Ring lapping?

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WhiteKnight

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Guys I'm considering buying Midway's ring lapping kit.

highresimage







http://www.midwayusa.com/rewriteaproduct/227261








However, would this kit be worth the money? I have a Leupold scope sitting in Leupold rings, and I don't want undue stress on the scope tube.

Should I buy this kit? Or would I be better off by just buying Burris Signature rings with the plastic inserts?
 
Proper scope mounting involves lapping the rings.

If you use 2-piece bases and properly lap the rings, the scope will actually serve to stiffen the rifle action. Conversely, a one piece base or unlapped rings will put undue tension on the action.

Lapping the rings isn't for keeping scratches off your precious scope, it's for structural integrity. The absence of scratches is a nice byproduct.
 
To buy or not to buy?

How many scopes you planning on mounting?
If this is the only scope you're ever going to put on a rifle, have a gunsmith do it.

If you have 'several' more rifles and scopes in your future, the kit will probably be a good investment.

Past question, lapping the rings is a good and proper thing to do.
 
Depending on your receiver, you may have quite a bit of lapping to do.

You could also go this route:

sigringsgroup.gif

Signature Rings®
Signature rings are for the shooter who demands the best performance from his equipment and is a practical thinker. The benefits of this revolutionary design are many. Consistent accuracy. Tremendous gripping power. Scratch-free and stress-free mounting. Scope value preservation. By putting a synthetic pivoting insert within a steel outer ring, your scope-to-ring surface area contact becomes virtually 100%.
Click to expand...


posiinserts.gif

Signature Pos-Align® Offset Insert Kit
Signature Rings also accept Pos-Align Offset Inserts so you can virtually sight-in your gun without moving the scope adjustments. Lens systems perform at their optimum when all lenses are optically centered. By keeping the internal optics centered, you'll see through the scope all of the clarity, sharpness, and brightness that the optics designers intended for you to see. The offset inserts also correct for any mis-alignment caused by receiver holes drilled off center, or the bases or rings being slightly off perfect center. And for you 1000 yard and other long range shooters, the need for expensive tapered bases or shimming becomes a hassle and expense of the past.
Click to expand...

Manufacturer's site: http://burrisoptics.com/rings.html

Purchase here... http://www.riflescopes.com/departments/331/mounts/burris/burris_signature_rings.htm



Alternatively, if you want to take TechBrute's advice to the next level, you could get a one-piece base and bed it, then follow up with lapping or a self-adjusting set like the Burris rings.
 
I have lapped many of my scope ring sets and with good results. It is my understanding that lapping the rings eliminates any misalignment between the rings. With misaligned rings the aluminum scope tube will bend to "match the misalignment of the scope rings" as stated in the literature. Seen this many times on used scopes with deep ring grooves. I would worry more about the stresses imposed on the thin aluminum scope tube by not lapping than stress on a thick solid steel receiver. Although I now see how lapping has an additional benefit that I was not aware of before.

I removed my Leupold scope from a set of lapped rings last week and you would be hard pressed to tell that it was ever mounted.
 
I use Burris Signature Zee rings.

I have a 1" stainless bar about a foot long that I use when mounting the ring bottoms. I tighten them down while keeping pressure on the stainless bar. Then place the scope into the ring bottoms and add the tops, Tighten and your done. I haven't had a ring mark in many, many scope changes.

The best part of this process is it takes very little adjustment to bring a new scope to zero. Lapping used to be the cats azz until new rings came out and before, everytime I changed the scope to a different rifle I needed to relap.
 
I lapped a set of rings today. It's quick and easy, and the kit was cheap. Same kit you showed above. I'd go for the kit. If you do two scopes, you've recouped your cost, and you know it was done right.

I remember seeing in a gun magazine a while back, a long steel rod that was being reviewed (advertised) as an alignment tool to help align rings in relation to the full barrel length. Anybody know who sells it? Anyone use one?

Thanks.
 
"If you use 2-piece bases and properly lap the rings, the scope will actually serve to stiffen the rifle action."

Do what? I would love to see your data on this. You're saying that a glass disk-filled aluminum tube will add to the stiffness of a steel action? Methinks not. I like two-piece bases, and have had good luck with them. Most of them are Weaver-style, either Weavers or Kelbly/Davidsons, but to think that these two pieces of aluminum joined together only by a tube of aluminum could stiffen an action is silly, IMO. If you want to stiffen an action, either weld on a solid bottom or sleeve it.

I guess a one-piece base with REALLY misaligned/mismatched holes COULD stress the action, but you'd have to bend it to install it, and who would do that?

The rings & bases should act as a platform for scope mounting, nothing more. The Burris insert system is a convenient way of addressing several problems associated with scope mounting without lapping rings or redrilling base holes in the action. One of these would be less stress on the scope tube.

If you think the scope is so strong as to stiffen an action, use one to turn in a really tight dovetail ring into a base. If it's strong enough to stiffen an action, it shouldn't buckle, right?

I think I'll stick with the notion that the scope/base combo is for looking through and not for strength.

Rich (grumpy with only one cup of coffee) in VA
 
The Burris rings are all you need. Why spend the money and time on a halfway solution? You can solve the misalignment problem AND the ring mark problem AND the mechanical zero problem all in one nifty package for a little more than standard rings. I'm sold.
 
