Thread: Lesson Learnt - Cheap Rings

Took my newly acquired tikka .308 to the range to sight in today, couldnt find any optilocks in the height i needed so resorted to a cheap set of chinese? i assume rings (from a retail shop). being its not a big magnum thought "should be ok" famous last words. guy at the shop offered to install and boresight so i said what the hell go for it. checked everything was tight when i got home and all seemed well.

Straight off the bat i made an elevation and windage change (quite substantial) to little effect and thought that seems odd. checked everything was tight and soldiered on. got a 1.5 moa ish group of 3 shots pretty well centre. thought to myself this is average. came back to it 15 mins later without touching anything and punched out another 1.5 moa group but it had shifted roughly 2.5 inches left and 2 inches low.

Back home for closer inspection and funnily enough the rings appear to be the issue. everything was tight but clearly the scope has been moving around and some interesting wear patterns on the rings (hard wear on one edge and scope not even contacting ring on the other.) would require a huge amount of "lapping" to even come close to fitting nicely. pretty poor quality.

Makes me wonder how many other people are out there shooting with similar issues considering this is their "go to" ring for majority of their rifle/scope combos they sell. was another bloke at the range this morning with a similar issue, albeit some installer error also.

Anyway, now looking for a solution its a 50mm objective scope, 1 inch tube. have some "lo" optilocks here that dont quite work, need a touch more height. had a bit of a look around and couldnt find anyone with stock of the medium height optilocks to suit 1 inch. Anyone have a set of these kicking around? Otherwise potentially looking at a set of talleys. Would like to avoid putting a pic rail on

Cheers

Originally Posted by 6.5 CRD

Took my newly acquired tikka .308 to the range to sight in today, couldnt find any optilocks in the height i needed so resorted to a cheap set of chinese? i assume rings (from a retail shop). being its not a big magnum thought "should be ok" famous last words. guy at the shop offered to install and boresight so i said what the hell go for it. checked everything was tight when i got home and all seemed well.

Straight off the bat i made an elevation and windage change (quite substantial) to little effect and thought that seems odd. checked everything was tight and soldiered on. got a 1.5 moa ish group of 3 shots pretty well centre. thought to myself this is average. came back to it 15 mins later without touching anything and punched out another 1.5 moa group but it had shifted roughly 2.5 inches left and 2 inches low.

Back home for closer inspection and funnily enough the rings appear to be the issue. everything was tight but clearly the scope has been moving around and some interesting wear patterns on the rings (hard wear on one edge and scope not even contacting ring on the other.) would require a huge amount of "lapping" to even come close to fitting nicely. pretty poor quality.

Makes me wonder how many other people are out there shooting with similar issues considering this is their "go to" ring for majority of their rifle/scope combos they sell. was another bloke at the range this morning with a similar issue, albeit some installer error also.

Anyway, now looking for a solution its a 50mm objective scope, 1 inch tube. have some "lo" optilocks here that dont quite work, need a touch more height. had a bit of a look around and couldnt find anyone with stock of the medium height optilocks to suit 1 inch. Anyone have a set of these kicking around? Otherwise potentially looking at a set of talleys. Would like to avoid putting a pic rail on

Cheers
Attachment 214509Attachment 214510

Find yourself a set of medium height Talley rings. medium will give enough clearance for the 50mm objective. Ring and base all one piece, very simple design and they work. About $115 for a set so also pretty economical.

Go and get a set of Nightforce rings. Thats what I use. Never ever had an issue.

Yep they are expensive. But buy once, cry ........never in this instance.

Originally Posted by zeropak

Find yourself a set of medium height Talley rings. medium will give enough clearance for the 50mm objective. Ring and base all one piece, very simple design and they work. About $115 for a set so also pretty economical.

Thats probably the road ill go down, and my local H&F has them on the shelf so even better

DNZ Game reaper also seem good for around $120

Brother in law mounted a scope in Tasco 'World Class' rings that were so far out of 'true' the scope wouldn't adjust. Someone told me they'd bent the scope, and whether that was true or not - I don't know.. I got those rings and mounted them on a BRNO 600 reciever with integral grooves, then polished up a 1" bar, that spanned the two rings, put some valve grinding paste on it and lapped those rings with shim spacers between the halves until they were true to each other. By the time it was done they were well oversize - sufficiently so it took a couple of wraps of film negative to take up the windage.

