Lapping Scope Rings

Muzzle breaks lessen the recoil, and I've never lapped rings, and never had them slip....So take that!

If your working with a flat, 1 piece base, that has not been torqued down to an off plane reciever, the rings should not need lapping. 2 piece bases are a little harder to check, but if the scope doesn't rise out of the rear ring saddle when you lightly tighten the front, or vise-versa, you should be good. I prefer to bed my 1 piece bases, for stress free scope mounting.

I have found that most inexpensive rings are greatly improved with just a few minutes of time spent lapping them. The keyword is "inexpensive"..
Higher priced rings, especially steel, don't seem to need lapping. One of the most appreciated and inexpensive (tool) purchases I've made was a ring-lapper, it will keep your scope tube in better shape too

Use better rings. Rub a little red threadlock on the rings inside to kinda "bed" it to the scope body and it won't go anywhere. Even if a ring bolt or two falls out LOLz.

At least that's what I've been told, and I have seen it work well when someones ring bolts backed out. Lost the bolts, not the ring top.

I got a buddy who uses threadlocker on the rings where contact is made with the scope.
Works for him but I'm always movin' scopes around. Probably too much ..LOL

Or you can use Burris Signature Zee rings which eliminate the rings for lapping. In 90% of the cases out there, these rings are the way to go imo.

unless you are using a Tasco or Bushnell scope.

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I have used Leupolds, Weavers, Bushnells....All excellent scopes.... you saying that my Bushnell will work good with bad rings, but my more expensive Leupold needs better rings?

doesn't your tongue hurt from so much lapping?

And by the way I have been designing' making' and installing muzzlebreaks for over 15 years and know how they work. Nuff said?

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nuff said.

(but you means muzzle brakes, right?)

Just funnin with ya man......Ease up

lol, ya, we're just yanking your chain.

i should actually look into it because i use the cheapest rings known to man.

What brg2014 said about lapping rings.

i also install a lot of scopes, mounts and rings. This summer a man bought his old Remington custom shop model 700 by when he could,'t get the scope to zero. A local gun butcher installed a Kahles scope along with new Leupold rings and mounts. The guy bent the scope when he didn't lap the rings.

Many of the cheap made in China rings are really bad. i won't install them because it takes too long to lap them.

^^^About the butcher^^^ If he would have watched the scope as he started lightly tightening the rings, he would have seen the scope rise up, or torque out of plane. Should have sent up a red warning flag! Same goes with torquing down bases, ya gotta check stuff as you go, and not assume anything is straight. Not saying you shouldnt lap rings if thats what you like to do, but I've never needed to myself, as the problem usually stems from a bent base, warped reciever-action, things you check before taking it out on the rings.

I lap my rings. Is it always 100% necessary? I think it depends on what kind of accuracy you desire out of the rifle. For most hunting purposes its probably not a big deal. For target shooting I would definitely consider it. Almost no receiver, rings and bases (yes even the most expensive, well made brands) are completely aligned. Asking a receiver made by one company to match up with rings and bases from another and make 100% contact with a scope possibly made by a third company is asking a lot. A few months ago I mounted a Leupold Mk 4 scope using Mk4 4 rings and bases and yes the inside of the rings were not 100% true. Did this mean my rifle would shoot terribly? No. Would I feel confident that it would hold zero for 100's of rounds? Probably not.

I have never lapped them and I also have never had any issue with scope slippage, even with the scope on a .454 Casull and on a .460 Weatherby Magnum!

I use Leupold scopes and Leupold Rings and bases and everything is Loctited into place.

Nothing moves anywhere unless I accidentally drive over my rifle with my truck (which I HAVE YET TO DO)!

I used the wheeler engineering lapping kit and I really do think that most people would be surprised by what it reveals. It can't hurt to throw the alignment bars in the rings, torque everything to spec and see what you get. If its 100% true then you don't need to lap anything. I'm be willing to bet that most would be off though. It's not uncommon to see 1/1000th of an inch variance in the holes of many receivers and depending on how picky you are this can make a difference. My Leupold rings and bases weren't terribly misaligned but they weren't perfect by any means. I'm certain that the rifle would have remained accurate enough if all I wanted was to take game at 200-300 yards. I bought this setup for target shooting purposes however and I don't want my zero to shift even the smallest amount over time so that's why I lapped mine.

First of all, if the rings and bases are properely tightened to spec, there is no way they will slip or change position. I shoot high recoil rilfes and handguns with optics and have not had one that changed position or slipped. I did have one scope that slipped but it wasn't because of the rings needing lapping, but because I needed better rings. That problem was on a Marlin model 60, 22 ca. rifle. You get what you pay for.
And muzzle breaks reduce recoil which is going to minimize any stress to the optics mounting system.
Lapping rings is something that shouldn't be necessary under normal circumstances. I did need to lightly lap a set of rings recently, but not because of a manufacturer flaw. I dropped them when I took them out of the packaging and dinged the edge enough to need lapping to prevent damaging the the VX-III Leupold tube.

taliv,

I don't get quite what you're saying with,

the lapping process is not a precise one, since you're just moving your hand back and forth with varying pressure.

so the question is... can you make the rings better with your hand?

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I use a 34mm lapping bar that we made on a CNC lathe. It's about a foot long. Once my base/rings are on the rifle, I run the lapping bar back and forth with some compound. I only lap the bottom ring halves. The way it's set up, there's nothing I can misalign with my hands-- the bar is bottomed out and it increases the contact between the ring bottoms and the scope tube. In bad cases, it might fix axis misalignment of the two rings. On my .338 using the AI unified base, the scope would move a little bit until I lapped the bottom (and cranked down the cap screws tighter than spec).