There are four Optilock mounting configurations: one piece, short, long, and extended. Each of the four Optilock configurations have a unique but limited range of front to rear ring spacing on each action size. Optilocks are secured by a single tapered dovetail clamp and screw opposite a fixed tapered dovetail. The rear ring's integral lug/pin is designed to restrict its mounting to a single position centered over the bore's axis. Alternatively, the centerline of the front ring isn't restricted to any particular position. At first glance, one might think this means the front Optilock can be mounted anywhere along the forward dovetail. However, unlike Sako's original ring mounts, which were designed with adjustable right and left clamping rails, Optilocks have one fixed and one dynamic clamping face. This translates into a shifting font ring axis relative to the bore. One that depends on how far forward the front ring I mounted along the tapered dovetail. Mounting the front ring too far forward or too far aft results in the optic's mounted axis being tangent to the bore axis. Essentially, this works like a windage adjustment. If the front ring isn't mounted in the sweet spot, so that it's centered over the bore, resulting off axis mounting eats into your scopes windage adjustment and translates into a shifting POI at increasing ranges.
Thanks for the explanation, kingston. I believe this is exactly what the gunsmith is talking about. The Leupold 2.5-8x36 is a short scope and with the rear ring fixed because of the lug, there isn't enough length to find the "sweet spot" and therefore it requires too much windage adjustment, like you stated, because it is way off axis.
So, apparently this scope won't work with these Optilock rings. Pretty disappointing, really.
What might my other options be? Thinking I may have to go with the Leupold rings.