Never seen rings so badly made.

On my lever that kicks a bit i'm running the burris rings with the Pos-Align plastic inserts.
The inserts are a bit like a spherical bearing between the mount and the scope tube.
had never seen them before. even came with an uneven offset set of inserts that allow you to set the scope tube at an angle.
z

Originally Posted by tac a1

Go and get a set of Nightforce rings. Thats what I use. Never ever had an issue.

Yep they are expensive. But buy once, cry ........never in this instance.

I love NF rings but they are a complete rip off.
I have 4 sets now and all were purchased used.

Correct solution is Sphur Hunting Direct Tikka mount:

Anything else is a compromise (waste of money)

Originally Posted by caberslash

Correct solution is Sphur Hunting Direct Tikka mount:
Attachment 214566Attachment 214567
Anything else is a compromise (waste of money)

Awesome mount that but beware on magnum cartridges in the T3, the 7PRC wouldn't feed through the remaining ejection port

Originally Posted by 6.5 CRD

Thats probably the road ill go down, and my local H&F has them on the shelf so even better

Talley low rings will work with a 50mm

Sent from my CPH2145 using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by 6.5 CRD

Took my newly acquired tikka .308 to the range to sight in today, couldnt find any optilocks in the height i needed so resorted to a cheap set of chinese? i assume rings (from a retail shop). being its not a big magnum thought "should be ok" famous last words. guy at the shop offered to install and boresight so i said what the hell go for it. checked everything was tight when i got home and all seemed well.

Straight off the bat i made an elevation and windage change (quite substantial) to little effect and thought that seems odd. checked everything was tight and soldiered on. got a 1.5 moa ish group of 3 shots pretty well centre. thought to myself this is average. came back to it 15 mins later without touching anything and punched out another 1.5 moa group but it had shifted roughly 2.5 inches left and 2 inches low.

Back home for closer inspection and funnily enough the rings appear to be the issue. everything was tight but clearly the scope has been moving around and some interesting wear patterns on the rings (hard wear on one edge and scope not even contacting ring on the other.) would require a huge amount of "lapping" to even come close to fitting nicely. pretty poor quality.

Makes me wonder how many other people are out there shooting with similar issues considering this is their "go to" ring for majority of their rifle/scope combos they sell. was another bloke at the range this morning with a similar issue, albeit some installer error also.

Anyway, now looking for a solution its a 50mm objective scope, 1 inch tube. have some "lo" optilocks here that dont quite work, need a touch more height. had a bit of a look around and couldnt find anyone with stock of the medium height optilocks to suit 1 inch. Anyone have a set of these kicking around? Otherwise potentially looking at a set of talleys. Would like to avoid putting a pic rail on

Cheers
Attachment 214509Attachment 214510

What brand are those sold as mate? They look like a copy of the Leupold PRW.

For cheap rings the only ones that i have never had issues with are the Nikko Sterling steel rings. But apart from that id stay away from cheap rings

My go to for allround use are the Burris Signature rings with the inserts, pain to get set up but they are nice and light and they work well once sorted out. Next for guns that take a beating i go to the weaver 4 or 6 hole tactical, then for repatable QD i use Warne steel QD rings

In saying that i do have a set of Leupold PRW steel rings and they are pretty good but quite heavy for the size

And for cheap rings i use nikko sterling steel rings

Originally Posted by NewbieZAR

What brand are those sold as mate? They look like a copy of the Leupold PRW.

For cheap rings the only ones that i have never had issues with are the Nikko Sterling steel rings. But apart from that id stay away from cheap rings

"Ranger" is the brand

Originally Posted by Kiwi Greg

Awesome mount that but beware on magnum cartridges in the T3, the 7PRC wouldn't feed through the remaining ejection port

Does not interfere with the ejection port on a T3x although on a T3 some milling of the receiver may be necessary.

Don't think the T3/T3x is a good platform for those cartridges, the factory plastic mags wear on the feed lips and Long Action AICS conversions are a pain.

If you are going to shoot anything less than the 180 grain bullets (which won't feed properly in a T3, loaded to SAAMI spec), I don't see how 7PRC is better than a SAUM/WSM or even bog standard Rem Mag.

Tikka T3's are probably best with the 30-06 (+280,280AI,270) or WSM/SAUM family.