Who laps scope rings?

[savagedasher]

All the talley rings I have seen split vertical so they don't have a bottom . Larry

 

[JRS]

Anodizing causes increased roughness of the finish. The caustic etching during preparation roughens the surface. The higher the anodizing voltage, the more roughening that occurs. Bare aluminum is much smoother than anodized aluminum.

 

[JRS]

All the talley rings I have seen split vertical so they don't have a bottom . Larry

 

[Alex Wheeler]

Anodizing causes increased roughness of the finish. The caustic etching during preparation roughens the surface. The higher the anodizing voltage, the more roughening that occurs. Bare aluminum is much smoother than anodized aluminum.

Not to start yet another argument, but anodizing is hard, bare aluminum is soft. The coefficient of friction is much lower between anodized parts than bare aluminum/anodized parts. That would be a fact, not an opinion. As far as anodizing being rougher than lapped rings, nope. I lap with a 180 compound, Most ring surfaces and much smoother. Have you never seen polished parts that have been anodized? Caustic effects are minimal.

 

[JRS]

Not to start yet another argument, but anodizing is hard, bare aluminum is soft. The coefficient of friction is much lower between anodized parts than bare aluminum/anodized parts. That would be a fact, not an opinion. As far as anodizing being rougher than lapped rings, nope. I lap with a 180 compound, Most ring surfaces and much smoother. Have you never seen polished parts that have been anodized? Caustic effects are minimal.

I have in fact seen anodized polished parts. I had a few pieces of polished aluminum on one of my boats anodized. They lost the sheen they had prior to anodizing, buy did offer a bit more grip on the center console posts

 

[jepp2]

Scopes are delicate instruments. Lapping ensures your not binding a tube. Bedding is even better and will hold a scope much better with less torque.

I have never seen any rings I have lapped where the removal was uniform around the interior of the rings. And this is with the rings properly aligned to begin with.

 

[USPR]

There just aren't many ways to install a picatinny rail and rings incorrectly. Just saying. The inside saddle of the lower rings should be always exactly parallel and orthogonal with the top side of the rail. When they're not, lapping is required..... I only mentioned the top of the rail because, in many cases, the bottom of the rail that contacts the action has a taper cut downward from back to front. This provides some extra MOA in elevation adjustment. I was recently told by an "expert" tech guy at a high end optic company, there is never a reason to lap their rings. I found this an odd thing to say because all parts are machined individually and are subject to error. My lapping bars can not lie and will always find misalignments in anyone's mounting system if any exist.

 

[dkhunt14]

Anodizing causes increased roughness of the finish. The caustic etching during preparation roughens the surface. The higher the anodizing voltage, the more roughening that occurs. Bare aluminum is much smoother than anodized aluminum.

I don't believe this to be true. Two identical alluminum stocked heavy guns with rails made on the same CNC. Mine were anodized and my buddies weren't. We both used the same lube and front leather bags. When he slid his gun it sounded like a squeaky saw. Mine made no noise because it was smooth and slippery from the annodizing. Matt

 

[dkhunt14]

There also isn't many ways to screw up mounting a Davidson type ring. The dovetail pretty much fits the dovetail. Matt

 

[msinc]

One thing that you should be aware of about 6PPC rounds. Necks are typically thin and bullets have pressure rings. Some powders do not require much neck tension, others do. The pressure ring, combined with minimal bullet in neck and thin necks acts like a ball joint, allowing the bullet to be straightened to the chamber as it is loaded. Once I did a similar test using a H&H gauge that is designed to straighten rounds to push one to a runout of .0035 well beyond what my sizer and seaters produce, chambered the round, and remeasured it. It was .0015. In the past I have been told that measurements of .002 and better are sufficiently good, that no further improvement will be seen beyond that point. That is measured on the bullet at or near the point where the rifling will make contact. If Tony had rounds that were as crooked as you mentioned he would have had to take them in his hands and move the bullet in the case neck to produce that level of runout. I am sure that my sizer and seater are no better than his and they typically produce runout around .0015. What probably happened is that he shot groups, they were good, and he went no farther with his inquiry. Back when he did that, he was probably shooting T powder, which does not require neck tension like 133. One thing that concentricity gauges are good for at a match is messing with the other guys minds. One time years ago, I was using the H&H to measure and straighten as I went, loading between individual matches. Soon there was a line of shooters wanting their rounds to be checked. Creating doubt in the minds of the competition can be an advantage, but being able to tune and read flags is a lot more important. For necks that are a lot thicker, sized to more substantial neck tension, using seating depths that have a lot of bullet shank in the neck, it is a whole different situation. I have tried to straighten factory rounds and to do that involves bending case necks of loaded rounds. When I tested the results, there was no improvement that I could see on the target over unsorted, unstraightened rounds.

