Hunting Washington Forum
Equipment & Gear => Scopes and Optics => Topic started by: jakeweb on February 07, 2019, 07:46:10 PM
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Which do you all prefer for a hunting rifle? To mount a weaver/picatanny rail or do the Talley one price or Leupold dovetail style? Also if going with a rail, do you bed it to the gun or just throw it on and call it good? Looking forward to see what you guys are all running.
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Talley
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I don't care for any of the Leupold mounts. Dual dovetails are good, I just don't like twist in type mounts. The standard Leupold I've had but won't use anymore due to the adjustable rear windage screw. No need for that and it's just an unnecessary weak link. My Remington 700 in 338 I ended up using a Warne rail after first using Warne two piece Weaver style bases. The rail just gives so much more flexibility in where you mount the scope. In my case I couldn't get the scope back as far as I wanted it, and the rail gave me about another 1 1/2 inches. I like Warne's products, both their bases and rings. I also have Talleys on a couple other rifles, but again, they don't give you the flexibility like a rail will.
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I don't care for any of the Leupold mounts. Dual dovetails are good, I just don't like twist in type mounts. The standard Leupold I've had but won't use anymore due to the adjustable rear windage screw. No need for that and it's just an unnecessary weak link. My Remington 700 in 338 I ended up using a Warne rail after first using Warne two piece Weaver style bases. The rail just gives so much more flexibility in where you mount the scope. In my case I couldn't get the scope back as far as I wanted it, and the rail gave me about another 1 1/2 inches. I like Warne's products, both their bases and rings. I also have Talleys on a couple other rifles, but again, they don't give you the flexibility like a rail will.
Do you bed your rail? Or just fix it on?
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This is what I am putting on my 700. I went with a 15MOA rail. Solid build and fits the action with none of that inch overhang.
https://www.kenfarrell.com/
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No, I have never felt like bedding was necessary. I think that might be more beneficial with the heavy kind of long range scopes that many people are using now. I've only used lightweight Leupold scopes and I've never had a problem.
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Hawkins one piece on a few rifles and rails on the rest. I always bed rails if they are slappy slappy :chuckle: it's so easy to do I figure why not.
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It stands to reason that one should strive to remove anything that can break or loosen the connection between the scope and the action. Ideally, a direct mount of the scope to the action would be the way to go.
A rail that is integral - as in actually part of the action, is the way to go. Defiance. Curtis. Etc. Otherwise, you're attaching a heavy rifle to a heavy scope with four pathetically tiny screws.
Do you really want to risk your season or a hunt of a lifetime on four tiny screws? Nope. Didn't think so.
Take a look at what people are running on their NRL/PRS rigs and you'll come away with some of the very best mounting systems on the planet.
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Except for a couple CZ 527's that have a proprietary ring setup and my little 20-222 which has a Leupold 1pc base and std rings, everything else has a pic rail. My 338 Lap Imp is built on a BAT HR PIC action and that's a integral rail.
I think the integral rail actions add a certain amount of rigidity to the receiver, but the downside is you are stuck with a fixed MOA integral rail. For a hunting gun it's mostly a non issue because a 20 MOA rail is generally plenty, but it could pose a problem under certain applications if you are shooting ELR.
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Talley
:yeah:
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Most of my rifles have Weaver/Nikon/B-square 1pc bases, mine are mostly deer or coyote calling rifles, they have worked for me for many years. On my target and varmint rifle I usually pair them up with six screw Burris rings. I like the ability to keep a pre sighted scope in my gear box and swap it in if something happens to the main scope, repeatability is close enough not to have to find a range to re-sight. I do have a couple of drillings with German claw mounts that can be taken off to use as a pure upland gun and swapped in for a coyote or deer hunt with out re-sighting, they are spendy and came with rifles that cost about what the mounts alone would cost. In 50 yrs I've never had a problem with Weaver style one piece bases and I can easily customize them, re-cut cross slots. The weaver 1pc with weaver low rings is about as low as you can get when mounting straight tube scopes.
