Soldering a scope into the rings

Evanguy

Evanguy

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I've been building a rifle for a friend. Similar to what would have been used in the boer war. It's sort of like a sniper LEC with some neat improvements

The scope is metal tube with no windage adjustment, the rings are windage adjustable. The scope gets soldered into these rings

I'm wondering what type of solder should I use, I was thinking low temp jewelry or electronic solder. But I'm open to other stuff.

Does the scope need to come part before being heated or should it be able to happen when the scope is complete.

I do plan on tinning the rings and the scope then installing them and heating it until the solder melts

here are some pic of the scope and rings in question.

in the pic its clear the rifle needs loads of finish work, but these pics were taken a few months ago. its almost done now I just need to solder the scope in and get some bluing done.

i added a pic of the adjustable trigger i fit to this rifle. it works very well

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Is the scope tube steel or aluminum? I would definitely say take as much out as you safely can put back in, clean and polish to bare metal. A low temp silver solder would probably do the job, getting the heat for high temp silver might be detrimental. Is the rifle in some big bore safari magnum?
 
I think some German-made scopes needed to have their rings soldered to the scope bodies - claw mounts - often soldered to the objective housing - I suspect is better to dismantle - not sure what is in those old ones for seals - likely the heat from solder would melt out those seals or what is left of them. Is possible that some were made, back in the day, without rubber seals, but I think I would want to dismantle anyways to get away from possible heat issues in the guts of the scope? As you probably know, you will want to get polished down to bright shiny metal to get solder to stick well to it - any bluing, rust or paint will work against that "stick".
 
The_Shmoo said:
Is the scope tube steel or aluminum? I would definitely say take as much out as you safely can put back in, clean and polish to bare metal. A low temp silver solder would probably do the job, getting the heat for high temp silver might be detrimental. Is the rifle in some big bore safari magnum?
Click to expand...

Pretty dumb questions, only surpassed by the jb weld suggestion
 
The recoil of a light .303 carbine is not insignificant. The sweat soldering job is going to have to be effective. Proper preparation and tinning are necessary. I'd dismantle the scope and use a clean lower temperature soft solder. Once the soldering is done, the scope could be refinished while disassembled. It would even be possible to nitrogen purge the scope when reassembling - something that was probably not done when the scope was made. If any lens cleaning/optical work is necessary when the scope is dismantled, maybe Wheaty or Trace might help out.
 
Soldering in a scope is not something I’ve heard about previously but they did have lots of interesting stuff in the past.

Would something like an epoxy be easier to work with ?
 
Evan:

Soldering of European scopes into rings was quite common.

I've just sent you a Kahles brochure explaining the re-assembly instructions. While your scope is a bit older, I believe the instructions will still help.

Lee Valley sells a spray can of nitrogen to spray inside the scope when you're ready to re-assemble it; they sell it to preserve open cans of paint.

As others have mentioned, once you dis-assemble the scope, taking lots of notes +/or pictures, it is a perfect time to polish & re-blue/re-finish it.

Jim
 
I wouldn't even consider doing it without removing everything from the tube first. If those mounting screws are brass, I would replace them with steel screws.
 
As you are dismantling the scope (which you must do) examine the scope very carefully as many European optics will use very tiny grub screws to secure the assembly at different points … these screws are often then covered with a small patch of black wax and can be difficult to see/find if you are not very observant. I am not sure I would get too obsessive about filling with nitrogen .. most older scopes arent well enough sealed to contain it for very long. Bob Bell once observed that wartime German military rifle scopes had holes drilled in them to allow them to drain ( :) )

also remember that on old scopes the coating can be very ‘soft’ so either dont mess with it or find an expert to clean the surfaces

Mounting optics in this fashion which requires dismantling the scope, and the myriad of other tasks from fine woodworking to engraving to high precision metal work were the reasons that becoming a gunsmith in Germany was a long and expensive proposition … the father of a friend of mine grew up in prewar Germany and wanted to apprentice as a ‘gunsmith’ ….he told me that by the time he was old enough to start an apprenticeship the money his father had put aside was worthless due to hyperinflation … so he became a machinist (and then joined the German Army) but the interesting point he made was that at that time gunsmithing was one of the few (only?) trades where the apprentice was expected to pay the ‘master’ .
 
wow loads of replies, thanks. Between them all i believe i have my answer

ill touch base on the questions and info given

- I now Definity plan on disassembling the scope before soldering it, i was thinking the scope may be able to handle ~300* to melt the solder and even more so with the heat being put into the rings. and I'm a little intimidated to take it apart.