Yes sir, I get it....I was just rambling. In his book it sounds like he seats just about everything at or very near bullet jam. No doubt this adjust for any non-concentric bullets. I agree straightening bullets manually doesn't accomplish much. Once I corrected 8 or 10 rounds to dead perfect zero run out and it was just like you said, no better than the ones just seated and forgotten about.

 

[BoydAllen]

Anodizing causes increased roughness of the finish. The caustic etching during preparation roughens the surface. The higher the anodizing voltage, the more roughening that occurs. Bare aluminum is much smoother than anodized aluminum.

Lapping leaves the inside of the rings with a definite texture, depending on the size of the grit used. I wonder why you are making all of this fuss about lapping as if it was a problem? How many sets of rings have you lapped? I find that with the aluminum rings that I prefer (over steel) lapping is a relatively simple process that gives excellent results. I have mounted expensive scopes on rifles of large magnum caliber up to .338 Lapua without any scope slippage problems. Very little of what you have written rings true with me, and you may notice that it is at variance with what others have written about their experiences.

 

[Ray Gross]

Here are a couple photos of a partially lapped ring. You can see by the pattern that is tilted slightly forward and is also slightly twisted to the side.

I suspect that tightening the ring clamp on the rail is likely causing some distortion to both ring and rail, resulting in at least some of the misalignment seen in the photos.

 

[Ledd Slinger]

I lapped another set of ring's this evening for my 20 Tactical AR15 and did things a little different to see if I could get a more even wear pattern on the rings during lapping.

Instead of torquing the rings on the base then lapping, I set the rings on the base, placed the lapping bar in the rings, pushed the rings forward to make good contact with the rail, THEN torqued them down. It appears to have given me a nice even lapping pattern. Of course AR15 flat top rails are integral and may be more even or I may have got a good set of rings, or may have just been dumb luck. Too dark to bore sight right now so I'll see tomorrow how the windage adjustment turns out. If the windage is good with bore sighting, I will probably test this little change in my method when I mount scopes on the two other rifles I'm waiting to be returned from powder coating.

On this particular rifle, it appears I will be getting greater contact surface area. So much that i may no longer be concerned with bedding the rings unless I want to use a shim for elevation compensation. See picture below.



PS: I stated earlier that I use automotive air intake cleaner to remove lapping compound and bedding release agent residue. That was a lie. It's actually automotive MAF (Mass Air Flow) sensor cleaner. Air intake cleaner does work, but not nearly as well as MAF sensor cleaner.

 

[Dgd6mm]

I lapped another set of ring's this evening for my 20 Tactical AR15 and did things a little different to see if I could get a more even wear pattern on the rings during lapping.

Instead of torquing the rings on the base then lapping, I set the rings on the base, placed the lapping bar in the rings, pushed the rings forward to make good contact with the rail, THEN torqued them down. It appears to have given me a nice even lapping pattern. Of course AR15 flat top rails are integral and may be more even or I may have got a good set of rings, or may have just been dumb luck. Too dark to bore sight right now so I'll see tomorrow how the windage adjustment turns out. If the windage is good with bore sighting, I will probably test this little change in my method when I mount scopes on the two other rifles I'm waiting to be returned from powder coating.

On this particular rifle, it appears I will be getting greater contact surface area. So much that i may no longer be concerned with bedding the rings unless I want to use a shim for elevation compensation. See picture below.

