That is the question...

maybe.

Why? I've used close to 30 sets now.They always lined up well and been very smooth on the inside,yet hold scopes in place...

This is my first set I've personally tried...just wanted some opinions from those that have owned a few.

Thanks,
Erich

Erich:

What I do is smooth out the edges of the bases and cap with a lapping bar. Just so the scope doesn't get peenched in the rings. Takes about 5 minutes.

Yep just smooth them out....they are production cnc machined just like the other guys stuff.

Always.......

Looks like could apply Dykem to the interior of the rings while mounted up on the rifle, the put in a steel mandrel lightly clamped up by the ring's screws, and give it a spin or two.

Undo, and take a look at the pattern.

Those rings are pretty nice quality, but no ring set is exactly alike; pretty hard to tell without some in hand observations.

Kinda depends on your expectations

Never...

Talley says don't and I believe them. I have a lot of them in use and have installed many more.

+1

The Talley's that I have mounted scopes on Rem 700 receivers were aligned well enough that the scope sat square in the ring without lapping. If a dab of non-permanent adhesive such as Shoe Goo is used in the bottom half of the ring, the top does not have to be tighten so much that the rings cut into the scope tube.

What causes the talley's to mark a scope tube...is it over tightening, or sharp edges where the two ring halves meet?

Lap a set, it is a real eye opener...I lap all mine.

I ain't worried about the rings being straight so much as the receiver they're screwed to being straight. I lap mine.

Actually both but the initial marks are made with the sharp edges. It doesn' take much to secue the scope with Talley LWs. I use 30 in/lbs and loctite so the screws won't back out.

Thanks!

Don't lap Talley rings, substitute Burris Signature rings for them. I wouldn't own another set of anything Talley. Sorry, they are a poor performing product that leaves a scope tube scratched and deformed, and they are almost impossible to keep tight. My friend and I have a Talley laugh fest when we see some rube with them on a rifle. Rule of thumb is to never use a vertically split ring, or a one piece ring and base.

I've used Talleys for years and never scratched nor deformed a scope tube.
Proper installation procedures are a good thing.

This entire post is ludicrous.
LMAO

Talleys impossible to keep tight???? That is the laugh fest. Talleys are the GO TOO rings for big boomers and heavy kickers. Any rifle I own and plan to do any serious hunting with will be wearing a set of Talley vertically split rings & bases. I've used em on all my rifles all over over North America in all kinds of conditions for many years. I have NEVER had a Tally ring or base come loose. IMO Talleys are the best made and most durable ring & base system made today. The tolerances are super tight and NO lapping is required. They will marr a scope at the top where the rings come togather IF they are installed incorrectly. I use a torque wrench and use torque specs supplied by Tally. Never have a problem and don't expect one. 163bc

I don't have those specs handy. Please tell me what they are.

Thanks!

I haven't used anything but Tally in years, with the exception of sume super tall Warne on an AR. No comparison at all.

Someone will corret me if I'm wrong, but I believe the rings are 15-20 inch pounds, and the bases are 25-30 inch pounds!

I'm in that range -- did the bases to 30 and rings to 20. Believe I got that from info that came with my FAT wrench.

Lots give advice when they should be asking for it...

Oh, I don't know about that. I agree with the first four words. I've got Talley aluminum lightweights on a half dozen of my rifles, and I've only lapped one pair, which was really unecessary. The rest I've checked with the Wheeler Engineering kit and the alignment has been fine with no need to lap. The rifles are Kimbers and M70s, by the way. Anyway, the only scope marks I have from any of my Talleys are the ones on the scope with the lapped rings. So I agree, "don't lap your Talleys." LMAO.

Good catch!

The first four words ARE correct.

For the lightweight setups 20-25 in-lb for the base, 17 in-lb for the rings.

Steel: bases 20-25 in-lb; Fixed rings, bottom screw 35 in-lb top screw 17-24 in-lb. Detachable rings: large bottom screw 35 in-lb, small bottom screws 30 in-lb, top screws 17-24 in-lb.

Many thanks! I'm using steel. Looks like I overdid it a bit by tightening the bases to 30. I'll make a note of these specs.

My Talley lightweights had a high spot on the rear ring toward the fore end of the rifle. After lapping, it was corrected. Maybe I should have traded them for another set of rings..

Thanks guys! All the info is much appreciated!
Erich

A Guild smith started measuring surface contact on out of the box bases, rings, and ringmounts, including Talleys, on factory receivers; none were ever found to give a proper percentage of surface contact with many giving under 50%. To my knowledge it is near impossible to take a new production rifle, a new set of Talley mounts, and a new scope, and mount them together to end up with the proper aligned 80% surface contact. This is impossible due to tolerance stacking. My hunting partner is one of the Guild smiths and is one of the top machinists in the Nation. He does likes Talleys and I use them as a result. In his shop, I've personally never seen an out of the box combination on a factory rifle result in better than 60% surface contact, and every one of those sets needed to be reworked for proper alignment. Even when the receiver was re-machined to correct QC alignment issues with the factory rifle, the rings still needed work to reach 80%.

Not saying you guys are making stuff up, but based on what I've seen measured in a Guild shop, I'm not seeing it, and this is probably the reason so many are tweaking light scope tubes as their rings are not truly in alignment as the believe. If this is the case where the scopes are mounted askew, make sure you stay under the max recommended screw torque. You may even consider an old trick where you add a piece of electrical tape to act as a grip and buffer to hold with light torque.

Best

Did he say it was more about reciever dimensions that was causing misalignment, because one would think that the Talleys being machined on cnc machinery that they would be extemely true!

