Mounting rings

rodkayak

Well-Known Member
Is it really worth spending the extra money for a set of expensive (Warne etc) rings, rather than some much cheaper Nikko Sterling rings ?
This is for a low recoiling but v accurate centerfire. Do any of you lap them in with a broom handle & Emery cloth? The dealers will obviously say yes when you buy the scope but the proof of the pudding etc!
I bet there are plenty of stalkers who have had years of good service out of 'cheap' rings??
 
Hi Rodkayak,
You dont say what rifle they are for but i would really recommend buying decent quality mounts (dont neccesarily need to go mental with the cheque book but a quality manufacture) have a look on here for a second hand set. Absolutely no, no, no to the broom handle idea. you will end up with oval, oversized rings. I have made a couple of precisely dimensioned laps for a couple of members off here but for a factory rifle i would say there is probably no need to bother with lapping.

Ezzy
 
In a word... yes ;)

It is absoluely essential that the scope is perfectly in line with the barrel, you can only compensate for slight mis-alignment with the windage adjustment at your point of zero... beyond that your POI will shift left or right.

I learnt the hard way with my .223, months of trying to get it right using £20 rings... In the end I forked out £100 for opti-lock rings and bases :D
and when I got my .243 it came with a set of opti-locks.
 
If your going to lap your rings then go and get a piece of ground 1" steel or the saize of your scope. A piece of bar stock is not likely to be true in roundness or straight even so it will need to be ground. A broom handle will only be round and straight by pure luck. If you find one that is so got and buy a lottery ticket right away.

I have got a set of the Warne type Nikko Sterlings and they seem to be OK. I needed to fit a 30mm scope to a rifle to try the scope out and was not about to ley out the price of Warnes. I don't like that type of mounts as I find they are fiddley to fit. I was lucky as the set of Nikko Sterling rings I got are fine however knowing how poor Nikko Sterlings Q/C can be it was a gamble. For me it was worth risking £15 at the time.

I do not lap rings normally. Only resorting to that if it's obvious they are not in alignment. Laying the scope into the mounts can usually tell you but with the warne type you cannot do this.

Hmmmm Thinking about this Savage used to supply that vertically split ring type with their rifles and I picked up a set and didn't like them then abd that must have been 30 years ago now.. So I wonder who actually thought up that style? have Warne just adopted the design and advertised it well?
 
Warne are ok, I certainly wouldn't use anything cheaper on a centre-fire. I prefer horizontally split rings though as they allow you to lay the scope in and check everything is in order before you tighten them down.
Lapping is unnecessary unless you have a base alignment issue, even then the best bet is to use Optilocks or Zee rings which will self-align.
 
Clearly depends on the rifle,receiver and bases. I use Leupold rings with a leupold scope. My Howa has Burris rings with the plastic ring inserts so self alignes and these are excellent. All my other rifles have sportsmatch mounts.

I have experienced out of alligned rings and bases and its worth checking prior to fitting a scope.

Shooting is often 75% confidence so any doubts about scopes and rings must be resolved in the first instance.

D
 
If you guys want to pay £80 - £90 for Optilocks then that's fine, but I've fitted several sets of the item which retail at a mere £19. As Tikka's already have an accurate mounting plane these are all you need, and they don't budge.

http://www.scopemounts.co.uk/tikka.html

I've also fitted Millet 'Tikka' series models which were a bit pricey at £27, but have full lateral adjustment as well.

My older Tikka's date from the jurassic period so wear Weaver blocks, and Weaver QD rings.

I haven't had any bother with any of these inferior mounting systems. They ain't sexy but they do work.
 
I've come across too many crooked optilocks and had to fix em. Not impressed.
Had a few nasty cheap mounts with bad threading no good, but bought a few
sets of cheap mounts last time I was in the states. Put one med high set on
my sako 308, super light and held zero for over a year now...cost around 10 dollars at Walmart.
Some cheap mounts are ok others are just junk.
Have one set of Warne, they don't make sense for me. As I have rails on all my rifles and
swap scopes as I want without needing to adjust the horizon except with the Warne.
Recknagel are my favourite mounts, quality vs weight is good but not cheap.

One can always bed the scope into the mounts with steel epoxy to save the lapping.
If one applies release agent on scope and mounts all can be removed without a trace later.

edi
 
When I bought my optilocks the shopowner was telling me about some mounts he'd ordered in for a chap... they cost £370 :eek:
 
Paid £350 as a deal with my sauer 202 for swing off Apels,some places were quoting nearer £500 but they do make my optilocks look crude,probably a bit OTT but i know i can take scope off and replace without any loss of zero.
P.S not much point buying good optics and then scrimping on mounts they are the vital link between rifle and scope and would wager more problems with rifles not holding zero are caused by poor mounts than any other factor JMHO.
 
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How much is expensive !!. Rifle £1000 plus Scope £600 plus Moderator £250 plus Rings to ensure all goes well and holds Zero less than £100 quid for Good Optilocks and Bases. Money well spent when you Shoot that Living Animal where you aimed and end its life.

Cheaper rings maybe just didnt do as well Live Animal wonders of after poor shot placement was it the Rings or You !!!

dont take chances buy the best you can afford.

Dalkur.
 
Oh dear.
Let's not bring in spurious arguments such as fitting the most expensive kit to ensure humane destruction of the animal. This is codswallop of the worst kind.

I couldn't work out whether the poster here meant the object left wandering off... or the subject left wondering the reasons for a miss ... but I get the gist of his argument.

My point is that it's not necessary to fit the priciest accessories to tot up to the sum quoted. £2000 for starters - good lord! Cost isn't necessarily the standard, or any guarantee of excellence. If buying the very best gives someone that elusive margin of 'extra' confidence, or the feeling that the beast has been given the respect it deserves then the user has the reward they paid over the top for.

However, you can get the same result using cheaper alternatives. Unless you try these out for yourself you can't say that there are just as good alternatives out there ... and it won't cost you a fortune to prove or disprove your notion.

I'm not suggesting that anyone goes blazing away at anything without properly checking the accuracy of their kit. That is paramount.
 
Some interesting arguments here. I tend to think that mounting on a rails is the way to go and have EAW, Leupold QRW and Warne mounts together with an Accuracy International mount that looks suspiciously like its made by Sportsmatch. Quality is the key but if you have spent money on a scope and a rifle the bit that joins them together has got to work 100% of the time and give the user the confidence that ensures a hit every time. Spend as much as you can afford and get it all set up correctly for the type of shooting and positions that you will shoot from.
Hope it all works out!
 
In reply to codswallop !!!.

I was only suggesting a token price for new Stalkers starting out and buying new kit. I am sure many of us have in the past spent very little on a full kit and had many years success but if you are buying the best you can afford yhats the best kit to buy regardless of cost.

My point was that some people try to compromise because they spent more on the rifle when we all know its the scope fittings and ammo we use together with the hours of practice we put in on a range that realy matters.

Dalkur.
 
That is very true dalkur... I have a cheapy chinese Norinco .223 with a £100 bushnell scope for foxing and it's brilliant :D

But, the bases and rings were almost as much as the scope.
 
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