- the scope tube is steel and i i wouldn't want to trust jb weld or an epoxy to hold the scope in place on someone else's rifle. I would possible try some quality epoxy if was my own, just to test it out.

- low temp solder is the answer, silver solder would be WAY to hot (above 1000*) and its chambered in 303 British.

- I'm not sure how old the scope is and what is actually inside it, i had assumed there is no seals or nitrogen purging but i don't actually know so it will be coming apart.

- Tiriaq, thanks I'm going to read up a lot on the proper technique, Jim Harrison send me a lot of info and is going to lend me one of this books on disassembling and repairing old scopes. he has also send me other reading material on the subject.

- I've had a few convos with people who thought i was crazy when i started talking about soldering the rings on the scope lol, when i told them it was an old scope i think they were thinking the 70's

- Jim as always, like i said in the Emails, thanks. Always a huge help

-the mounting screws are brass, i made them along with the mount, i know they are soft but i made them large screws. they are an M5 thread so the equivalent of a 11-32tpi standard screw, they just have small heads that seat into a counter sunk hole, so they work as pins and clamps.

- AP thanks of the heads up i will be very carful and not just start cleaning them with glasses cleaner and rag lol, neat story too, I started at a manual machinist and am moving to the finer things of gun smithing

here are some pics of the marking on scope, if anyone knows what it is or has any additional info on this particular scope that would be great

the first 2 pics are on the focus adjuster
the 3rd pic is on the ocular lens
the 4t pic is the elevation adjuster
the 5th pis is one of those little grub screws talked about it post #11

the elevation adjustment has some writing on it hard to read and even harder to see in the pic it says "R. Fufss Steglitz Berlin" i believe

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I've done a couple. Here's my advise:

1. Mock up in the rings your are using - set eye relief and scrib your refernce lines.

2. Carefully dismantle scope - take lots of pictures for reassembly reference. Not much to these old scopes. Use screw driver that fits the slot or modify a tip to get the fit. Under a little pressure scews should back out. If not then pentrating oil to assit in the screw release.

3. Lay all the scope parts out in a cardboard box - ID if you can. Careful not to mar the lenses - note lense position for orientation.

4. Use low temp solder - below 400 F. Tin both surfaces as you are soldering steel to steel, align to your references, apply heat to one ring and let cool then the other.

5. You can control the overflow of solder with a special wax marker (Can buy from Brownells) or cold blue aroung the perimeter of the ring contact area

6. Clean up the scope tube

7. Rust blue the tube to get the pattina you desire

8. Reassembly in the reverse of the diassembly

Helios 8a is german scope produced WW1 era - very good quality scope.

Keep us posted!

Ron
 
And alternate to what Ron suggested above - I used silver bearing soft solder with it's matching flux - like 3% silver or something - not much different to use compared to lead/tin solder, which you may not be able to find any more. I used that to attach a front sight ramp to a barrel, instead of drill and tap those holes - I'm not sure at all, but likely different to what you intend to try. I used soapstone (welder marker) to cover up where I did not what solder to stick - seemed to work fine - someone commented that you can use graphite (lead pencil) for same purpose - solder just balled up and rolled off that soapstone, but seemed to stick quite well where the metal was shiny clean.
 
Evanguy said:
- low temp solder is the answer, silver solder would be WAY to hot (above 1000*) and its chambered in 303 British.
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yea - 1500-1600 for the really high content stuff 90+ (like a jeweler would use) ;)

I've seen but not used silver solder strips and paste - check brownels

You can also check local hvac places for higher (15% or so) content solders, but they probably won't have flux (my hvac neighbor looked at me funny when I asked what kind of flux he was using - apparently you don't use flux in copper to copper?? (who knew!)

People seem concerned about soft (lead/tin) solder for .303 - I don't know myself, but if that is a problem, a 5% silvabrite type should be just fine - you have a lot of surface area there....

The only thing I would be concerned with is that tube distorting with uneven heating/cooling - when I solder a rib to a barrel (muzzle loader) I'll generally heat the whole barrel so there are no cold spots and things can expand/contract more evenly when heated/cooled.....

Maybe see if you can find more on the 'how to" before whipping out the mapp gas - my $0.02
 
Back in the Day like up to the 1960s, Riflescopes in the old Country where not Waterproof and pretty well all only had elevation adjustment on the Scope, Windage was adjusted on the rear Foot of the Scope Mount. The then premier Scope mounts where SEM (Suhler Einhack Montage) and deviants. The Scope was taken apart, halve moon Scope Rings soldered on, everything reeblued and then the Scope was reassembled all done by the Gunsmith.

Cheers
 
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