Ladies and Gentlemen:

Beefeater2 asked an excellent question about the Leupold one piece scope base. I have a further inquiry:

What is the heaviest recoiling cartridge in your experience where you have used this base on a bolt action rifle? Does it have an upper limit in recoil tolerance such as pulling the 6-48 screws out of the receiver or popping the rear scope ring out of the windage adjustment screws?

I am considering using it with Leupold rings on a 416 Ruger in a 1908 Brazilian Mauser. Presently, I am using a one piece Leupold base and rings on a 7x57 AI without any trouble.

If it is too recoil sensitive, I may try the Farrell Industries one piece base with Weaver or Warne rings as sold by Brownells.

I don't want to grind off the charger hump, and prefer a one piece base.

Sincerely,

Chris Bemis

from practical experience i tried 1 piece leupold bases on a .375 h&h on a m70... recoil jarred it loose... now i have 2 piece, loctited with red loctite... ... i don't intend for them to come loose again...

You may not like this, but I have had good experiences using JB Weld under scope mounts. Just clean off any excess before it sets up and it blends in rather discretely. Just use it to be the mount, not the screws. Lightly oil them and then if you choose you can locktite them after the epoxy has set up. I am more concerned with keeping a mount on, rather than how easy it will be to remove in the future.

quote:

Originally posted by Yale:
...What is the heaviest recoiling cartridge in your experience where you have used this base on a bolt action rifle? Does it have an upper limit in recoil tolerance such as pulling the 6-48 screws out of the receiver or popping the rear scope ring out of the windage adjustment screws? ...

Hey Chris, On a Base that has "Windage Adjustment Screws", meaning at the bottom of the Rear Ring, that is a Redfield Style Base Design. The problem is a bit complex because the weight of the rifle and the weight of the scope also contribute to the problem.

Worst Case Situation is a very light rifle with a very large Scope mounted on it. The light rifle does not abate the recoil as much as will a heavier rifle. And the heavy scope wants to remain exactly where it was in space at the time of the shot, so it pulls against the Rings harder than a lighter weenie scope.

What happens is that only the Front Ring is actually holding the Scope. And with enough recoil the Scope will slip through the Front Ring and pull the Rear Ring Forward through the Windage adjustment Screws.

You can "Pin" the Redfield Rings, but then they loose the Lateral Adjustment.
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I've found the Dual Dovetail and Weaver Style Bases to be so far superior to the Redfield Design that they are not in the same league. And if you do need Lateral Adjustment with either of these, then the appropriate Burris Signature Rings with a Set of Eccentric Inserts cures that problem. They also eliminate any possible "Tube Stress Damage" due to a slight misalignment of the Rings, they get a tenacious non-marring grip on the Tube and if you ever want to shoot at long distance, the Eccentric Inserts can also perform an excellent job as a "Tapered Base" without the head-ripping-off cost.

I would encourage ANYONE to stay away from Redfiend Design Bases and Rings, regardless of who makes them.
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Oh yes, I've had a 3.5-10x 50mm VX-III rip through the Lateral Adjustment Screws on a 7mm-08 M7 using 120gr Bullets. And that is certainly not a HEAVY Recoil rifle in any sense of the word.

Best of luck to you.

I'm going to take sides with Hot Core.

The trend today being scopes of high magnification with large or sometimes huge objective lenses translates to very heavy scopes. When mounted on relatively light rifles, they will slip through the front ring and rip through the windage screws. I have had several brought in to my shop in this condition.

If their budget was low and the scope/rifle weight ratio was not too radical I would pin the rear ring to the base. Again as Hot Core mentioned the best solution is dual lug design.

So if the rifle is pretty light and the scope is very heavy I would not use the adjustable windage design on anything with 30-06 recoil or above.

Thank you for all of your replies and cogent advice.

I plan on using my stash of Bausch and Lomb scopes, 1.5-6x Elite 4000 to 2.5-10x Elite 4200's. These all have 38-42 mm bells if I remember correctly, and weigh around a pound give or take.

I'll try the Farrel Industries one piece base with some sort of Burris/Weaver/Warne set of rings. I've never used the Burris Signature rings, but will give them a try, too.

Sincerely,

Chris Bemis

You'll like the Burris rings - real quality, no gizmos. Read the directions and keep the rings togeter in the correct orientation, and don't mix up the screws, and I'll bet you'll be satisfied. It might not really make a bit of difference if you don't follow the instructions but it makes sense and I've had good luck with their rings. Their design is very solid, not glitzy, and very unobtrusive. Good luck. -WSJ