April 23 - Base, Ring, Disaster!

April 23 – BASE, RING, DISASTER!

Well, the bases and rings have arrived!

Here are the Leupold bases and rings nestled in their little packages.  I love these products.  I have become such a huge fan not only of the products Leupold puts out, but of the Leupold company itself. 

A number of years ago I was on a hunt in Texas and my rifle fell out of the scabbard when I was pulling it out.  It went straight from my hands and bounced on some rocks on the ground.  Thankfully the hunt was over and I wouldn’t need to use it again for a while.  About to throw up from what I had just done I grabbed my rifle and checked the scope.  One of the lenses had a hair line crack, and the exterior of the scope was scratched and marred.

I called Leupold’s customer service to see if this thing was even capable of being repaired. Rather than looking for a dealer to do the repair, they asked me to send the scope to them,.  Two weeks later a brand new scope showed up at my office, FREE OF CHARGE!  Ok….they have a customer for life!

Now to install!

So Remington is kind enough to drill and tap the receiver for base screws when the rifle leaves the factory.  To keep everything looking clean they install little set screws in the holes so the rifle does not come to the customer with exposed holes in it.  They need to be removed first before we can install the bases.

DISASTER!!!! 

The front set screws had fused into the receiver…(someone at the factory probably used a glue compound and the screws have fused over time).  Now they need to be drilled and tapped out before I can proceed.

CRAP!!!

Ok…so the screws were removed, but I don’t have the right tap to put in new threatds.  Sigh….this is going to take some time,…and to make matters worse it looks like the dimensions of the drill I used are slightly larger than the screws.

This is getting worse and worse.  Now I’m going to have to have the holes filled with a Tig welder and start the drill and tap procedure all over again.  To make matters worse I’m going to have to take the gun to a welder that can do Tig welding, because I don’t have the equipment!

So….for those of you just dying to see what this is “supposed:” to look like, I’ve included a pic of the scope “dry” mounted on the rifle.  Unfortunately this will not be acceptable.  The Front base is just sitting there…mocking me…it is not securely attached to the receiver…If I were to fire the gun the vibration would cause the scope the move around from shot to shot.

 Looks good huh?  Unfortunately It just wont work.  While it might seem secure, it is only being held in place by the rear mount.

Screw it….I’m going to the range anyway and I’ll shoot my Winchester Model 70 that has also been “accurized”. I need to blow off some steam!

Below is my target taken from a hundred yards with my Winchester.  This is what the Remington target SHOULD look like when I finally get this @#!@$ scope mounted on it!!!!

 Each of the squares is 1 inch by 1 inch.  In the parlance of the shooter this is referred to as a "Minute of Angle".  This six shot group at a hundred yards of 180 grain Winchester Supreme factory loads all falls within a sub MOA.  Nice rifle...and why I LOVE my Winchester!!!  Hopefully the Remington will one day shoot like this!!!