Never lapped a ring in my life. Never had a problem either.

But swampy not everyone lives a charmed life like you!

Yes, not only can there be tolerance stacking with the receiver mounting holes to the axis of the barrel, their can be tolerance stacking between the fit of the ring base to receiver top. The tolerances can stack up quickly to bind the mounting.

As a recent example, he took one of my out of the box new rifles and found that the factory scope mount holes were not in perfect alignment. He also took a brand new set of Talley LW ringmounts and found that they were not in perfect alignment. The two combined with a brand new out of the box gold rind LEU and only had approx 10% aligned surface contact period. Without any lapping, the cobination would bind badly. In this case, the mount holes were made straight, the ringmounts were made to perfectly fit the rifle, and the rings were lapped for a correctly aligned surface contact of the scope tube. When everything was mounted and torqued to spec, everything worked exactly as spec. Had I not at least lapped the combination, I would have stressed the scope tube and may have damaged it enought to cause a stiff power ring and poor tracking.

YMMV, but I've never seen a box stock production combination result in better than 60% alignment of the surface contact area. The worst combination I ever experienced was the most recent above, and that was using Talleys on a factory rifle.

Best

Very interesting..thanks!

GaryVa...makes a ton of sense to me. Thanks for sharing!

Rifles and rings are apparently made using hatchets, hand drills and cutting torches because modern CNC equipment can easily hold tolerances of .0001" and better.
It's a piece of cake to align 4 holes within .001" of a datum line.

No, don't bother lapping Talleys...they are perfect. :

These talley type rings is where a slotted alignment bar comes in handy, I haven't had alot of experience with talley lightweights but from those pics if there is any side play in the base holes they could be aligned a little better when tightening base screws!

Mr. Ackleyfan,

Could you please share with a novice like me what a slotted alignment bar looks like? Where can a guy get one?

Thanks,
Erich

I saw a picture somewhere on the net, and can't remember where, but the one I saw looked like a 1" lapping bar with 2 slots cut thru the bar, then you loosly install rings lay the bar in the rings and with the bar in place you can insert a screw driver with the appropriate tip thru the slots and tighten the rings down!

Not sure anyone sells them,I have guy that might be able to make them,will see!

the 30 or sets i have mounted always show almost the same pattern, no matter how many times i loosen and reset the bases using a stright edge along the side of bases to get them square, i lap the bottom halves to 80 percent contact always

Two points:

1) Talley lightweights are like any other Leupold-style ring. They can benefit from lapping, and I'd be inclined to lap them just like any other.

2) When most people say "Talley" rings, they're referring to the vertical, split-ring style upon which Talley made their name on. Because of the way these rings attach to the bases, I'd argue that you gain nothing by lapping, as your scope is not cradled in a stationary fixture. Thus, you can't really judge progress or alignment like you can with a Leupold type base. I'd argue that this setup is somewhat "self aligning" -- particularly the screw-lock version.

I see it, but how do you know you accomplished anything? The only time that those rings are aligned is when they're fully tightened to the bases, and you can't move the lapping bar -- unless you leave the top screws loose. Is that what you did?

Bart Bobbitt wrote a bunch of accuracy papers in tandem with McMillan. He wrote a pretty good paper on this topic. They found that most manufactured rings when mounted have different centers to the axis of a straight scope and therefore most will bend the scope tube to varying degrees. IIRC, they determined this bending of the scope tube generally caused an error of around 1/4-MOA that would bind the internal mechanics so that the scope would no longer maintain tracking and would no longer be repeatable for accuracy . In some cases, the scope tubes bent even farther. The paper went on to say that correct lapping would center the rings on the scope axis which prevented any bending of the tube.

Flip side, I believe he offered an opinion along the lines that the "AVERAGE" user with a bent scope wouldn�t have the ability to notice loss of tracking, a loss of repeatability, or a loss of accuracy. I kinda agree with that, but it can go both ways. Some appear quite happy to slap pieces together straight out of the box to go kill game animals by the truck load with fairly inaccurate rifles. Others appear quite happy to build anal benchrest precision rifles to go kill the same truck load of game animals with crazy accuracy. Between those two ends, I�m sure there is plenty of room for the rest of us.

Best:)

Very informative info guy's!

Seems I read something somewhere about lapping the ltwt Talley's with a different lapping compund due to the aluminum construction, "grit" getting trapped in the aluminum and scratching the scope, etc.

Anyone that understands this stuff better'n me have any thoughts/recommendations on lapping compound for aluminum rings?

Thanks!

All this reminded me that I had a set to mount. So I mounted 'em up and got out my lapping bar & compound. When I set the lapping bar in the rings, it does not touch the bottom of the rings - it appears that the sides are "bent" in (not really bent, but I couldn't think of a better word), and hold up the bar off the bottom of the rings. Tried laying a scope in 'em and it looked the same. To get the lapping bar to make contact with the bottoms of the rings, I have to put some pretty good downward pressure on the lapping bar.

So for you guys who have lapped several sets, does this sound normal?

I have heard more than a few people comment on the gap in the lower ring and others say it's suppose to be like that, one would think that a scope tube would be better off with zero stress on the tube, that's why some bed their scopes into the rings, to reduce stress!

Supposedly the rings "spring" open, and allow the scope to drop to the bottom. I mounted a set once and after snugging down the top, there was still a gap when viewing with a flashlight. I lap all mine ever since. Lapping is not that big of a deal, and is a fast process especially with aluminum. Not sure why people are in such protest over it.