My scope mounting routine

[Altitude sickness]

Hopefully others can jump in with their tricks of the trade. and suggestions

 

[Altitude sickness]

I bought the Benelli Lupo that was for sale here a couple weeks ago. They come with a 2 peice Picatinny rail installed. I will be using the ARC. M10 rings on that rifle. I’ve never heard of them needing to be lapped. Much higher quality than Talley or Leupold rings.

M10 Scope Rings

www.americanrifle.com

 

[Tex .416]

Tex.416, I agree 100%. The vertical split rings are a PIA to get installed correctly.

With horizontal splits. You simply level the rifle by placing the reference level on the action while laying in the vise. Or rear sight base.

Get the rifle to level and place the barrel level.

Then move the reference level to the lower half of the horizontal rings. To ensure they are square with action.

Then place the scope in the lower half of rings.

It’s a much easier process.

It’s worth repeating that Horizontal rings are a PIA to install correctly.

Some engineers say the vertical rings are stronger due to both sides being dovetailed into the base. They also contend that although more tricky to get correct. Vertical are actually less likely to put a twisting motion on the scope as the bolts are tightened because both sides are locked in place.

The horizontal rings can shift left and right as each sides bolts are tightened. As the ring moves left or right it grabs the scope and twists it left or right making it more difficult to get the crosshairs perfectly straight.

This Dakota will be run through the mill out to 500 yards. If it’s not “dead nuts” and tracking accurately. The Talleys will go into the scope ring purgatory box. And I will order a pic rail from Murphy Performance.

I am not following how vertically split rings can be stronger or more even than horizontal split Pic style rings.

About 15 - 20 years ago there was a great study shared in a long range shooting forum by a guy that was an engineer and shooter. He used strain gauges to compare a bunch of rings and mounts. His work was fascinating.

The take aways were a Pic rail with Pic style rings were clear winners for stress free mounting. Vertically split rings were almost impossible to tighten without inducing stress on the tube. They could be manufactured to near perfect specs, but mounting them was the battle.

Other findings were using a torque wrench, even basic ones like a Wheeler Fat Wrench, always produced better results than not using a torque wrench. That was not even close. Making adjustments in small increments to all screws a step at a time helps produce even results. For example, tighten every screw to 10 in/lbs, then come back and tighten everything to 15, then 20, then 25 or whatever the final spec is. Once everything is tightened down to spec, he would back a screw out and then retighten it to release stress.

The other thing that sticks in my memory was that some low cost Pics rings such as the ones sold by SWFA could be surprisingly well cut.

Bigger, thicker, and heavier duty was exactly that, bigger, thicker and heavier duty, both rings and scope tubes.

I will search for it some more and hope it is not lost to internet never, never land as it really was very interesting and informative.

I’ve used all Pic rails and rings since then, although a couple of Spuhr mounts also are in the mix now. Spuhr mounts are the next step in the evolution of scope mounting systems.