Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Sako Forester scope ring help

Mississippi,

First I heard of Leupold Sako ring mounts breaking. Can you give details of how the ones you wrote about broke? I have a set and would like to know what to watch out for. Thanks.

I'm not Mississippi, but my gunsmith has a pair of damaged Leupold ringmounts for Sako in his "box of horrors".

The user had a ridiculously heavy Euroscope (something like an illuminated 4-12x 56mm Schmidt & Bender) in these rings and the recoil of his .375 H&H combined with the tapered Sako dovetail had simply spread the "legs" of the ringmounts. And no, I don't know why the owner thought he needed a huge heavy scope on such a powerful rifle!

Real Sako rings (and some others, made by Lynx for example) have a hook that engages the rear of receiver so that the ring can't move forward and so this wedging action can't happen.

However, the lack of this hook on the Leupolds means that they offer a LOT more leeway in positioning a given scope on your rifle. This is important, and can mean the difference between getting a scope on a particular rifle with proper eye relief, or not.

With a scope of any normal weight, I would not worry about a Leupold ringmount failing on any Sako in a factory calibre up to the .375 H&H. I have several Sako rifles (and 2 scopes in various mounts for each) -- I use a genuine old Sako ring on my .375 H&H (just for peace of mind because I use a light scope) but I sure don't worry about my Leupold ringmounts on any of my lesser calibres.

Cheers from Sweden,
John

JPB,

Thanks for your reply. I have Leupold medium height ringmounts on a .375 H&H Sako holding an older Burris Signature 4X which is quite big and heavy for the magnification. So far, I have nearly 100 full power shots with that scope and ringmount combination with no sign of impending failure. I have been testing the Burris 4X/Leupold ringmounts to determine if it can be trusted it as a back-up sight so I am interested in any cases where the Leupold ringmounts have failed. The primary sight combination is windage adjustable Sako spit rings/Leupold M8 4X so I know about the small lug, which you write of, that prevents the scope moving forward during recoil.

Leupold recommends that the ringmounts be clamped (tightly) to the receiver dovetails at or very near the center of the dovetails where the taper of the dovetail clamp fits best. I notice that the fit is not as good when positioned anywhere else on the receiver dovetails. I can imagine that ringmount failure can happen if a heavy scope in tall ringmounts were clamped to the narrow end of the tapered dovetails where the fit between the tapered dovetail and ringmount clamp is the worse.

hi carbon12

I really don't think you have a thing to worry about: I don't know of any fixed 4x scopes I would call "heavy". I doubt if a fixed Burris 4x weighs more than 14 or 15 oz.

I just checked and the big Schmidt & Bender scopes go 27 oz! That us what I call heavy!

Here in Sweden a few guys think that bigger must be better and you (rarely, thank God!) see some really huge heavy scopes. I've even seen one Zeiss variable scope that was a 4-16x 72mm. Zeiss's webpage says that is weighs 37.4oz.

John

i like the leupolds on my sakos. have 2 with sako rings and my l61r 30-06 has old aluminum kesselring rings with a burris 3x9. has never moved in the 7 years i had it. that rifle went moose hunting in bc last year and still havnt re sighted the scope since. all the above will work fine. sako has the best mount system bar none.

sharpnel... who was the artist that did tha stock work beutiful

I'm running Leupold mounts & rings on my L579 carbine in .358 win.
That's pushing Nosler or Sierra 225's as an all purpose loads.

I've never had a problem with them and the 2x7 Leupold scope on deck, nor have I ever heard of any issues until this thread.
I have a set of the original SAKO rings, but they're lows and wouldn't work with that optic.

Dennis Olson in Plains, MT He is truly an artisan...









Yes that is a German Zeiss Diavari 3-9X36...