Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Scope touching barrel

I have my rifle set up with a 3X9-40 scope and recently switched my scope to a Rapid Reticle 3X9-44 RR600 scope that happens to make contact with the barrel. My question is will this affect accuracy and barrel harmonics and should I switch rings before I shoot this combination?

If you don't clear the barrel, every miss will be blamed on the setup. If ya gotta ask, you know better

Wayne

Having the scope touch probably means it is bearing against the barrel (pun not intended) this is put a lot of stress on your scope and won't do any good things for accuracy. May or may not cause problems with the rifle touching that close to the receiver,but certainly won't help any. I have set the barreled action in the Kurt vise and milled a little relief cut into the barrel with a 1" end mill. This allows me to mount the scope lower than switching rings when it is barely too low. If you take your time and make good cuts with a sharp mill, the finish will look fine- especially if it is stainless.

peep'06,
I concur if the scope is touching the barrel there is no way to check if the scope is centered in the rings, even after the rings are tight.
Good Shooting!
Marcus.

Is this a serious question?

I'll just say you should change your rings to something higher or get a new scope...

Good way to break a scope. Use higher rings.

Is this really a serious question? Heck yes---take it off now!!!!

Thinkin the same

Thanks guys, I knew that was the answer, I just wanted someone to tell me that. Again, thanks to all.

You may need to put some shims under your front mount, you can make them out of cans if you can't find brass ones.

Was watching some high-tech show recently that featured a new sniper rifle. What amazed me was the extreme slow-mo sequence of a shot. The bell of the scope flexed down and absolutely BANGED off of the barrel in recoil.

I'd bet that even lower-recoiling rifles have much the same effect. If so, a scope that touches (or dang near touches) might undergo some serious impacts due to recoil. Can't be doing either the objective lens mounts or seals any good.

get the shims, and i'd shim both front and back bases and if that dident work, higher rings, and if that puts ur scope to high for the stock you have, a new scope.

Can you just slip it forward to clear the barrel contour and still maintain your sight picture?

I had a 50mm bell that was a notebook paper or two thickness from the barrel, I thought this was enough. You could see light and I was told this was good. This scope made a trip back to the factory after a while..... The rifle had a good set of Leupold rings yet they found a way to actually gouge the barrel of the scope in this set up but only in the front ring and only at the bottom. I continued my physics education with this rifle....steel expands when hot.

Some tinkering was done with this awhile back (like eons ago) and RockyRaab hit it on the nose. Leupold used to have a pamphlet for the gun shops on do's and don't's when mounting their scopes. They said at least three millimeters between barrel and scope to make certain there was no contact during recoil. When I saw that pamphlet it had to be at least 10 years old.
I would assume that this would be aggravated by the amount of tube that is hanging out between the front ring and the bell, as well as the size of the bell (momentum and all that scientific fiddle faddle).

There are many rifles that would have poor ergonomics if a higher scope ring were to be used. In that case I prefer to remove some metal from the barrel. While it takes more time you can use a hand file or a dremel if you don't have access to a milling machine. Then finish by sanding and if blued, some cold blue. If executed properly it will not be easily seen.

Azshooter: You cut off your toes when your shoes are too small? Incredible.

A gunsmith I know had a long, heavy scope mounted on a hard kicker, per a customer's request. There was a lot of scope hanging out over the front ring, but there was also almost .25 inch of clearance. Guess what? The objective of the scope banged the barrel enough to knock the Teflon finish off in a few shots.

JB

If you want to know, if and how your "cleared" scope hits the barrel, just put two sheets of paper, with two reversed sheets of "inner layer" carbon paper, inbetween scope objective bell and barrel.
After shooting you may see the marks on the white paper sheets.

well, straydog got it right the easieat way! brownells sells munt shims, but remember to shim BOTH mounts!

Hey, years ago, I worked for a sho and a guy would come in, buy a scope, and bring it back 2 days later broken. we finally got him to bring in the rifle. he was putting cheapo scopes on a 7mag bull barrel with low rings and they were tounching the barrel.


'Nuff said?