actual application will replicate the laboratory environment, right? Isn't this why people end up 'fitting' them anyways?

[Shane45 807]

The problem usually isnt the two piece mount its self, its usually the reciever they are bolted to. Ive seen a number of rifles where you could lay a ruler next to the holes in the reciever and see the missallignment. But the solution is not in the ring/rail in that instance although it can be(rings that have windage offset-not a fan). But punching the holes out to a larger dia. and aligning them at the same time is my preferance. But this is why my personal preferance is for a one piece base(or recievers with integral rails ). I think there is a TON of misconceptions about lapping. Like I said before, the ONLY time you will ever see me lap is for a corrective measure. For example. A scope tube thats a bit oversize and doesnt seat all the way in the ring. If something is twisting a one piece base, then something else more rudimentary is wrong and needs to be corrected first. The levels of precision that matter are the interface between mount/rings and pic rail, concentricity of the holes in the pair, and in my opinion, the design of the picatinny clamping method. If I gave you a rail gauge to run around with and try on all your stuff you would probably have a heart attack on how much is out of spec! This is why a matched set of ring and rail is strongly desired. For example My sets of Ops2Inc and Seekins precision rings would NOT fit on a nighforce base on my GAP 338LM. The base its self was out of spec. The cross slots were under minimum callout for pic. spec. I had to machine the slots to spec for the rings to seat. Go to the other end of the spectrum and you now have the space that can allow shift. Its simply the tighter the tolerance, the higher the repeatability and the better the guard against shift if the system is dropped knocked etc etc.

[Pew Pew Plates 358]

Well, after all this here are my two thoughts:

 

-Lapping cant hurt unless you are overly enthusiastic

 

-Even if it is disagreed when it is appropiate, I can still cover lapping. Instead of saying "This the ONLY way you can mount a scope..." I will make it more of an open ended thing that will include lapping.

 

When I mounted the scope on my 700 I found with the alignment bars that the rings werent 100% true to each other. They are on a picatinny rail so there is no changing that. I lapped them and I discovered 2 things. First the obvious: it made them line up. The second is that when I started lapping I worked the bar back and forth just 2-3 times to see what the bearing surface was. Not very much...probably %15. I lapped untill it was ~%60 I believe. Burris "xtreme tactical" picatinny rings and a EGW 20moa picatinny base.

[Shane45 807]

Glenn, please dont take my comments as an impeachment of your process or methodology. Its not. I think if I was making any point in this regard, its that when you get to a certain level of component, it becomes more often than not, not needed. I think we likely agree than corrective lapping may very well be needed more often than not at a lower level of component where there may be more manufacturing error or tolerence stack.

[Pew Pew Plates 358]

Glenn, please dont take my comments as an impeachment of your process or methodology. Its not. I think if I was making any point in this regard, its that when you get to a certain level of component, it becomes more often than not, not needed. I think we likely agree than corrective lapping may very well be needed more often than not at a lower level of component where there may be more manufacturing error or tolerence stack.

 

 

OH I SEE SHANE, my components are all LOWER LEVEL

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Shane45 807]

[Shane45 807]

There alwasy seems to be another rung on the ladder. When you get really high up there, the mount is part of the scope!!!

 

http://hudisco.com/Telescopic%20Sight%20ZF%203-12x56mm%20SSG-P.html

 

Hell its only money right? Whats 5k on a scope

 

But hey there next model up which goes back to a conventional mount is only 12k. But the mount is included