Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Talley Lightweight Failure

Also like the "farmer tight" comment....John

How to make the LW's live.....for the people that would care to do this (single digits, for sure).

1. The contact pattern shows how far 'out' of dimension the receiver is for anybody's base/rail:



2. A machined tube (not a lapping bar) align rings when bases are bedded. Screw holes are then radiused:


3. With bedded bases on the receiver, a ground lapping bar drops right in the ring saddles. These are later model LW's w/o the 'pinch point' parting line area on the tops/bottoms:


4. Initial passes with the lapping bar and compound shows just how little contact the scope tube would have with the rings. This isn't a problem with the rings. Again, it just illustrates tolerance stack up typical of any mass produced receiver:


5. Additional passes until it's sufficient for bedding material:



6. Post scope tube bedding and prior to any clean up....100% contact:


7. Since they were the later style with no pinch point, I relieved the parting edges of the caps and checked the fit. Dykem showed about 75% contact with the tube when snugged down. At times, the tops get bedded too:


Since these are 6000 series extrusions, they retain residual stress from the extruding process. Anything you do to bend or force any piece of extruded aluminum out of it's 'as extruded' shape fractures the grain structure....giving a break-on-the-dotted-line scenario. That's why bedding the bases on these is important...so you don't transfer additional stress to the entire ring assembly when you tighten the crap out of them in an attempt to make them fit the receiver. Once these are treated and bedded properly, they come up to 'tight' instantly...like a well done pillar bedding job does.

Again....if someone wants a set of LW-style mounts and doesn't want to do the work or spend the small amount of time required to get them right....that's totally understandable. There are other options I point people to then. They aren't going to fit the receiver any better because that's a receiver issue, not a ring issue. The vast majority of hunters and shooters just want something they can take out of the bubble pack, bolt on farmer-tight and feel good about their setup. If they knew how little contact everything had, they wouldn't sleep so good. But ignorance is bliss. Sometimes it's better not to know.

I work with and mill a lot of aluminum at the race shop and extrussions certainly have their place....you just don't want to add additional stress or have in a flexible application. For that, the various 6061's or 7061's are preferred. For example, 7061-T6 was the choice for this mid plate as there will be flex in one plane only (two directions):



Good shootin' -Al

How to make the LW's live.....for the people that would care to do this (single digits, for sure).

1. The contact pattern shows how far 'out' of dimension the receiver is for anybody's base/rail:



2. A machined tube (not a lapping bar) align rings when bases are bedded. Screw holes are then radiused:


Good shootin' -Al

Al, do you know the AMS identification for the 7061 alloy. I work with 2XXX and 7XXX alloys in the aerospace sector and 7061 is a new one. Always interested in options that are out there.

My typo on that one..it's 7075. -Al

One of the major advantages of being human, along with opposable thumbs and our knack for designing such wonderful inventions as air conditioning and indoor plumbing, is our ability to learn from others, even if our own experiences don't reflect the same outcomes. I've not personally had trouble with Talley LWs, but I've learned to steer clear of them after seeing so many failures from other folks.

Precisely. This! Which is why it baffles me when brand loyalty rears its head. You may not have had a problem with your favorite, but where there’s smoke there’s eventually fire. Hang around here (and other sites with optics forums) and you’ll soon notice a pattern of what works and what doesn’t.

Al,

Excellent analysis!

I am one of the apparently few folks on the Campfire who's never had Talley LWs break, and have used them on rifles chambered for cartridges up to the .300 Weatherby Magnum, in a Vanguard synthetic-stocked factory rifle. But I lapped those....

Also never had any problem with the original Ultra Light Arms mounts--which were were first made by the Holden Company, which was known for making the Holden see-through mounts. When they went out of business, the Talley and Melvin got together, and Talley agreed to make the mounts for what was by then New Ultra Light Arms--IF they could also make the same mounts for other rifles. But the Ultra Light receivers are very precisely made, so there were not of the misalignment problems that can occur with other rifles.

Also like the "farmer tight" comment....

John

I have few sets of Talley’s. The most action has been on the tikka 06 with 168s or 180s. Probably over 1000 rounds and Zero issues.
But on the sauer 9.3, they cracked before 100 Rounds. Went with the DNZ game reaper .
Called Talley’s and they replaced them instantly and had anew set in days. Talley’s also replaced another set that didn’t line up well, after I send them a pic.
Great company to work with

Precisely. This! Which is why it baffles me when brand loyalty rears its head. You may not have had a problem with your favorite, but where there’s smoke there’s eventually fire. Hang around here (and other sites with optics forums) and you’ll soon notice a pattern of what works and what doesn’t.

As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Gee, let's see about this brand loyalty.

Just went through my big game hunting notes, which I've been keeping since starting to hunt big game in 1966. It turns out that Eileen and I have used either the original Ultra Light Arms mounts (for about the past 15 years made by Talley) or the Talley version on 15 other rifles, five of them ULAs/NULAs. This has been since 1990, when I took my first big game animal with the ULA .300 Winchester Magnum Model 28 previously mentioned. Between us we've taken around 500 big game animals in various places around the world, and 100+ were taken with rifles using the original ULA mounts, or Talleys on other rifles.

None of the mounts ever failed, though some of the scopes did--especially Leupolds after they started going downhill around 2010. Have mentioned that before, and how I eventually gave up on Leupolds made during that post-2010 period, due to having to print out multiple copies of their repair-shop form just to get through one year.

But have never had to do that with either the ULA/NULA mounts, whether made by Holden or Talley, or the Talley Lightweights on our various other rifles. In the past few years I've killed more big game with my Sisk 6.5 PRC than any other rifle--which happens to have one of the older Burris 3-9x40 "Tactical" Fullfield IIs with a 30mm tube, designed to dial in the field, introduced around 20 years ago. The scope has never failed yet, despite being so old. Neither have the Talley rings. Like Eileen's NULA .270, I test-shoot the rifle before each hunting season, and the bullets land right where they did a year earlier.

So yeah, I have some brand loyalty--as long as the brand proves it keeps working.