2 Piece Mounts or Picatinny / Weaver Rail ??

Trickyd

Member
Hi, i'm a newbie on here & have been given some good advice about what scope to put on my Remington 700 SPS. I would like some advice on wether to go for 2-piece mounts or a picatinny/weaver type rail? I understand the rail will give more range of scope placement but are there any other advantages / disadvantages I should be thinking about. Any advice gratefully received.
Cheers Richard.
 
Hi, i'm a newbie on here & have been given some good advice about what scope to put on my Remington 700 SPS. I would like some advice on wether to go for 2-piece mounts or a picatinny/weaver type rail? I understand the rail will give more range of scope placement but are there any other advantages / disadvantages I should be thinking about. Any advice gratefully received.
Cheers Richard.

A quality picatinny rail combined with mounts/rings with a good choice of heights (such as Recknagels) will give you a lot of flexibility as I've recently discovered but a pair of fitted mounts/rings is likely to be cheaper.

Cheers

Fizz
:cool:
 
a rail will also stiffen up the action. What I would like to see is rifle manufacturers machining a full length rail into the action as standard.
 
I have seen on the internet that rails need to be 'bedded in'. I saw a couple of you tube videos where 'JB Weld' type epoxy resin is used to ensure there is a perfect fit to the action. I spoke to my local shop about it and he looked at me as if I was stupid!! Does this need to be done?? cheers
 
Rail is better in every respect but one; unless you have a detachable magazine installed it is slightly more fiddly to reload. For stalking that should not really be problematic.

I have not used any glue or bedding compound on mine (700 BDL) and don't plan to.
 
I have ken Farrel rails on my remy's. I used epoxy to bed these on and just followed the instructions that came with the rails. Border barrels actually done one for me and they just done exactly the same. I have no loading issues with these rails, however the do add quite a bit of height to the mounted scope height.
 
Sorry, I should add that I have a regular weaver brand weaver rail for SA Rem 700. I have a LH action, and the rail is inlet to load and eject for a right hander. Not a big deal, but a little more fiddly. Well worth it though.
 
Unless you are using a rail with built in elevation, there is no real advantage over 2 piece Weaver / Warne slot bases on the Remington 700, because the top of the action is open, so you can only use one or two slots at the front and rear, if the loading area is cut back.

On an action with a small port, like a Tikka T3, Steyr SBS, or Sauer, you can use the entire rail. For me, this is advantageous because I can remove the scope and snap on a red dot sight where I have no iron sight.
 
Concencus is that rail is better for reasons stated, also allows you to fit additional rings which RB in Vol 1 Foxing advises. Clearly you need to get correct length and correct height mounts to enable you to get scope mounted as close to barrel as possible.

V impt to ensure rail is paralell to the action when you tighten it up.

D
 
Unless you are using a rail with built in elevation, there is no real advantage over 2 piece Weaver / Warne slot bases on the Remington 700, because the top of the action is open, so you can only use one or two slots at the front and rear, if the loading area is cut back.

Hi Southern, it's clear you know a lot more about firearms than I (and I have learnt a lot from many of your posts), but here I must either disagree, or admit that I don't quite understand what you are saying. Allow me to illustrate, this is how my rifle came to me, with two piece weaver style rings:
DSC_0098.jpg
I could not get the scope forward by any more than the clearance between the dials and the front ring (about 3/4"), except by turning the front base through 180 degrees like so:
DSC_0132.jpg
Even then the damn thing still thumped my eyebrow whenever I took a shot from prone. I was then limited by the location of the rear base, however once I'd fitted a rail it much, much easier to mount a scope (ironically, by this point I had lengthened the the stock, and therefore could probably have stuck with the scope mounting arrangement that I had).
DSC_0217.jpg
I don't see why I couldn't or shouldn't use the slots towards the centre of the rail if that suited better scope placement for me. As I said, I'm probably missing something, but on the strength of my limited experience I would urge rail over two piece weaver bases.

