Alright fellow pistol hunters. It's been a while since I've done much posting here but I need a hand.

I've got a 1st gen X-frame scoped with a Burris 2-7x. The gun is super accurate with a handful of different handloads, and the scope seems to be a great fit. Now to the problem. I'm running out of elevation adjustment. I can't adjust the scope down enough. Now I know what you're all thinking. The scope is mounted too high above the bore and I need lower rings. I've run into this problem many times on my rifles with scopes with big objectives, so this is nothing new to me. Now, I had it mounted in medium Warne rings and just remounted the scope in a set of low rings, also Warne. The POI is exactly the same, and the scope bottoms out in exactly the same place. The whole thing is mounted on an aluminum Weigand base.

So what gives here guys? Normally, with rings that mounted top and bottom, I just shim the inside of the ring. Then again, I wouldn't think I'd need to do this with a 30 mm objective mounted in low rings. Do I need to give up on the Warnes and switch to something else and shim it? I trust the Warne rings on this gun, but if they wont do then they wont do. Or... what are the thoughts on shimming the base? I know that it'll put the scope base in a bind technically, but is it that serious?

Anyway, hopefully I've been clear enough. All opinions are welcome of course. Appreciate any suggestions.

You may want to consider having the bottom of the base cut down in the front, just do it on an angle as to not put the base in a bind. You are going to have to get the rear of the base high than the front though.

Center the scope adjustment and keep shimming under the base until you are at the right elevation.
Measure the shims and that is how much to mill from the base end on a taper.
It is NOT good to shoot a scope too near the end of the adjustment range.

Understood gents. That was the direction I figured I'd have to go. Luckily there's a small machine shop right up the street. I'll pull it off and go see if they can do it. Should be simple enought for someone who has the tools.

As for shooting the scope at the end of it's adjustment range, I agree. That was something I already knew about, but again I just haven't really had a chance to address this until now.

The only problem I think I might run into with machining the base is the way it mounts. It mounts into the recess for the factory adjustable rear, meaning it's not just a flat surface on the bottom. It has a raised oval area right down the center that aligns with the recess on the gun. Anyway, I'll pull it all off and work something out. Just wanted to make sure I was headed the right way and thinking about it the right way.

quote:

Now, I had it mounted in medium Warne rings and just remounted the scope in a set of low rings, also Warne. The POI is exactly the same

I don't understand how the POI could be exactly the same if you lowered the scope??? Could it be a scope issue?

FWIW, I have my scope mounted in medium Weigand rings on a Weigand base.


Hope you get it all sorted out.

The height won't affect it much at all. More depends on the scope itself or how bullets leave the barrel.
The load used is a larger factor and just like open sights, bullet weight and velocity can change elevation a lot. A very fast light bullet will hit much lower and you can run out of scope adjustment. Have to consider barrel time and recoil into it.
I had to make a base for my 45-70 BPCR to test loads and had to make it much lower at the front because of boolit drop. I was running out of adjustment at 200 meters.
Then putting a heavy scope on a revolver damps barrel rise because of added weight.
Since a revolver is for fairly close ranges, changing the height of the scope will not have any affect worth worrying about.
I shoot revolvers to 500 meters and there is just no way to adjust anything. I aim at a branch about 26 FEET over the steel with my Ultra Dot on the 45-70 BFR. My .475 with a heavier boolit drops a lot less. The .44 is horrible and drops 35" at 200 yards with a 75 yard setting using heavy cast boolits. Better with a lighter bullet.
So it really depends on what you are shooting, first.
It is like a fixed sight revolver where you need to work loads and boolits to get the POI to the sights. The trouble comes in when that load really sucks for accuracy.

You have to fix the scope base in order to take maximun advantage of the reticle ajustment screws, acording the bullet trayectory and distance intended to shot, not use shims on rings or you will bend the scope main tube.But first check if Your scope is right. S&W offer a fully steel base for the .500 Mag. G. Luck !!!. Guille

X-caliber, you said exactly what I was thinking when I took it to the range yesterday. Now, that being said, bringing the scope down closer to the bore may be more of a factor with rifles than it is with pistols. That's the only way I can explain it anyway. This is my only scoped pistol though, so my experience on that side of the house is limited.

I'm running 300 gr. Hornady FTX's right now, and I have a load for 350 gr. Sierra's. I can't run anything heavier at present because the POI just goes higher and higher as the bullet weights increased, an understood phenomena of course. I don't mind the 300's and 350's mind you. I'd be running those anyway, because they shoot great and will take care of anything I'd need to use them on. However... having the scope completely bottomed out is a problem.

I'll pull the base off tonight and see what I can do about putting a little forward slope on it. Admittedly I haven't taken the base off since I got the scope a couple of years back.

I should've also mentioned that I've shimmed more than a couple of scopes over the years without any problems. No, it's not ideal, but if done carefully can fix problems quick and easy... albeit quick and dirty. I've just never done it on a heavy recoiling handgun. That, and I'd need a different set of rings. I'd have to switch to Leupold's or something similar.

I'm about to drop an email to Burris and see what they've got to say. They've been good to me on warranty items and such. However, I wont take the "you need to run our signature rings with the inserts" answer on this one. I don't trust that setup to work on this rig.

quote:

X-caliber, you said exactly what I was thinking when I took it to the range yesterday. Now, that being said, bringing the scope down closer to the bore may be more of a factor with rifles than it is with pistols.

