Lesson Learnt - Cheap Rings

Took my newly acquired tikka .308 to the range to sight in today, couldnt find any optilocks in the height i needed so resorted to a cheap set of chinese? i assume rings (from a retail shop). being its not a big magnum thought "should be ok" famous last words. guy at the shop offered to install and boresight so i said what the hell go for it. checked everything was tight when i got home and all seemed well.

Straight off the bat i made an elevation and windage change (quite substantial) to little effect and thought that seems odd. checked everything was tight and soldiered on. got a 1.5 moa ish group of 3 shots pretty well centre. thought to myself this is average. came back to it 15 mins later without touching anything and punched out another 1.5 moa group but it had shifted roughly 2.5 inches left and 2 inches low.

Back home for closer inspection and funnily enough the rings appear to be the issue. everything was tight but clearly the scope has been moving around and some interesting wear patterns on the rings (hard wear on one edge and scope not even contacting ring on the other.) would require a huge amount of "lapping" to even come close to fitting nicely. pretty poor quality.

Makes me wonder how many other people are out there shooting with similar issues considering this is their "go to" ring for majority of their rifle/scope combos they sell. was another bloke at the range this morning with a similar issue, albeit some installer error also.

Anyway, now looking for a solution :D its a 50mm objective scope, 1 inch tube. have some "lo" optilocks here that dont quite work, need a touch more height. had a bit of a look around and couldnt find anyone with stock of the medium height optilocks to suit 1 inch. Anyone have a set of these kicking around? Otherwise potentially looking at a set of talleys. Would like to avoid putting a pic rail on

Cheers
Attachment 214509Attachment 214510

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Originally Posted by 6.5 CRD

Took my newly acquired tikka .308 to the range to sight in today, couldnt find any optilocks in the height i needed so resorted to a cheap set of chinese? i assume rings (from a retail shop). being its not a big magnum thought "should be ok" famous last words. guy at the shop offered to install and boresight so i said what the hell go for it. checked everything was tight when i got home and all seemed well.

Straight off the bat i made an elevation and windage change (quite substantial) to little effect and thought that seems odd. checked everything was tight and soldiered on. got a 1.5 moa ish group of 3 shots pretty well centre. thought to myself this is average. came back to it 15 mins later without touching anything and punched out another 1.5 moa group but it had shifted roughly 2.5 inches left and 2 inches low.

Back home for closer inspection and funnily enough the rings appear to be the issue. everything was tight but clearly the scope has been moving around and some interesting wear patterns on the rings (hard wear on one edge and scope not even contacting ring on the other.) would require a huge amount of "lapping" to even come close to fitting nicely. pretty poor quality.

Makes me wonder how many other people are out there shooting with similar issues considering this is their "go to" ring for majority of their rifle/scope combos they sell. was another bloke at the range this morning with a similar issue, albeit some installer error also.

Anyway, now looking for a solution :D its a 50mm objective scope, 1 inch tube. have some "lo" optilocks here that dont quite work, need a touch more height. had a bit of a look around and couldnt find anyone with stock of the medium height optilocks to suit 1 inch. Anyone have a set of these kicking around? Otherwise potentially looking at a set of talleys. Would like to avoid putting a pic rail on

Cheers
Attachment 214509Attachment 214510

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Find yourself a set of medium height Talley rings. medium will give enough clearance for the 50mm objective. Ring and base all one piece, very simple design and they work. About $115 for a set so also pretty economical.

Go and get a set of Nightforce rings. Thats what I use. Never ever had an issue.

Yep they are expensive. But buy once, cry ........never in this instance.

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Originally Posted by zeropak

Find yourself a set of medium height Talley rings. medium will give enough clearance for the 50mm objective. Ring and base all one piece, very simple design and they work. About $115 for a set so also pretty economical.

