How to avoid ring marks? Please advice.

I haven't read all the comments so excuse me if this has been mentioned already, but you can buy a very thin black vinyl tape, I've got it at CT it's not electric tape it's actually much thinner and is sort of textured and smooth feeling on the back side.
 
mockba77 said:
Hi, all. I'm wondering what you guys do to protect the scope against the ring marks
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Mystic Precision said:
Needing to Lap rings is a sure sign of a problem... Lapping rings is NOT a solution (nor is a filler). most better made rings are honed to a specific size to fit the scope. Some are even line honed in matched pairs so they are dead straight. They will have index and id marks so the caps go on the correct ring in the same direction.



Set up the base to be straight and stress free... ie properly bed to the action if the action if wonky. Now ANY quality ring will mount on straight and NOT need lapping.

Jerry
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I agree that the base or bases can be bedded to the action to help eliminate ring alignment and I have done that on occasion but to say that lapping rings is not a solution is a bit of a stretch for me ... the vast majority of the time very little lapping is all that is required. Of course this only works with the bottom half of a ring set...
 
OP, Ring marks occur when the wrong torque is used (too much, marks rings, too little scope slips marks rings) perfect alignment perfect fit and finish is not present, and maybe one or two other things I have left out. Buying high quality gear helps reduce odds of getting out of spec equipment.

Your options for no ring marks really are:

1. Buy burris rings with plastic inserts, where the plastic is pliable squishable and doesnt let the metal from the mount touch the scope. The plastic grabs the scope and because it is softer material than the scope finish is wont mark the scope.

2. Lap the rings... This then makes the rings specific to your rifle and not super suitable for resale. It does increase the contact surface area with the scope giving the rings more material to grab spreading out the pressure on the scope reducing the risk for leaving marks

3. Torque to spec. over tightening and under tightening can cause marks.... you will need to buy a good toque driver

This is simply summing up what some very experienced shooters on this thread have been advising. You have had the privilege of attracting the attention of some extremely experience and well respected board members who have chimed in with their advice.

Your concern is well warranted. You spent a lot of money on your scope and you want it to hold its value for when you sell it. You called it an investment. The conflict you have is how to protect a devaluing product from devaluing further while getting to use it in the process.... you want to prevent wear. In your shoes burris rings with inserts is the best answer.

Sell your NF rings and buy the Burris. Nothing else will absolutely guarantee you won't get marks.
 
guntech said:
I agree that the base or bases can be bedded to the action to help eliminate ring alignment and I have done that on occasion but to say that lapping rings is not a solution is a bit of a stretch for me ... the vast majority of the time very little lapping is all that is required. Of course this only works with the bottom half of a ring set...
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I really try and avoid rings that are manf with enough variance that lapping is part of the install. Given the value of scopes typical to the rifles I use, upping a few dollar for properly honed rings is a very small investment so I do not consider lapping SOP.

The cheap mass produced rings commonly found at sporting stores may need more then a little lapping to set up properly :)

With the Burris Sig family of rings, that is no longer a concern so I have gotten rid of the lapping gear... it is no longer needed. And these are usually the least expensive "good" ring option... strong too.

Rings are like good tires. You can have the best sports car on the planet, put on crappy tires and you will be held back in performance. With the exponential increase in optics costs, why are shooters compelled to try and shoe horn them into rings of suspect performance?

Jerry
 
Mystic Precision said:
With the exponential increase in optics costs, why are shooters compelled to try and shoe horn them into rings of suspect performance?

Jerry
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The vast majority of shooters would be happy with a beat up set of Weaver rings leaving dents and scratches, they don't know any better.

A bit different story with competition shooters... some of them go to the extreme in a different direction...
 
I think shooters are starting to care more as their investments get into small car type prices. Also, scopes are just getting massive and heavy. Pretty hard to keep that telescope in control with flexing and bending 'soft' rings.

Like you, we can look back at simplier times but the current tech is all about knobs and buttons, big objectives and massive survive falling out of an airplane type options. #8 base bolts are all too common. Heck we have even discussed going to a #10 and a steel base... good grief. BUT cannons are being built and 45oz scopes are no longer science fiction so...