Kingfisher, I learned something today. The difference in height between "medium" warne rings and "low" warne rings is 0.125" Plugging a 500 S&W, 350 grain load at 1700 fps load into Hornady's ballistic calculator, the difference in POI by lowering the scope as much as 0.3" with a revolver zeroed at 50 yards was 0.1" at 25 yards and 0.1" at 75 yards. Negligible at best...

Best of luck to you, let us know what you find out.

lol, well that answers that part! :\ I should take those rings back, but I'll need the mediums on some other gun at some point so I'll just keep'em. Never can have too many sets of scope rings. Thanks for the info/confirmation though. Much appreciated.

I've got a mail in to Burris, we'll see what they have to say. I got busy last night with work around the house and the kiddo so I didn't have a time to pull the scope and base off to see what we can do there.

FWIW, I got an email back from Burris. As expected, their solution appears to be to go get a set of Burris Zee's with the offsets. I know they'll solve the issue, but I don't know if I trust the holding power of the offsets on this rig. Plus, I don't want to spend yet another $50 on mounts, when I've run through two sets of rings already.

Watch out! My 500 S&W forced & bend the recoil slug from the front Warne ring until the back ring´s recoil slug made full contact on base slot. G

We can't imagine the force on any scope from a revolver. I was looking at my .475 BFR today and seen that the Ultra Dot had turned from torque. It did not slide but it turned. I had to loosen it and turn it back straight.
I could not keep the base tight on this thing so I steel bedded the base to the gun and bedded the screws with Accra-Glass to make a one piece setup.
I can't believe the scope turned so much.

the best: Steel base and rings, sand paper pieces (600 grain)inside the rings with the abrasive face glue againts the rings not the scope tube, acraglas on base and thread locker on all screws that is Bob Milek (RIP) teach me on G&A. G

Thanks for the additional posts gentlemen. Sorry for the delay, I was out yesterday in accordance with the start of dove season down here.

The base appears to be holding up well, but I loctited (not a word?) the screws in place. The rings also held tight to the base previously. The only problem aside from the trajectory that I've had was that over the course of several hundred rounds the scope began to turn in the rings. Thousands of an inch at a time (or less) but enough that over time it ended up a few degrees canted. It was so gradual I hadn't even noticed, then I had a friend look at it "Tom, this thing is crooked." "Not it's not! Oh wait... hey... yeah it is. <sigh>"

No word back from Burris on my last reply.

try with a piece of sand paper inside each ring all diameter (600 grains paper) glue the erosive superface againts the ring, no to the scope tube in order do not ruin the scope finish, this will finish the movement. G. Luck. G

Very interesting thread. My conclusion.
S&W 500......fogedaboudit.....bigger is not always better....

Ask to the last Buffalo in Corrientes !!! as D99 said the .500 Magnum is "Satan whaker" ja,ja. G1

Guys, things got busy last fall and I didn't really get to do much with the 500 S&W plus I had a 1 year old running around so pretty much everything gun related got put on the back burner.

The update is that I'm still having the issue. I haven't done anything with the base. I did try some Weaver Quad Lock rings, simply to see if I could fix the issue by shimming and this would be a cheap set of rings to try it on.

The good news is that with or or two aluminum shims in the FRONT ring, not rear, the problem was solved. I'm used to shimming my rifle scopes the other direction so the first time out on the X-Frame, I did it wrong. With the front shimmed up, no problems. Unfortunately the scope still moves in those rings and with the shimming, I can't really run a 3 ring setup.

I was going to upgrade the rings to something beefy like a Burris xTreme or a set of Blackhawk! rings from Cabela's, since they're wider and offer more surface area, plus since they're cut horizontally instead of vertically I can still shim them. I'd probably glue them too. The issue with that solution is that the Weigand base has round bottom cross, not square like a normal picatinny setup. This means I can only use Weaver type rings with a rounded screw through the bottom unless I change out the base AND rings, AND shim... lol.

I've got an email into Weigand to see if he has any suggestions, but I thought I'd see if anyone had anything else they might like to throw out? I can switch to the Warne base, which has square slots, and allows me to put my rear sight back on but it also has fewer slots than the Weigand which might limit how I can position the scope.

Some people use 3M Liquid Electrical Insulation to hold the scope to the rings. Ross Seyfred mentioned this on some of his setups. Kind of hard to get apart and get the stuff off, but it will hold. No not as bad as epoxy to get off.

Heard back from Weigand. They changed the bases from a round bottom slot to a squared/picatinny style slot. Unfortunately they didn't offer to exchange it for me, which I get... but it would've been nice. I'm thinking about taking it over to a machine shop and having them machine the slots to the picatinny spec. Maybe if I have them do it in their free time they'll charge me less than the cost of another base lol. It's worth asking anyway.

Otherwise, it looks like my solution is to buy another Weigand base (or the Warne) and a set of Burris Xtreme rings and shim it inside the ring... along with some tape/glue etc. Which should work. I hope. lol

Be careful shimming in the rings because you can bend the tube. Those inserts will balance out but just a shim in one side is not good.
Base shims are the safest.