My long wait for a Mod 70 LH in .375 H&H finally ended today.

After mounting a new Leupold M8, in Leupold 2 piece bases, and Leupold rings, I have the following problem. To get the scope's horizontal cross hair to zero using a bore sighter the elevation screw on the scope is nearly all the way (within half a turn) out. I tried Redfield 2 piece bases and got the same results.

There is nothing wrong with the bore sighter. It is reading correctly on all of my other rifles.

Are special bases required for the Safari Express or was the rear receiver bridge on mine machined wrong?

Any suggestions?

Sounds like the same problem a lot of us have had. Winchester apparently has machined a bunch of actions incorrectly. There are several cures, but I took about .015" off the bottom of the front mount. You can also shim the mounts or have custom mounts made. Since I didn't like the idea of shimming the mounts on a gun with the recoil of my 416 Safari Express, I went with the lowering of the other mount.

Winchester MIGHT take care of it, but I haven't heard a lot of good things about their customer service lately.

Good luck, Joe.

I have dealt with a similar problem and the cure for me was Burris signature rings. With a little patience I was able to almost zero the scope by just finding the right combo of inserts. dempsey

Here's another recommendation for the Burris signature off set insert rings. These should be able to get you back near boresighted from mechanical zero, and they guarantee not to mar the finish on your scope...

Regards,

Kevin

Thank you for the suggestions. I did look at a set of Burris Signature rings. They have a good idea with the offset inserts but I have decided not to use them because they are aluminum and the screws that hold the ring halves together are rather small compared to other brands.

Edited 2/15

My mistake. The Burris rings are steel. They have a very highly polished finish and feel very light compared to other rings because they are hollow to allow for the inserts. Sorry about that.

So please help with plan B. How do you shim up a scope base? I have mounted many scopes, but have never had to add shims. What is the best procedure? And what material would be best for the shim? The rear base needs to go up .015 to .020.

[This message has been edited by Muletrain (edited 02-16-2002).]

When I e-mailed Leupold to ask them if they had heard of the problem and if Winchester had perhaps changed the height of the receiver, they offered to send me the shim and advised to use the figure of .001" per inch of adjustment needed.

In other words, if you need 8 more inches of adjustment up to zero, you would add a .008 inch shim under the rear mount. Of course, you would want some extra to allow for future adjustments.

I've seen shims of steel and understand that brass and aluminum works fine also. An old "real" auto parts store or machine shop can probably supply brass shim stock and you can also cut up a beer can and make an aluminum shim.

Brownells also sells a shim assortment so the problem isn't all that uncommon.

Good luck, Joe.