Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Question for JB on Weaver Rings

Just remembered another reason I put the coin-screw on the bolt-handle side, despite the "clutter."

For quite a few years I was doing a lot of horseback hunting, often with rifles using Weaver rings. While there's always plenty of discussion about the correct way to place a rifle in a saddle scabbard, the consensus among the horse guys I hunted with was in front of the saddle, on the right-hand side, buttstock up. This didn't interfere with normal mounting of the horse from the left side, and allowed the hunter to keep an eye on the rifle when riding through timber, and pull it out easily with his right hand, for whatever reason.

A lot of those guys used Weaver rings, not just because they were common and "affordable" but because they were rugged, and the scope could be mounted very low on "traditional" bolt-action rifles. The coin -screw heads were also on the same side as the bolt-handle. AWAY from the horse's body, where they weren't subjected to as much jolting pressure (and hence possibility of being rubbed loose). That placement (with all the clutter on the right-hand side) also allowed the rifle to slide out of a scabbard more easily.

One other reason a lot of those hunters used Weavers was the ugly, cheap rings were among the most dependably repeatable detachable rings of the day. They still are, if you know how to tighten them. Some horseback hunters would bring along another Weaver in the same rings, already sighted-in, just in case the first scope went screwy, or they had a horse-wreck.

Here's one of the photos that started this discussion, of a pre-'64 Winchester Featherweight .308 Winchester with an old K4 Weaver in Weaver rings. Please note that the coin-screw knobs are not anywhere near the ejection port, and in fact (as in most scopes) even the windage-adjustment cap (much smaller in that old scope) sticks out farther than the ring-knobs, and in the front section of the ejection port so has more potential to interfere with case ejection.

As I noted earlier, modern scopes with much taller windage knobs are far more likely to interfere with ejection (or loading another round into the magazine) than the Weaver ring-knobs.