View attachment 1011824

PS: I stated earlier that I use automotive air intake cleaner to remove lapping compound and bedding release agent residue. That was a lie. It's actually automotive MAF (Mass Air Flow) sensor cleaner. Air intake cleaner does work, but not nearly as well as MAF sensor cleaner.

Lead, what brand rings are those?

Don Dunlap

 

[hoz53]

Lead, what brand rings are those?

Don Dunlap

i am wondering what brand(s) of aluminum rings all these guys use?

 

[Ledd Slinger]

The rings in the picture of my AR15 are rings made by Thompson Center. As with most things made by TC, you get a lot of quality for the money. The rings in my other pictures are Chinese copies of Leupold Mark 4 rings. The TC rings ran me about $30 per set and the faux Mark 4 rings about $15 per set on ebay. I buy about 5 sets of 30mm and 5 sets of 1" so I have plenty on hand for whatever type of scope.

I have bought actual Mark 4 rings, NF rings, and some other more expensive styles in the past and found that with a little work on lapping and some times bedding, the cheap knock off rings are every bit as good. I lapped the expensive rings as well and they showed errors on contact surface just as bad as the cheap rings so I no longer waste my money on the expensive rings. I just turn the cheap rings into high quality rings with a little extra elbow grease.

 

[Ledd Slinger]

I just bore sighted the AR15. It required zero adjustment on windage from optical zero so thats a win in my book. Tho i cant confirm the effectiveness in my change of ring mounting/lapping procedure until i try it on a couple more rifles. I like the looks of the TC rings. Here's a pic of the TC ring tops. Really good looking with smooth lines.

 

[msinc]

I kind of like Seekins aluminum rings, but they don't give them away. One guy at a gunshop in Pa. told me about Warn steel bases. I bought a set and they are exactly like Leupold Mark 4 bases, except that the Warns were like $30.00 and the Mark 4's were $100.00. I miked them 9 ways to Sunday and I swear I could not see any difference at all...none. Even the finish was the same. Never tried the knock offs...they are steel and if they are made to the same specs...whats the issue??? Maybe watch out for softer screws that could wring off???

 

[Ledd Slinger]

I kind of like Seekins aluminum rings, but they don't give them away. One guy at a gunshop in Pa. told me about Warn steel bases. I bought a set and they are exactly like Leupold Mark 4 bases, except that the Warns were like $30.00 and the Mark 4's were $100.00. I miked them 9 ways to Sunday and I swear I could not see any difference at all...none. Even the finish was the same. Never tried the knock offs...they are steel and if they are made to the same specs...whats the issue??? Maybe watch out for softer screws that could wring off???

For bases, I like the quality of EGW for the money. Never had any issues with fitment or failures. BlackHawk makes some decent cheaper bases as well. I will search from hell to the high heavens for a good one piece base rail before I'll ever use a two piece scope base.

Screws on my knockoff rings are solid. I always make sure I order rings with torx head screws. If torqued properly, the windage and action scope bases shouldn't be more than about 30-50 inch lbs (depending on screw diameter and thread) and the ring screws no more than 20 inch lbs. Even milder steel should easily hold up to those torque levels with no issues.

I can't recall how many cheaper ring sets I've used now and have never had any issues with construction or mounting. It is good to mic them because you may get one that is a few thou taller on the base because the tolerances aren't as tight I'm sure. But not always, usually very uniform. I always put the shorter on in front if that's the case. But lapping takes care of any discrepancies after that.

Here's the torque chart I use. Tho I usually don't torque any ring screw more than 20 inch lbs regardless of size. With a proper lapping and/or bedding job with good contact good mild thread locker, you should never need more than that.

 

[johnfred1965]

Wow, I didn't know lapping rings was such a controversial subject. I have used quality rings(If you consider Leupy Mark 4 rings quality) That must have slipped through QC with a large burr inside the ring. Without lapping, it would have been enough to dent the scope. If you have ever lapped a set of rings, many will show that they are not perfectly round, and without lapping, this out of round condition will be transferred to the scope when tightened down. You can do what you want, but if I can ever afford a real high dollar scope, I am going to do all I can not to abuse it like that.