Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Scope mounting--how close is too close?

To the barrel, that is. I've mounted a 4-12 Monarch onto my .257 Weatherby using Talley low rings. The gap is .003" according to a feeler gauge.

Too close?

Just going from videos I've seen of scopes flexing on rifles, I'd say at 3 thou you are certainly going to have scope/barrel contact under recoil.

But I don't know if that matters one bit. Does it shoot OK?

Sadly, I've yet to run a single cartridge through it.

.003" is less than the thickness of a piece of paper.

I'd think you could get more radial expansion than that due to the barrel heating up.

Too close IMO.

Definitely too close...

There is one way to find out if this is true..

The orgional poster here should take his rifle and the feeler gauges to the range and fire 5 or 6 quick shots on a warm day.

That should be about as many shots as one would expect to fire with that rifle under any big game hunting conditions and would be about as warm as that barrel would ever get.

If a .001' or thicker feeler gauge will pass with the barrel that hot, I'd say it's good to go.

If a person were to watch this on slow motion, the front bell is going to flex more than .003 in the down direction as the tendency of the barrel is to lift on recoil.

I have my one and only rifle/scope combo with the scope/barrel gap at an "easy" 0.09. If I "pushed" the feeler gauge through, I might get 0.11, but some of that would bound to be the scope bell/barrel flexing apart as the feeler gauges were wedged in the gap. It looks just about right to me, though I wouldn't mind having a 0.125 gap.

3/16 is comfortable for me.

Thanks guys. My gut told me it was too close. I guess I'll see if Weatherby will exchange the mounts.