It's all good if the POI stays put and the shooter puts lead on the desired target.

Jerry
 
But Jerry... target and precision shooters are just a small portion of the market. An important portion and expanding, but I think there are far more not as knowledgeable shooters in the rifle market... happy with their wallyworld variable mounted free of charge by the kid on shift, or done at home... not sure if the crosshairs are supposed to be vertical or at 45 degrees.

6 x 48 threads and screws installed tight are strong enough, 8 x 40 is overkill, 10's !!!
 
Mac-Tac shelf liner . Half the thickness of electrical tape , doesn't absorb moisture and works every bit as good as Burris inserts , then torque properly . You can buy a roll of it at Walmart for a couple of bucks . Lay it in and cut the width with an exacto knife , top and bottom . This comes from a 30 year old NRA gunsmithing tips book and i've been doing it for that long on many scoped rifles and no ring marks on any scopes . It's made for kitchen and freezer shelves . It won't solve an alignment issue but if your rings and scope are aligned it will solve any scope mark issue . You can throw a bloody moose roast on it and it won't absorb anything .
 
Are ring marks from the set up, or from the twisting of the scope while trying to dial in the cross hair?

I.e, If you took a $300 mount and ring set, dropped a scope in it, torqued it down to 20in/lb, there can be ring marks?

I'd assume ring marks would come from dropping it in the hole, and twisting the scope back and forth a little bit while trying to dial in the cross hair without removing all clamping force from the top ring rather than simply just being a by-product of dropping a scope in the hole and clamping 'er home.
 
We seldom lap rings (steel) to solve a problem but to prevent ones from happening. Try a set a Ruger rings (you know the "free" ones that come with model 77's and Ranch Rifle mini 14's). These are investment cast steel and look pretty good and seem strong enough with 4 screws per ring but are missing a critical thing...they are not consistently round. You are lucky to get a 25% contact patch with some rings. They are so out of true that any king of larger scope with a magnum caliber will sometimes allow the scopes to slip in the rings unless you crank down the rings so tight you start to dent the scope body. Lapping these took hours and we first resorted to hand filing but now have bought ring reamers to uniform the surface (then lap for smoothness). A lapping bar with compound being used will soon show where the problem is. At the same time placing a lapping bar in better quality rings like Leupold and others will confirm their quality. Higher end tactical style rings like Mark 4 Leupolds or Night Force are a dream to lap as they seldom require much effort and are more of a confirmation than anything else. We have found Burris Signature rings to work as expected but only use them to solve an alignment issues (vertical or horizontal). I find their standard mount style, (front dovetail and rear windage adjustment) often bind and score the bases when turned into place (and if removed and remounted sometimes are not tight to the base anymore). For us it is a consistency and alignment confirmation more than anything else. Your results may vary and again what ever works is the most important. Phil.
 
Shooters still want turn in bases????? I think the only time I have sold a turn in base was for some obscure rifle that didn't have any other option.

Weaver or picantinny for me..... so much better.

Jerry
 
mockba77 said:
As for the rings, signature rings is not an option for me because my scope has a 34mm tube. Burris has XTR signature rings in 34mm but they only come in two sizes: 1" and 1.5". Not an option for me either.
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Because every "out of true" item in the "chain" of the mounting system will create an imperfection in the alignment of the rings themselves.

Imagine two rings, perfectly round and in alignment, squeezing the tube of the scope. No ringdings would be left on the scope because everything is pressing flatly on the scope.

If you take those same rings and put them on a mishapen action or rail, those rings will be minutely (thousandths of inches) out of alignment. This will create "hot spots" where the rings are squeezing the tube "out of true."

Similarly, if everything is in spec, except the placement of the ring crossbolts, those crossbolts will exert influence on the way the rings sit on the rail, which in turn will generate hot spots.

Imagine wearing someone else's shoes. Notice the hot spots where your feet are being "rubbed" too much because the shoes are broken in for someone else. You're likely to get blisters in these hot spots caused by misalignment of your foot to the contours of the shoe.

