Thread: Scope bell touching the barrel just (sometimes) should I risk it

So I have a nice tasco trs24 awesome scopes from when tasco actually made bloody nice scopes in japan
Its a target scope so has ultra fine duplex with tiny dot it’s a awesome scope that’s been on my 22 target rifle for the past year

Recently brought a 204 ruger which im going to start load development for next week and the 16x Nikon monarch i originally mounted on this rifle has a really thick reticle and also I found 16x wasn’t enough to spot the tiny 20cal holes easily

So I borrowed the tasco off the 22 upon mounting it cleared the barrel just enough for the rule of thumb paper test
But i pulled it out today to show a mate and noticed I could no longer see daylight between the ao and barrel
And it no longer passed the paper test however the ao still Operating smoothly after a fiddle I noticed that the ao adjustment has a small amount of up and down play if a small amount of downward pressure is applied when adjusting it moves down to touch the barrel (just ao operates smoothly as normal without binding at all on barrel) and stays there.... if slight Upwards pressure is applied it moves up and clears the barrel to pass the paper test

My question will shooting the rifle in this condition screw anything up?

Yes.

Get higher rings, or try shimming with a cut up coke can.

Next time your in town go get some brass shim off an engineering shop, they usually have different gauges. Used them for years on Parker Hale 26mm rings and 1" scopes.

An elegant solution to keep your scope nice and low
Greg

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Try it and see personally I think it would be ok it's close enough to the action to not affect harmonics any real world measurable amount

Not worried about harmonics its so little that I very much doubt it will mess with accuracy
More worried about Vibrations killing the scope
Shimming is a good idea a coke can shim would be plenty also

Originally Posted by greghud

An elegant solution to keep your scope nice and low
Greg

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Surely by doing that to your barrel it's dangerous? I've seen this before from a 300wsm in my gunsmiths workshop, in fact looking at the photo it might be this very rifle! Some guy brought the rifle second hand, the barrel had seen the same angle grinder, he wouldn't touch it! Told the guy to get rid of it, so he sectioned it to have a look...

Yeah, whoever the "gunsmith" is that did that mod to the rifle - I'd be running away from him as fast as humanly possible...

Yep same barrel, Andy sent me that photo. I haven't seen the sectioned one, that's awesome.
There is some seriously stupid people out there.

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Originally Posted by greghud

Yep same barrel, Andy sent me that photo. I haven't seen the sectioned one, that's awesome.
There is some seriously stupid people out there.

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Yep Andy told the fella he'd got a lemon, needed new barrel. I know who's rifle it was originally, he owns a Hunting & Fishing store... I'm pretty sure that job wasn't done by a gunsmith (thank goodness), didn't look like it had either, a little rough. Pretty sure it was a home job with the angle grinder or he got a buddy from an engineering shop to grind it down. Peak pressure would be in that first inch or so of the barrel eh?! 300wsm is a pretty decent round...

Truly frightening

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Originally Posted by rambo-6mmrem

Not worried about harmonics its so little that I very much doubt it will mess with accuracy
More worried about Vibrations killing the scope
Shimming is a good idea a coke can shim would be plenty also

Yep, you are onto the key issue.
Watch a slomo of a rifle receiver and barrel flexing under recoil.
You will be surprised how much flex there is.
Having the barrel flexing directly onto the scope at that contact point will
definitely be bad for the scope.

Not really a problem if it was a 22, but the 204 barrel will heat up and increase in diameter and that will bugger you accuracy. I know from personal experience when I though I was being clever and would get away with .005 clearance - not.

There is probably still more than enough meat for strength but the problem is that the uneven barrel wall thickness will cause the barrel to shift its POI as it heats up. Gunsmithing 101 really, completely stuffed up by someone!

Oh man I thought it was a really neat one off custom I built