Frequently Asked Questions

Why 7075 and 17-4 for heavy recoil?  

We use the best possible material available for each application.   7075 has almost double the tensile and fatigue strength of 6061. 7075 is significantly harder than 6061, making the product more wear resistant.  6061 is sufficient for rimfire and low recoiling centerfire applications. The stress of heavy recoil and overtightened fasteners can lead to failures in 6061.  To avoid this we use premium, US manufactured billet 7075 T651 for all mounts that may be exposed to heavy recoil.

We use 17-4 H900 material for our action mounting screws.  We have found that off the shelf fasteners that are traditionally used for mounting rings and bases have insufficient strength for repeated use in high recoil situations.  We have had them fail during use from shear, tensile and fatigue failure over time.   17-4 H900 nearly doubles the tensile and yield strength compared to the equivalent alloy steel.  The numbers are even more compelling compared to standard 18-8 (304) stainless fasteners; 17-4 H900 is more than twice as strong as 18-8 in both tensile and yield strength and is three times as hard.  Lastly, 17-4 H900 is very corrosion resistant, so it won’t rust on your gun.  

Why a one piece ring:  There are numerous reasons we prefer one piece, direct attach mounts.  The primary one is that when machined on a precision 5 axis cnc  machine, we can  guarantee the location of all critical surfaces (action mounting pads, scope ring halves, mounting screws, and lug locations).  If all of the surfaces and features are machined in one setup (our machining relieves the internal material stresses and avoids taper caused by cutter deflection), we produce a scope ring that has all the features in exactly the right location.   There should never be a need to lap our rings or bed our base to your rifle (assuming your action is machined correctly). 

Since we precisely control the location of both the front and the back ring, we machine in an exact declination to the assembly.  In most cases we like to design in a 20 MOA drop to the bases.  This keeps the crosshairs more in the center of the scope for the distances we shoot and gives us plenty of travel on the elevation dial to stretch out to longer distances. 

The bridged, one piece, direct attach mount is more robust than individual rings.  When a rifle is fired, the chamber area sees pressures up to 60,000 pounds per square inch causing the entire assembly to rapidly expand and then contract.  Meanwhile the entire rifle is forced backwards by expelled gasses and recoil, while the rifle scope attempts to stay in one place due to inertia.  Then, every interface of the assembly needs to return to exactly the same position for the next shot.  The bridged, one piece, direct attach mount has the fewest number of interfaces possible, decreasing the potential points of failure.  Additionally, the bridged, one piece design forces the mounting screws to work in unison, rather than the individual scope rings acting independently, connected only by the scope tube to scope ring friction and the friction of the clamp to picatinny rail.

Some scopes with limited eye relief or very short tubes will not be ideally suited to our system.  

How to install

  • Clean all fasteners and threaded holes with a degreasing solvent (acetone, isopropyl alcohol, denatured alcohol).

  • Install the scope mount base to the action using the four stainless steel shoulder bolts.  Tighten all screws to finger tight, then torque the screws from back to front using a quality torque wrench to 35 Inch Pounds.

  • Place the scope in the scope ring bases and level the reticle with the rifle.

  • Install the scope ring tops, and install the #6 Socket Headed Torx Cap Screws finger tight.  Make sure that the ring screws are tightened evenly.  This can be confirmed by looking at the gap between the mount base and the scope ring tops.

  • Shoulder the rifle and move the scope to adjust to your desired eye relief. 

  • With the rifle leveled, adjust the bubble on the scope ring top by tightening the left or right screws on the ring.

  • Tighten the scope ring tops to the scope manufacturers’ recommended torque in a criss cross pattern.  [Note: there is no way the scope manufacturer can know how many screws the mount manufacturer is using or what the size and pitch of those screws could possibly be.]  We generally start with  20 in/lbs on robustly manufactured scopes and go up from there.  Scope tubes are fairly thin walled and can be crushed by ANY scope ring.  The least amount of torque that will prevent the scope from moving in field conditions is recommended.

  • Loc-Tite thread locking compound can be used if desired.