Hi gang I have an old Redfield Bearcub scope that has a 26mm tube. I am trying to find a set of Weaver rings that would fit it. Does anyone know a source for 26mm Weaver style rings?

I do have set of 1" Weaver rings (and 2 piece base) and a friend suggested that I just lap them enough to fit the scope. I suppose that may have to work if I cant find the right size rings.

If anyone has a suggestion I would really appreciate it. Thanks all. Mike

thats; what I do; get rings with enough metal to bore out ..6mm.

Mike, last year I bought the entire remaining inventory of Leupold turn in 26mm rings. I have blue and black matte in medium and high (no low was ever made). They fit Leupold, Burris and Millit turn in bases.

Weavers are quite rare and you cannot mill a 1" weaver to properly fit a 26mm scope as the steel strap would be too thin.

PM me if you'ld like a link to my auction.

Conetrol also make 26mm rings for their bases that are beautiful and expensive.

Love those Kollmorgens and early (really Kollmorgen) 26mm Redfields.

Hmm I was worried that the metal on the original Weaver 1" were going to be too thin to lap.

I was hoping for an inexpensive fix. I have a sporterized springfield that has the weaver quick detach 1" rings along with a older Leupold 3x9 scope. I wanted to take the Leupold and mount it on a .22 Marlin Bolt. I thought the Redfield Bearcub would go nicely on the springfield. It is a nice 4x scope with the large post and crosshair.

4barexpert I will send you note if I decide to go that route. Thanks and I appreciate the reply. Mike

Would it be possible to get an old set of Weaver mounts, mill or sand out the cradle part, say, 50 thou, and use the flexibility of the strap to conform over top? This would not be a precision answer, esp. if you installed the mounts and used wet-dry around a long dowel, but I bet a lot worse has been done in the bush. Maybe the straps could be put on towards the end to take a fraction of metal out above.

question - is using that old scope really worth all the effort and cost??

Probably not. I might be better off selling it. I suppose it is worth $50 or so. ????

You can use either Millett AngleLoc or Burris Z-rings, either of which fit Weaver bases. I'm not sure that either is available in 26mm, but either mount is all-steel and would easily lap out by .6 MM.

There are tons of all-aluminum rings on the market for Weaver bases. Those would lap larger in a heartbeat.

The problem with the original Weaver rings is not that the top is too thin to lap by .3 mm (it's not), but rather that the top is steel and the bottom is aluminum, making it virtually impossible to lap top and bottom equally.

Incidentally, the .3 mm you need to remove from top and bottom is only .0118", which ain't much.

Weaver did make their original steel top strap rings in 26mm, I had a set for my 6x Kahles scope. I wish I had kept them but unfortunately sold them with the scoped rifle at the time.

As others have posted there are plenty of all alloy rings that fit Weaver bases which can be turned out to 26mm. I don't know what others do when boring out rings but I have a set of shims made up to clamp between the ring halves during the boring out to 26mm. The rings will then clamp the scope tightly with a small gap left each side of the two halves.

Seems like a lot of work when I have over 100 sets of Leupold rings for sale. (As does Conetrol)

quote:

Originally posted by 4barexpert:
Seems like a lot of work when I have over 100 sets of Leupold rings for sale. (As does Conetrol)

The Leupolds are nice rings, are the ones you have for 26mm scope bodies, I didn't know they went to 26mm?

quote:

Originally posted by sambarman338:
Would it be possible to get an old set of Weaver mounts, mill or sand out the cradle part, say, 50 thou, and use the flexibility of the strap to conform over top? This would not be a precision answer, esp. if you installed the mounts and used wet-dry around a long dowel, but I bet a lot worse has been done in the bush. Maybe the straps could be put on towards the end to take a fraction of metal out above.

Sorry guys, I meant to say 0.5mm but was in a hurry.

quote:

Originally posted by sambarman338:

quote:

Originally posted by sambarman338:
Would it be possible to get an old set of Weaver mounts, mill or sand out the cradle part, say, 50 thou, and use the flexibility of the strap to conform over top? This would not be a precision answer, esp. if you installed the mounts and used wet-dry around a long dowel, but I bet a lot worse has been done in the bush. Maybe the straps could be put on towards the end to take a fraction of metal out above.

Sorry guys, I meant to say 0.5mm but was in a hurry.

I have had a look at the feasibility of opening out 1"(25.4mm)Weaver rings to 26mm before. Firstly it is not possible to clip the 1" top strap over a 26mm scope body without distorting the strap enough that the clamp screw holes do not line up again with the lower part of the ring.Secondly if you have a look there is not a lot of alloy involved in the join of the 'hook' part of the lower ring body where the top strap clips on. Reaming out the ring to suit 26mm is only going to cut back on this amount of alloy. 0.6mm is a reasonable amount to take out, I usually do it on a lathe when opening out rings as it would take a while with sandpaper and may not be so accurate.

This hook join area as it stands is very strong, I have never broken or seen a Weaver ring broken in this area but I would not like to push my luck.

Many years ago I had the job of opening out 1" rings to 26mm to mount 6x Kahles scopes on our Justice Department (prisons) rifles and that was when I made up a pair of shims as I mention in my earlier post to enable the ring to be lathe bored and ensure the rings clamped the scopes properly without bottoming out at the upper/lower interface. The rings supplied for this job were alloy ones to fit the 223 Sako rifles used by our Justice Dept. so was not a hard job to do the 50 odd required.
A bit of useless information I know but just to show I have opened up a few rings to that 26mm 'odd' size.

If you look around, you may be able to find an older set of Weaver 26m/m rings for sale. They did make them back in the 1950s and '60s, and maybe still do.

The first thing I would suggest is just going to your computer search engine and typng in "26 m/m Rings" and let it do a search for you.

If that doesn't work I'd probably start an advanced search by going to flea-bay and making a "wanted to buy" post, then doing the same at Auction Arms.

I did a short search for you and found these. They are not Weavers, but will fit Weaver bases. No doubt you can find others.

http://tpsproducts.com/index.php?cPath=14_19

I have a brand new set of the NOS Weaver 26m/m rings, but they are not for sale. One never knows what might turn up here in the way of scopes....