Avoiding Scope Ring Marks

[antelopedundee]

I specifically mentioned in this post 2x that a gun smith did this, not me. For what i paid him, and for what I paid for the scope rings i expected quality ringd that were properly lapped. Obviously he did not. Now a days I have my own lapping kit and level kit and have done a couple dozen scopes without any issues.

Got that, but I was mentioning an alternative to lapping for removing any burrs and not doing a full bore lapping job. One thing about lapping is how do you really know when you've done enough? It's not like you can paint some sort of dye on the scope tube and see where the high spots are. Maybe lap until you have 100% bare metal visible on the bottom ring half which makes steel rings more prone to rusting. Some enterprising individual should supply 30, 34 and 35mm dowel rods.

 

[bluegrassdan]

Got that, but I was mentioning an alternative to lapping for removing any burrs and not doing a full bore lapping job. One thing about lapping is how do you really know when you've done enough? It's not like you can paint some sort of dye on the scope tube and see where the high spots are. Maybe lap until you have 100% bare metal visible on the bottom ring half which makes steel rings more prone to rusting. Some enterprising individual should supply 30, 34 and 35mm dowel rods.

I use precision ground steel gauge pins in the tube sizes as the testing tool. That's about the only real way to know if your rings are round, straight across both rings when mounted and if they will be level with each other when mounted. Might be over kill and beyond the needs of anyone but an OCD gunsmith, but it does work and to be honest, most of the time there is nothing wrong with the rings that would have an impact. I have had some rings that were way off and trash, but then they were cheap $40 dollar rings so you get what you pay for. If the retail price is $40, then they cost about $5-10 or less, to make and therefore you can expect somewhat less than NASA standards for quality control...