Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics 'P.O.I.T.' syndrome

Wow. Was that a common thing to do to overcome scope limitations at the time?
Is this still done with Benchrest setups today or are scopes more up to the challenge now?

It was being done quite a bit. By and large, the move to 30MM tubes has provided the room for more robust internals...tracking and the ability to hold POI on BR scopes has definitely improved in the past decade. IOR Valdada's worm gear system and Sightron's ExacTrac were both big steps forward. -Al

Al,
Would you be willing to show a little tutorial on how, after having bedded the lower portion of the rings, you bed the upper halves of the rings? Do you remove the lower halves from the rifle and just use the lapping bar to do each ring? Or do you do the top half of the rings with the bottom halves still torqued to the receiver? If so, how do you use your release agent and masking to make sure you ONLY bed the top half of the rings, and nothing gets glued together?

Thanks,
Rex

Rex, you can do it a couple different ways. My preference is to do the tops when the lapping bar (or scope) is still in the bedded rings before it comes apart after the bedding has cured as at that point everything is aligned well. But I've gone back and bedded the tops later, too. Once the bases and bottoms are bedded correctly, everything lines up so well that it's not a biggie either way. I would caution against doing the bottoms and tops at the same time though...you want a solid base of cured bedding on the bottoms to support the small amount of clamping pressure from the tops as they are snugged down.

This is my Sako A1 22PPC:

The bedding has cured in this pic and lapping bar has not been removed. You can see the haze from the release wax on the bar and the cured bedding oozing out on the bottoms:



The tops had been lapped prior to the bottoms being bedded in preparation for bedding:



Tops after lapping:



Mold release wax over all tops surfaces except where the bedding goes....you're doing it just like the bottoms but in reverse. Put a little light machine oil like 3-In-1, etc. on the top screws. I use some Benelli choke tube oil. Don't use a creeping oil like Kroil as it will migrate into the bedding material.



Put the tops on and just lightly snug them so you get a bit of ooze. Even gaps on the ring halves is the guide, here. I had cleaned the ooze off with a plastic windshield stick already before this pic. Clearly seen is the cured compound on the bottoms and you can see a bit of it behind the back ring top also:



Give it 24 hrs and pop the tops off the bar with a screwdriver at the ring halves, chamfer the parting lines on tops and bottoms, deburr the all the edges, clean it up and you're ready to go. I always use a light oil on the ring screws, no matter what the material.

Like a properly bedded action, there's no need for any sort of torque wrench lash-up.

Good shootin'.....looking forward to your results. -Al

Thaks Al!