Rich, I'm not going to spend the time to explain basic principles of engineering, including the strength of the cylinder shape, leverage, torque, along with machining tolerence issues. :)

Why spend the money and time on a halfway solution?
Click to expand...
Badger, can you explain what you mean by halfway solution? Are you implying that by properly aligning and lapping the rings that you are only halfway finished?:confused:

The Burris rings are great solutions for hunting and plinking rifles, where extreme accuracy is not needed. However, if you are benchresting or doing any other sort of precision shooting, or have a rifle where durability is an issue, you'll want to get a real set of rings, lap them, and then go shooting.

Working in a precision rifle shop, I've seen too many scopes knocked off to trust anything but MarkIV, NF, or Badger rings if my rifle was going to see any real use. US Optic rings are strng enough, but they have a design defect which creates unsymmetrical pressure along the tube. I'm sure there are others out there that I've not run across, but for now I'll stick to those 3.
 
Rich, I'm not going to spend the time to explain basic principles of engineering, including the strength of the cylinder shape, leverage, torque, along with machining tolerence issues.

That figures.

However, if you are benchresting or doing any other sort of precision shooting, or have a rifle where durability is an issue, you'll want to get a real set of rings, lap them, and then go shooting.

So I guess Arnold's insert rings are junk, eh?

Rich (that dog don't hunt) in VA
 
Badger, can you explain what you mean by halfway solution? Are you implying that by properly aligning and lapping the rings that you are only halfway finished?
Click to expand...
Yes, that's what I'm saying. Properly aligning and lapping the rings is fine, but the Burris rings do that automatically. They also clamp more evenly and stronger and allow you to adjust for windage and elevation by changing inserts. So you get the advantages of lapping and some added benefits.

Lapping is a fine, I just don't see how it's any better a solution. Most of my guns just have Redfield or Weaver style rings and, frankly, they all hold zero just fine. On my working guns, I have Double Dovetail mounts... rock solid and I didn't have to lap the rings. If I were shooting benchrest, I'd go Burris Signature all the way. I'd go so far as to epoxy the bases to the rifle and the ring bottoms to the bases. Keep on lapping, it works almost as well.
 
The ring lapping method or the Burris Signature inserts are both capable of producing extreme high levels of precision accuracy. I have lapped and I have used Signature rings. Even the Jewell rings in the attachment use an insert sysytem.

Ring lapping and rings with inserts - both work and work very well.
 

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It's interesting to note that if you call Leupold and ask their opinion on ring lapping they'll tell you to not bother. They said, after extensive research, they can't find it does a damned thing.

That said, I chose to buy the lapping bar anyway (from Sinclair). Turned out to be a waste of money as the bar told the tale... my rings were already alligned.. in other words, as I began lapping all the parkerized finish inside the rings wore off perfectly evenly.

(If you're wondering these were Nightforce rings, on NF two piece bases, on a rem 700.)

Whether you get the bar or not, I don't think you need those two pointy cylinders that come in the kit. You can tell when you are getting them alligned by how much and how evenly the finish is wearing off the inside of the rings as you lap.
 
Guys, not to rain on the parade here...

1. We have in the past 6 years, mounted probably 3000 scopes..
2. The vast majoirty of these mounting systems were Leupold.
3. Ill bet at least 50 % of the rilfes we mounted scopes on were abused as much as a grunts rifle in a war..
4. We have maybe, maybe, in 6 years, lapped two dozen rings, a lot of the times on Rugers becasue of misalignments...
5. Lapping is a waste of time IMHO...
6. We dont get many reports of problems with our scope mountings..

I will concede that in 1000 yard cometitions, you may want to lap...conversley, when we redid the M24s for the 501st Airborne before deployment to Afghanistan, we noted that there rings werent lapped..

I did not lap on my Stery SSG or my Sakop...each shoots sub MOA

WildhaveatitnowAlaska
 
I did not lap on my Stery SSG or my Sakop...each shoots sub MOA
Click to expand...

The way I understand it, lapping scope rings isn't necessarily a process intended to increase accuracy, but rather to relieve stress on the scope tube produced by uneven mounting/slight manufacturing imperfections in the rings themselves.
 
Lapping

Get the rings as perfectly aligned as posiible, then glass bed the scope into the rings. Make sure you double coat the scope with release agent so it doesn't "stick".
It doesn't get any better than that; a perfect fit with no scope stresses.
Don
 
When you have to lap????

I have a somewhat different situation. On my Redfields and Leopolds the tubes are .095" diameter.
I have aquired an old Kollmorgen 2 3/4X that has a tube diameter of 1.025. It was mounted on a 10/22 and I noticed that there was a large gap beween the tube and rings I laid it in various 1" rings and saw the tube would not bottom. The metric conversion is 25.95mm.
Im thinking about lapping open a set of Burris rings that I have new in the cupboard.
When I open up the rings should I lap to 1.0225" I.D with the ring half faces in contact or should I add like a .005" spacer when the ring ID measures 1.0225" ?
Is anyone aware of rings for this particular scope.
Kollmorgan is an optics company who specialty is Submarine parascopes and havent made rifle scopes for quite some time from my research. Its a great scope with a single post and horizontal crosshare, crystal clear. The company is NH if I remember (I'd have to look again).
I can turn my own lapping bar and believe it should be the same diameter as the tube (1.0225) does that sound right?
thanks
Tom
 
"The way I understand it, lapping scope rings isn't necessarily a process intended to increase accuracy, but rather to relieve stress on the scope tube produced by uneven mounting/slight manufacturing imperfections in the rings themselves."

That is the main reason I like lapped rings. Keeping the scope free of scratches is a side benny.

I have seen the power adjustment ring on some scopes become hard to turn if the scope was bent due to ring alignment.

Darkside
 
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