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Thats probably the road ill go down, and my local H&F has them on the shelf so even better :thumbsup:

DNZ Game reaper also seem good for around $120

Brother in law mounted a scope in Tasco 'World Class' rings that were so far out of 'true' the scope wouldn't adjust. Someone told me they'd bent the scope, and whether that was true or not - I don't know.. I got those rings and mounted them on a BRNO 600 reciever with integral grooves, then polished up a 1" bar, that spanned the two rings, put some valve grinding paste on it and lapped those rings with shim spacers between the halves until they were true to each other. By the time it was done they were well oversize - sufficiently so it took a couple of wraps of film negative to take up the windage.

Never seen rings so badly made.

On my lever that kicks a bit i'm running the burris rings with the Pos-Align plastic inserts.
The inserts are a bit like a spherical bearing between the mount and the scope tube.
had never seen them before. even came with an uneven offset set of inserts that allow you to set the scope tube at an angle.
z

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Originally Posted by tac a1

Go and get a set of Nightforce rings. Thats what I use. Never ever had an issue.

Yep they are expensive. But buy once, cry ........never in this instance.

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I love NF rings but they are a complete rip off.
I have 4 sets now and all were purchased used.

Correct solution is Sphur Hunting Direct Tikka mount:
Attachment 214566Attachment 214567
Anything else is a compromise (waste of money)

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Originally Posted by caberslash

Correct solution is Sphur Hunting Direct Tikka mount:
Attachment 214566Attachment 214567
Anything else is a compromise (waste of money)

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Awesome mount that but beware on magnum cartridges in the T3, the 7PRC wouldn't feed through the remaining ejection port :XD:

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Originally Posted by 6.5 CRD

Thats probably the road ill go down, and my local H&F has them on the shelf so even better [emoji106]

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Talley low rings will work with a 50mm

Sent from my CPH2145 using Tapatalk

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 6.5 CRD

Took my newly acquired tikka .308 to the range to sight in today, couldnt find any optilocks in the height i needed so resorted to a cheap set of chinese? i assume rings (from a retail shop). being its not a big magnum thought "should be ok" famous last words. guy at the shop offered to install and boresight so i said what the hell go for it. checked everything was tight when i got home and all seemed well.

Straight off the bat i made an elevation and windage change (quite substantial) to little effect and thought that seems odd. checked everything was tight and soldiered on. got a 1.5 moa ish group of 3 shots pretty well centre. thought to myself this is average. came back to it 15 mins later without touching anything and punched out another 1.5 moa group but it had shifted roughly 2.5 inches left and 2 inches low.

Back home for closer inspection and funnily enough the rings appear to be the issue. everything was tight but clearly the scope has been moving around and some interesting wear patterns on the rings (hard wear on one edge and scope not even contacting ring on the other.) would require a huge amount of "lapping" to even come close to fitting nicely. pretty poor quality.

Makes me wonder how many other people are out there shooting with similar issues considering this is their "go to" ring for majority of their rifle/scope combos they sell. was another bloke at the range this morning with a similar issue, albeit some installer error also.

Anyway, now looking for a solution :D its a 50mm objective scope, 1 inch tube. have some "lo" optilocks here that dont quite work, need a touch more height. had a bit of a look around and couldnt find anyone with stock of the medium height optilocks to suit 1 inch. Anyone have a set of these kicking around? Otherwise potentially looking at a set of talleys. Would like to avoid putting a pic rail on

Cheers
Attachment 214509Attachment 214510

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What brand are those sold as mate? They look like a copy of the Leupold PRW.

For cheap rings the only ones that i have never had issues with are the Nikko Sterling steel rings. But apart from that id stay away from cheap rings

My go to for allround use are the Burris Signature rings with the inserts, pain to get set up but they are nice and light and they work well once sorted out. Next for guns that take a beating i go to the weaver 4 or 6 hole tactical, then for repatable QD i use Warne steel QD rings

In saying that i do have a set of Leupold PRW steel rings and they are pretty good but quite heavy for the size

And for cheap rings i use nikko sterling steel rings

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Originally Posted by NewbieZAR

What brand are those sold as mate? They look like a copy of the Leupold PRW.