Every item in the ring, scope, bolts, action combination is a variable and those variables can cancel out or stack up to different degrees to create a misalignment. That will cause the rings to squeeze the tube unevenly which will mar the finish or dent the tube.
 
greg11 said:
Because every "out of true" item in the "chain" of the mounting system will create an imperfection in the alignment of the rings themselves.

Imagine two rings, perfectly round and in alignment, squeezing the tube of the scope. No ringdings would be left on the scope because everything is pressing flatly on the scope.

If you take those same rings and put them on a mishapen action or rail, those rings will be minutely (thousandths of inches) out of alignment. This will create "hot spots" where the rings are squeezing the tube "out of true."

Similarly, if everything is in spec, except the placement of the ring crossbolts, those crossbolts will exert influence on the way the rings sit on the rail, which in turn will generate hot spots.

Imagine wearing someone else's shoes. Notice the hot spots where your feet are being "rubbed" too much because the shoes are broken in for someone else. You're likely to get blisters in these hot spots caused by misalignment of your foot to the contours of the shoe.

Every item in the ring, scope, bolts, action combination is a variable and those variables can cancel out or stack up to different degrees to create a misalignment. That will cause the rings to squeeze the tube unevenly which will mar the finish or dent the tube.
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True. I bought a Near one-piece mount to minimize the misalignment. Will torque it to the right specs, and hopefully, this will be sufficient to avoid ring marks.

BTW, I thought about buying Burris XTR signature rings as a lot of guys here recommended, but their new design is awful. Who decided to put an ugly white lettering on both sides of the rings? The old batch was simply black rings without any logo on them.
 
Mystic Precision said:
Shooters still want turn in bases????? I think the only time I have sold a turn in base was for some obscure rifle that didn't have any other option.

Weaver or picantinny for me..... so much better.

Jerry
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We sell more "turn in rings" for regular hunting rifles than any other style. Not every gun we set up is for competition, tactical or long range shooting...in fact many guns sold are for hunting. Quality "turn in rings" allow us (and consumers who do their own mounting) the ability to center the scope on the base (or bases) using very little (if any) windage adjustment in the scope during initial mounting and bore sighting. This then allows the end user full range of adjustment in the scope itself during actual sighting in. "Turn in rings" are a little more difficult to install for people not experienced in scope mounting but for installers who mount scopes for a living they offer the most solutions to most mounting issues. We sell over 4000 guns a year and often mount scopes on many of those rifles. We have one of the largest selections of rings and bases in Edmonton (over $150,000 in parts alone in stock) so we also offer the full selection of choices and yes people still want "turn in rings". Phil.
 
DILLIGAF said:
Sorry to hear. :-( . I just learned something new. Would different brands of scope yield different results for how easily they mark ?
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Absolutely some tubes are softer then others.
I'll also add that machined steel rings haven't left marks on my scopes...if torqued to spec of course. TPS are my go to if I need HD rings.
 
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I have CZ-USA rings for 30 mm and another for 1" tubes to be mounted on CZ 452s. These are the ones with the slotted screws.

Torque spec. is 15 ft/lb top and 55-65 ft/lb bottom and I have a torque wrench. Would electrical tape be recommended or just torque to spec. to hopefully prevent ring marks?

New to this but now would have bought Burris based on what I have read. CZ rings and CZ rifles I don't know, don't want to ring mark a scope I might sell ... Thank-you for your advice.
 
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mockba77 said:
True. I bought a Near one-piece mount to minimize the misalignment. Will torque it to the right specs, and hopefully, this will be sufficient to avoid ring marks.

BTW, I thought about buying Burris XTR signature rings as a lot of guys here recommended, but their new design is awful. Who decided to put an ugly white lettering on both sides of the rings? The old batch was simply black rings without any logo on them.
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The design of the XTR Sig rings are excellent.... the "bling" is appealing to the intended audience. We will start to see more and more "logos" and graphics on stuff as manfs start to appeal to the younger audience.

Like race cars, putting graphics on go-fast parts are part of the show and dance.

There was a time you competed in a comfy T shirt of a basic colour..... now shooting fashion can be quite "elaborate"....

Times, they be a changing...

Jerry
 
Don't put your face so close to the scope when you pull the trigger, that's how you avoid ring marks above your eye
 
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