# Scope mounting



## Militant_Tiger (Feb 23, 2004)

What is the proper way to mount a scope. I have got leupold rings, which state that it is not necissary to use loc-tite, but I'm not so sure. Where else should a locking agent be put to hold things together better? Finally I have heard quite a bit about lapping rings, but I have also heard that with leupold rings which have ridges it is counterproductive. Who is right?


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## wishiniwerefishin (Sep 15, 2004)

As far as the loc tite goes, i would put it on all threads, just as kind of a reassurance. Use the blue, so that if you need to you can take the rings off in the future, red will hold much tighter and you risk damaging your threads with it.


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

I have a one inch and a 30mm ring lapping tool. I use 800 grit garnet to lap with. Both products are from Brownell's. I have lapped nearly every set of scope rings I have. They all look aligned until you start lapping. The only rings I have not lapped are precision rings for a sniper rifle. Any rings, any brand, that cost less than $75 I lap. Even worse than out of alignment, many are out of round. I would never consider torqueing down an expensive scope without lapping the rings. Perhaps the worst offenders I have ever run into was a brand that had what they called magnum splines. They had groves in the rings also. No matter what I did they slipped on a 44 mag. When I tightened them down hard they compressed the scope tube dorso-ventrally.


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## farmerj (Jun 19, 2004)

are you using the one or two piece bases?

Lapping is a wonderful idea. For any base. Brownell's makes a ring aligning tool. Works pretty good.

Without buying $200 in tools.

LIGHTLY screw everything in place. Tight enough to hold it in place, but loose enough to move still with pressure. Make sure you put BLUE Loc-tite on all the screws when you put them in.

Put you scope in place and tighten the rings down. They will somewhat line up everything better then trying to just put everything in place and tightening it down right away.

Just like any engine or other things you put together. Put it together loose and then go back and tighten it down when everythings is lined up.


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## Militant_Tiger (Feb 23, 2004)

Well these are leupold bases, leupold rings, and a leupold scope. Can I just assume that it is good enough. I would prefer not to have to lap it.


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## farmerj (Jun 19, 2004)

Militant_Tiger said:


> Well these are leupold bases, leupold rings, and a leupold scope. Can I just assume that it is good enough. I would prefer not to have to lap it.





> Without buying $200 in tools.
> 
> LIGHTLY screw everything in place. Tight enough to hold it in place, but loose enough to move still with pressure. Make sure you put BLUE Loc-tite on all the screws when you put them in.
> 
> ...


Should be all you have to do. It is all we do at work when I have to mount a scope as well. I just don't tighten everything down until I am sure it fits properly.


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## Militant_Tiger (Feb 23, 2004)

Without wasting the space for another thread, whats the deal with removing the sights on a remington 700? I assume it can be shot sans the screws, but do they sell fillers?


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## farmerj (Jun 19, 2004)

What I have seen happening with 50 MM bell objectives is they interfer with the rear sight. If you have extra high rings you should still be able to mount a 40MM bell without removing the rear sight.

As to removing the screw, I would find filler screws.... A good gunsmith will have a selection of screws to go in the open holes.


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## Militant_Tiger (Feb 23, 2004)

its a 40 mm with low rings, and I had to remove the rear sight. Can it be safely shot without the screws?


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## farmerj (Jun 19, 2004)

should be able to.....

I would still make it a point to find screws.

They are a portion of the barrel. With out them, they are the weakest point on the barrel.

I think of the pictures in a Jerry Kuhlhaussen book I have on the Mauser Action that shows a picture of the barrel profile at the sight screws. It is an intersting read. You can get by for a little bit, but I would make it a point to get them.


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## huntin1 (Nov 14, 2003)

M-T,

You can shoot without filling the screw holes, but I would get some of the little screws that are supposed to go in there. Any sporting goods store should have them, if not a gunsmith surely will. You can also order them from Brownells etc.

Although you can get by without lapping the rings you have, I would not advise it. As plainsman said they are sometimes not quite round and when you tighten your scope into them they tend to damage the scope tube. Most of the time you get lucky and the rings are fairly round so that the damage is negligable. Lapping removes all question. The only rings I don't lap are CNC machined tactical rings which are within 2/10,000 of an inch cylindrical roundness, they have as much as 98% scope tube to ring contact, compared to 40% on normal rings.
It's ok to use locktite on the bases but do not use it on the ring caps, just clean the excess oil from them tighten them as farmrj suggested and then torque them to 10 inch pounds and you are good to go.

huntin1


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## Militant_Tiger (Feb 23, 2004)

Well I didn't lap them but it went on fine and seems to be working. It is leupold everything, so if anything goes wrong I can send it right back to the factory and let them handle it, I figure you shouldn't have to lap just to mount. My only problem is that when trying to boresight it, it showed up as clockwise, and I wanted it to go down thus I turned it counterclockwise. This was actually reversed, up was down and down was up. Any ideas on that?


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## farmerj (Jun 19, 2004)

near as I can figure, when bore sighting, it s a mirror image of what you want so all movements are the opposite.


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## Militant_Tiger (Feb 23, 2004)

Well by bore sighting I mean that I removed the bolt, looked through it at a post it, and then put the scope on the post it. The dang thing was reversed however.


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## farmerj (Jun 19, 2004)

take it to the range and see how it does. Should be good if everythin is pointed in the same direction :wink:


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## Militant_Tiger (Feb 23, 2004)

Oh I know I can get it to shoot straight, but after spending so much on a scope one would expect it to have the right dang decals on it.


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## huntin1 (Nov 14, 2003)

Up should be counter clockwise with you in the shooting position, if it ain't, I'd call Leupold. And you're right, if you spend that much on a scope it should be labeled correctly. knowing what I do of Leupold I'm sure that they will make it right.

huntin1


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

It will appear as wrong, but is not. When you adjust for up your crosshairs move down. Now if you think about it you have to raise your rifle to get it back on target right? That means when the crosshairs go down your bullet impact is up. They label the direction you want your bullet to go, not which direction the crosshairs go.

If your doing this at close range you will want your crosshairs about 1.4 inches above a small dot on your post it.


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