For cheap rings the only ones that i have never had issues with are the Nikko Sterling steel rings. But apart from that id stay away from cheap rings

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"Ranger" is the brand

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Originally Posted by Kiwi Greg

Awesome mount that but beware on magnum cartridges in the T3, the 7PRC wouldn't feed through the remaining ejection port :XD:

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Does not interfere with the ejection port on a T3x although on a T3 some milling of the receiver may be necessary.

Don't think the T3/T3x is a good platform for those cartridges, the factory plastic mags wear on the feed lips and Long Action AICS conversions are a pain.

If you are going to shoot anything less than the 180 grain bullets (which won't feed properly in a T3, loaded to SAAMI spec), I don't see how 7PRC is better than a SAUM/WSM or even bog standard Rem Mag.

Tikka T3's are probably best with the 30-06 (+280,280AI,270) or WSM/SAUM family.

Always amazes me that blokes will spend 2-3k on a rifle, 1-2k on a scope and then mate the two with crappy rings.
Optilocks on my T3s - yes they’re a bit heavy, but they never move and they don’t damage scope tubes.
BTW - bloke in my local shop mounted a scope for me and was clearly clueless. He managed to strip the thread on one of the screws. Got him to give me a new set and did it myself. Just because someone works in a gun shop doesn’t mean they are competent.

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Originally Posted by Hurricane

Always amazes me that blokes will spend 2-3k on a rifle, 1-2k on a scope and then mate the two with crappy rings.
Optilocks on my T3s - yes they’re a bit heavy, but they never move and they don’t damage scope tubes.
BTW - bloke in my local shop mounted a scope for me and was clearly clueless. He managed to strip the thread on one of the screws. Got him to give me a new set and did it myself. Just because someone works in a gun shop doesn’t mean they are competent.

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It's so frustrating. I'm at GC and the amount of people that don't buy good rings is way more than you think. Then they inevitably come back upset and with an issue. It's usually no hassle to sort them but almost all the time we've tried to tell them they should spend a bit more coin on good rings in the first place.

By the way. If the incident you mentioned there was at a GC, feel free to PM me what store and who it was if you know and I'll flick a message to the store manager there and let them know whoever it was needs some more training.

Shooters have way too much trust in the extruded chink alloy rings than they should, buy once cry once its one of the most importat components on a relative scoped rifle. spuhr, NF, tier one, seekins, A419, vortex precision, MDT and youe get what you pay for.. heaps of options if you used a pic rail 😅

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Originally Posted by Hurricane

Always amazes me that blokes will spend 2-3k on a rifle, 1-2k on a scope and then mate the two with crappy rings.
Optilocks on my T3s - yes they’re a bit heavy, but they never move and they don’t damage scope tubes.
BTW - bloke in my local shop mounted a scope for me and was clearly clueless. He managed to strip the thread on one of the screws. Got him to give me a new set and did it myself. Just because someone works in a gun shop doesn’t mean they are competent.

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For some context, ive owned 6 different tikkas and 2 currently + the .308 i just purchased. all of them have/had optilocks fitted up myself & ive never had an issue. this was the first time i purchased rings for one other than optilocks, simply because i couldnt find optilocks or anything else decent & wanted to get to the range booking i had the next day & get it sighted for an upcoming hunt. in hindsight i should have just been patient & it wouldnt have been a waste of ammo, but too eager to get the new rifle out for a play. retailer refunded the rings this morning no drama and i have some talleys fitted up now

Did they refund your ammo, petrol to the range and a few hours of your life ?

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Originally Posted by Bagheera

Did they refund your ammo, petrol to the range and a few hours of your life ?

