Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Tikka - Sportsmatch ring spacing question

For those using the Sportsmatch rings on your Tikka T3 has anyone pushed the front mount all the way to the front to get a better ring spacing if using a longer scope? Currently I have the front scope ring mounted so that I can use the pin to keep it in place along with the side screws properly torqued to spec and this has worked great. I'm trying to put a new longer scope on the rifle and the ring spacing would be much better if I could move the front ring all the way forward - but then I can't use the extra pin. Has anyone had issues with the rings moving if not having the extra pin in place?? If so how did you solve the problem - I think I might be Ok since its a 7MM-08 and not a big magnum and scope isn't that heavy (19 ozs) but not sure if it could slip under recoil??

I tried to do a search since I think there was a thread about ring spacing using the Sportsmatch but can find it now. Anyway, any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated it.

Like this? https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbt.../re-tikka-t3-rail-or-mounts#Post14188700

You can drill another hole in the bottom of the front ring to move it forward as far as it will go and still engage the pin. Or you can mess around with putting a base screw in the receiver to use as a recoil stop of sorts. But, the best you can really gain is only .5" or less, IIRC. I personally wouldn't run it without a recoil stop of one sort or another, but on a 7mm-08, it might well do ok. They are wide rings, so there's a lot of purchase on the dovetail.

I messed around with extending the ring forward a few times, but now just mount them up as they come. I had a long tubed swfa 3-9 on a 300 win Tikka, and while it is certainly best practice to have the rings as far to the periphery of the scope as possible, I didn't have any trouble with the 3-9 or any other scopes on more mild recoilers I've set up. If you want to add inclination or have an objective of over 50mm, then a rail might be a good choice, but if your scope has enough adjustment to get you as far as you want to go, I'd personally rather have the simplicity, shorter ring spacing and lower scope height of the Sportsmatch directly to the receiver vs the longer ring spacing, added componentry, added weight, and much higher scope height of a rail + rings. Just be sure to mount a rock solid scope on it with the Sportsmatch and you'll be thrilled.

I did find that one , but there was another thread where someone mentioned using some devcom to secure the rings when not being able to use the pin but I'm not sure what they did. Will probably just leave it as is since it's not that bad, the scope is about the size and weight of a SWFA scopes.
Thanks for the info 👍

That was me, I just glued it down, not the best way to do it in retrospect

Thought maybe that was you just couldn't find the post.