My Scope Rings Story

G'day.... haven't posted for a while. But I have a story to share.

I recently had problems with the scope on my Norinco .22LR so I decided to replace it. I thought it would be nice to have some steel rings.

Although I've been shooting for a very long time, I've never really studied scope ring standards. I've generally been lucky with what I've chosen simply by guessing whether 'low', 'medium' or 'high' would be the best choice. Steel rings can cost a lot, so I shopped around online and found some good-looking ones at a NZ site. What I appreciated about this site was that they had an actual dimension called 'saddle height'... so I Googled to find out what 'saddle height' actually meant. And I came across some diagrams like this:

https://i.imgur.com/W1lXcJR.jpg

I was going to get the tallest option, but when I saw that the medium option had a saddle height of around 22 mm I hit the buy now. The old alloy rings had a saddle height of around 12mm, and the bolt only just kissed the scope so I thought that 22mm would be just right.

When the lovely new steel rings arrived, they looked a heck of a lot lower than I imagined. I measured them and realised that not everyone seems to use the same definition of 'saddle height'. The height I'd seen labelled as saddle height on the web page turned out to be 'centre height'.... and the danged saddle height looked close to being the same height as my old rings. I was keen to get the rifle back into service, so I fitted the scope and bore sighted it. Being anxious to keep my firearms licence... and to make things difficult for robbers.... I store my bolt in a locked box. I loaded the rifle, the bolt, ammo and targets into the car and drove to my 'range' on a friend's property. I set up the target and then found that the scope was too low to allow me to fit the bolt. Bother.

I sent an email to the vendor, pointing out the problem I had. All I got was a link to the 'returns' information on their website. Perhaps it was an inexperienced salesperson who answered my email, and perhaps a better remedy will be offered. So I won't mention any names . But it was all a bit unfortunate seeing I live in a rural area and there is a substantial 'non refundable' set of freight costs involved it I do return the rings as per their policy. Meanwhile, I am regarding all this as a slightly humorous, yet costly, life lesson. And I guess one of my friends or relatives will have a use for some low rings to fit their 3/8" dovetail. Or maybe I'll get a new rifle one day that doesn't have a problematic bolt.

I really like my little Norinco rifle. It really is good value for money and it seems to be as accurate, if not a tad better, than other .22s I've used. One of the first nights I took it out into possum country I chanced upon a nice pig about 35 metres away which I dropped with just one shot... a 45 grain CCI 'suppressor' round which left the muzzle at approximately 970 feet per second. I was impressed.

https://i.imgur.com/CBZNsO6.jpg