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He's already said he settled for the cheap rings cause he couldn't get optiloks, so I think the retailer has done the right thing in refunding the rings. Can't really hold them (the retailer) responsible for him deciding to buy the cheap junk rings when they had other options there just not the optiloks he wanted. :ORLY:
Anyway alls well that ends well hopefully @6.5 CRD let us know how you get on with the Talleys :thumbsup:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hurricane

Always amazes me that blokes will spend 2-3k on a rifle, 1-2k on a scope and then mate the two with crappy rings.
Optilocks on my T3s - yes they’re a bit heavy, but they never move and they don’t damage scope tubes.
BTW - bloke in my local shop mounted a scope for me and was clearly clueless. He managed to strip the thread on one of the screws. Got him to give me a new set and did it myself. Just because someone works in a gun shop doesn’t mean they are competent.

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Optilocks are overpriced, junk rings.

OK on a Sako but pointless on a T3.

Honestly Sportsmatch are better and cheaper, but still a crap choice.

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Originally Posted by Coop

It's so frustrating. I'm at GC and the amount of people that don't buy good rings is way more than you think. Then they inevitably come back upset and with an issue. It's usually no hassle to sort them but almost all the time we've tried to tell them they should spend a bit more coin on good rings in the first place.

By the way. If the incident you mentioned there was at a GC, feel free to PM me what store and who it was if you know and I'll flick a message to the store manager there and let them know whoever it was needs some more training.

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Stop selling shitty rings, problem solved?

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Originally Posted by BradNZL

Shooters have way too much trust in the extruded chink alloy rings than they should, buy once cry once its one of the most importat components on a relative scoped rifle. spuhr, NF, tier one, seekins, A419, vortex precision, MDT and youe get what you pay for.. heaps of options if you used a pic rail ��

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Would not touch 'Tier One' rings with a bargepole.

'Made in the UK' (but with crappy chinese materials) basically Leupold Mk4 knock-offs.

Only use Spuhr but would trust American Rifle Company rings as well.

That's about it.

I have tier one rings and rate them much higher quality and finish than the leoupold mk4s (which ive had on a previous rifle) also made of 7075 t6 alloy (same material as spuhr mounts)

But why are shops selling shit rings when they know they are shit. There is some good economical rings that arnt absolutely garbage

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Originally Posted by caberslash

Stop selling shitty rings, problem solved?

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Some people are just plain tight and don't want to spend a cent, supply and demand.

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Originally Posted by Nugget connaisseur

But why are shops selling shit rings when they know they are shit. There is some good economical rings that arnt absolutely garbage

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There are but as long as people want something for nothing or next to shitty rings will be a thing.

Time to move on chaps, you can't blame a retailer for selling the customer what they want no matter who the retailer is, having shopped at plenty of retail stores including Guncity I can tell you I'd be very supprised if they didn't try and upsell.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 6.5 CRD

Took my newly acquired tikka .308 to the range to sight in today, couldnt find any optilocks in the height i needed so resorted to a cheap set of chinese? i assume rings (from a retail shop). being its not a big magnum thought "should be ok" famous last words. guy at the shop offered to install and boresight so i said what the hell go for it. checked everything was tight when i got home and all seemed well.

Straight off the bat i made an elevation and windage change (quite substantial) to little effect and thought that seems odd. checked everything was tight and soldiered on. got a 1.5 moa ish group of 3 shots pretty well centre. thought to myself this is average. came back to it 15 mins later without touching anything and punched out another 1.5 moa group but it had shifted roughly 2.5 inches left and 2 inches low.

Back home for closer inspection and funnily enough the rings appear to be the issue. everything was tight but clearly the scope has been moving around and some interesting wear patterns on the rings (hard wear on one edge and scope not even contacting ring on the other.) would require a huge amount of "lapping" to even come close to fitting nicely. pretty poor quality.

Makes me wonder how many other people are out there shooting with similar issues considering this is their "go to" ring for majority of their rifle/scope combos they sell. was another bloke at the range this morning with a similar issue, albeit some installer error also.