Guy
 
On an action with a small port, like a Tikka T3, Steyr SBS, or Sauer, you can use the entire rail. For me, this is advantageous because I can remove the scope and snap on a red dot sight where I have no iron sight.

that means you cant top load which is a pain in the rse
 
I have seen on the internet that rails need to be 'bedded in'. I saw a couple of you tube videos where 'JB Weld' type epoxy resin is used to ensure there is a perfect fit to the action. I spoke to my local shop about it and he looked at me as if I was stupid!! Does this need to be done?? cheers
You wont do any harm bedding (not bonding) the rail, use lots of release agent(shoe polish) on action, screws and screw holes. Rough and clean the underside of the rail with emery paper and put tissue in the action to catch any epoxy that pushes through.

when its all together clean up excess, tissues and cotton buds.

when set, take it all apart, clean up whats left and locktite screws back in.
 
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2 p worth
i used to fit Ken Farrell rails 10 or 20 moa, on my remmy sps builds. and i just use stud lock but do this with bolt out ,and test fit for stud length.set at 20 in/lb
REM-700S-FS-1-10-EXT.jpg
 
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that means you cant top load which is a pain in the rse

You can easily single load a Tikka T3, Steyr SBS or Sauer 200 / 202 through the smaller side port. Their push feeds and extractors are made for that. What you cannot do well is gently extract a round and lift it out, because you cannot get your fingers in there.

When single loading the Remington 700, I insert an aluminum magazine block, which fits like a tray, and positions the round for a smooth ride into the bolt face and chamber.

The bit advantage of the full rail is being able to position all sizes of optics on it, and to swap them rifle to rifle, because the slot spacings are the same.
 
Hi Southern, it's clear you know a lot more about firearms than I (and I have learnt a lot from many of your posts), but here I must either disagree, or admit that I don't quite understand what you are saying. Allow me to illustrate, this is how my rifle came to me, with two piece weaver style rings:
View attachment 43785
I could not get the scope forward by any more than the clearance between the dials and the front ring (about 3/4"), except by turning the front base through 180 degrees like so:
View attachment 43786
Even then the damn thing still thumped my eyebrow whenever I took a shot from prone. I was then limited by the location of the rear base, however once I'd fitted a rail it much, much easier to mount a scope (ironically, by this point I had lengthened the the stock, and therefore could probably have stuck with the scope mounting arrangement that I had).
View attachment 43787
I don't see why I couldn't or shouldn't use the slots towards the centre of the rail if that suited better scope placement for me. As I said, I'm probably missing something, but on the strength of my limited experience I would urge rail over two piece weaver bases.

Guy

Some rails don't have a full set of center slots.

I agree that the full rail gives you a lot more latitude in positioning the scope than just one or two slots on separate bases, but many many one-piece rails are not "full" - i.e., they have the middle cut out for loading from the top. So all you have are maybe one or two usable slots front and rear, which is still better than just one. If you do have a full rail, then the top of the M700 action is partially blocked.

As a note, the original M700 M24 for the US Army and the M40 for the USMC used the Redfield Jr 1-piece bases, same as the 1903A3 does. The Redfield base is slim enough to not block the ejection at all. The M24 is a long action, because they intended to use the .30-06 in Vietnam, and did so early on. The M40 is a short action, based off the 40X target action. When both services went to slot mounts, the Army used separate bases. The USMC uses a one piece rail, now with 30 MOA elevation and 34mm rings. There are some US Military armorers on this site who have lived through a lot of the evolution. I can tell you that the M700 long action, actually being of magnum length, and used from Vietnam onwards with 7.62x51, .30-06, and .300 Win Mag, the longer cases need a little more room to eject. If you see a full 1913 rail on an M24, it is usually sitting up higher for that reason.
 
Some rails don't have a full set of center slots.

I agree that the full rail gives you a lot more latitude in positioning the scope than just one or two slots on separate bases, but many many one-piece rails are not "full" - i.e., they have the middle cut out for loading from the top. So all you have are maybe one or two usable slots front and rear, which is still better than just one. If you do have a full rail, then the top of the M700 action is partially blocked.

Among the reasons why my next project/goal is a detachable mag conversion! Incidentally, I believe that all M24 and M40 have been fitted, or retrofitted with such a system, presumably not a coincidence?
 
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