Stock rings on my Savage 16

[acnewman55]

Just bought a Savage 16 in .308

It was the hunter XP package that came with a Nikon Scope.

Can anyone tell me if the stock rings are any good, or if I should think about replacing them now to save myself headaches down the line?

[coachcw]

I'd toss the  in 308 you might be ok  go with some leupolds .

[MadHatter]

Also take a look at weaver rings... Love my weaver quad-lok's on my 308... They are pretty inexpensive and actually really nice rings.  You can spend hundreds of dollars on rings alone, depending on your application.  Most all of my rifles have some type of Weaver rings on them, and the one rifle that does is my competition 308 which is an AR platform, and it has Leupold Mk4 integral mounts on it because they came with the Mk4 scope I had put on the rifle... While leupold makes great rings, the thing I have never really liked from Leupold is their dovetail lock system.  Too many stresses involved for me. 

What you also might want to look at is a one piece base and make sure that the action is completely level, or bed the one piece base so that it is completely level.  If the bases are not level you run the risk of putting the stress on the scope tube and actually bending it, which will decrease you accuracy and destroy the scope a lot sooner than you would anticipate it lasting you.  Last scope I saw destroyed that way was a Vortex crossfire that was on a base that was torqued down to compensate for their being a difference of .0015 (which is apretty good sized gap).  That in turn bent the scope tube almost that much and ended up cracking an internal lens after about 200rds of recoil.  Now it could have been the base, or the action that was off, or a combination of both.  But having a one piece base allows you to check for that and correct the problem, while two piece bases do not.  I have seen everything from a $35 Weaver Tactical base to a $180 Badger Ordnance base need to be bedded.  While many will argue the more you spend the better the precision that is true to a point.  You are still taking two pieces of metal, milled by two different companies from machines that run on different tolerances and might be at different places in their wear cycles and put them together.  There is the possibility of there being a small gap.

Don't know what kind of shooting you are doing (hunting, matches, fun?) or the kind of accuracy you are looking for... My philosophy is to make every rifle I own as accurate as I possibly can so when it comes down to it I can never blame my equipment for a miss.  Everything from my plinking .22 to my competition 308 is bedded and stress free from the action up to the scope rings...

Just my 

[coachcw]

accurate rifles are interesting ! do your best to achieve that from your scope to ammo ! fedral premiums in that 308 will rock.

[AWS]

You bought a hunting rig.  Putting a set of high end rings isn't going turn it into a target rifle.  If the rings that came with it have a solid clamping system and haven't marked the original scope I'd use them.  If I were to do anything I'd change out the two piece bases to a Weaver or B-Square one piece or if you don't plan on swapping out scopes a lot I'd go with a DNZ one piece mounting system.

B-Square one piece on a Savage.


DNZ system(they come in matt black) I had this on a SS rifle for awhile


This is a hybrid, I cut off a one piece for the front base so I could mount the ring farther back and used a standard rear on the back.  This action had a flat rear and a rounded front and I couldn't find a one piece that would work on it.  This is one of my egg shoot guns and it works well.

 

[acnewman55]

You bought a hunting rig.  Putting a set of high end rings isn't going turn it into a target rifle.  If the rings that came with it have a solid clamping system and haven't marked the original scope I'd use them.  If I were to do anything I'd change out the two piece bases to a Weaver or B-Square one piece or if you don't plan on swapping out scopes a lot I'd go with a DNZ one piece mounting system.

Well I only own one rifle and one scope so I won't be switching out scopes too often.  Does the one-piece mounting system make the scope more secure?

[AWS]

The DNZ system is very strong and you don't have to worry about ring alignment.  It is a pretty foolproof system for mounting a scope.

Note that the rings aren't centerred over the reciever bridges but a located at the edges of the reciever port giving you much more leaway in mounting a short scope on the action.  This Sightron would neve fit on this rifle with standard rings.