Anyway, now looking for a solution :D its a 50mm objective scope, 1 inch tube. have some "lo" optilocks here that dont quite work, need a touch more height. had a bit of a look around and couldnt find anyone with stock of the medium height optilocks to suit 1 inch. Anyone have a set of these kicking around? Otherwise potentially looking at a set of talleys. Would like to avoid putting a pic rail on

Cheers
Attachment 214509Attachment 214510

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Informative post. Thank you for taking the time to post it, particularly with photos.

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Originally Posted by dannyb

Some people are just plain tight and don't want to spend a cent, supply and demand.



There are but as long as people want something for nothing or next to shitty rings will be a thing.

Time to move on chaps, you can't blame a retailer for selling the customer what they want no matter who the retailer is, having shopped at plenty of retail stores including Guncity I can tell you I'd be very supprised if they didn't try and upsell.

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100%. This whole situation is completely my fault, was in no way a dig at the retailer (hence me not mentioning who it was, even though plenty will put 2 & 2 together.) I was the one that wanted to get something sorted on the day, didnt want to put a pic rail on and use a different style ring, couldnt get exactly what i wanted so i chose to go with the cheapo rings. This whole post was more just me showing what the end result was, and interested to see how many others had similar experiences / wondering how many people out there now are having problems and cant pinpoint it or dont even know its a problem (i know plenty of guys who will sight there rifle with a couple of shots "rough enough" and go hunting, miss alot of animals and wonder why.)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hurricane

BTW - bloke in my local shop mounted a scope for me and was clearly clueless. He managed to strip the thread on one of the screws. Got him to give me a new set and did it myself. Just because someone works in a gun shop doesn’t mean they are competent.

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If it was optiloks it is a known problem with them having soft screws. Quality Allen Keys, using the correct size and torque settings is obviously important but even more so here.
I think they might of changed to the Torx Head at some stage IIRC.

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Originally Posted by caberslash

Optilocks are overpriced, junk rings.

..

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They may be over-priced but def not junk. They aren't light if you want to be picky.

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Originally Posted by 6.5 CRD

100%. This whole situation is completely my fault, was in no way a dig at the retailer (hence me not mentioning who it was, even though plenty will put 2 & 2 together.) I was the one that wanted to get something sorted on the day, didnt want to put a pic rail on and use a different style ring, couldnt get exactly what i wanted so i chose to go with the cheapo rings. This whole post was more just me showing what the end result was, and interested to see how many others had similar experiences / wondering how many people out there now are having problems and cant pinpoint it or dont even know its a problem (i know plenty of guys who will sight there rifle with a couple of shots "rough enough" and go hunting, miss alot of animals and wonder why.)

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I'm always a fan of a pic rail and whatever brand of good rings you like on a Tikka. Gives you lots of options in future etc as well.

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Originally Posted by 6x47

They may be over-priced but def not junk. They aren't light if you want to be picky.

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The one piece ones are OK but the two piece version is an abomination.

Then again most Sako products have been since Beretta took over.

Well subjectively speaking you are entitled to your opinion as is the case for all, but objectively speaking you couldn't make that case if you tried.

On what basis is everything worse?

Innovation, function, material selection, form, ascetics, ergonomics??


Seriously? This from someone who places function of a military style scope mount over any ascetic consideration?

Are you one of those who thinks wood and steel is the answer for everything?

Most modern sako products outperform historic equivalent (if there can be found an equivalent) in almost every area. We have more choice more application availability/application and more expense to go with it..
:D

Don't confuse romanticism with objectivity...

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Originally Posted by caberslash

The one piece ones are OK but the two piece version is an abomination.

Then again most Sako products have been since Beretta took over.

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.....Do they have different Sako products where you are based? Or are you normally prone to exaggeration?

Used sako optilocks on every tikka and sako i have owned, 11? rifles. Never had a problem with them. Can only speak for the single piece ones though, never used the 2 piece with the seperate base.