Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Browning X-bolt rifles

Does anyone here know whether Weaver makes scope bases and rings to fit the X-bolt rifles? I looked on their website and couldn't find anything. For anyone who is not aware of it the X-bolt bases take 4 mounting screws instead of the more common 2 on most other rifles. The reason for asking - the Browning rings and bases are quite expensive and I want to look into alternatives.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Jim

Jim,
Can't speak to the Weavers, but if IIRC, I believe Talley makes the Browning factory ring/base setup for Browning.
You might check & see if Talley sells them cheaper direct from them.
Good luck,
Ted

Don't think Weaver has actually come out with them yet but Redfield has standard aluminum Weaver style bases for them.

http://www.amazon.com/Redfield-Mount-Base-Browning-X-Bolt/dp/B004U4HFBO

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll look into both suggestions.

Jim

Warne also makes the Maxima 2-Piece Steel Weaver-Style Scope Bases for the Browning X-Bolt

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/15...-weaver-style-scope-base-browning-x-bolt

The matte are on sale

The Browning scope mounts are one piece ring/base made by Talley. They are about the best set up for the x-bolt. Last pair I bought was $57 Canadian. Conventional 2 piece bases and ring combinations like weaver, leupold and burris are heavier weight and cost more as you have to buy bases and rings separately, they cost about $40 Canadian for the bases and $40 for the rings.

What prompted the inquiry was my reference to a 2013 catalogue which gave a price for the Browning rings at way over $100. I haven't checked with any LGS yet so maybe their prices will be a little better. I have a bit of time yet as the rifle is not expected until another week or so. Thanks all.

Jim

I just bought a set for $58.75 off of Amazon. I got the mediums as I read somewhere that the lows cleared but with so little room you couldn't slip a lens cover on the front.

Browning x-bolt combined bases and rings

But you can get a set of aluminum bases for $7.49, so even with rings added in it is still going to be cheaper to go that way.

Weaver aluminum 2-pieces bases

Weaver rings are $17.00

Weaver rings

Leupold makes a wide selection of bases and rings for XBolt rifles.

I don't own an X-Bolt and have no real reason to do so, thanks to winning a raffle prize drawing for an A-Bolt II Medallion in .257 Roberts last October.

The .257 Roberts chambering, coupled with the rifle's feathery sub 6.5 pound weight, seemed to me to make it an ideal candidate for the "mountain rifle" philosophy of use. With that in mind, the obvious choice of scope mounting hardware to me was old-school Weaver two-piece bases with the equally old-school Weaver strap-style ring mounts wherein a spring-steel strap is affixed to one side of an aluminum bottom via a kind of tongue and groove arrangement and to the other side via a pair of slotted screws.

That old-school Weaver hardware might not be elegant in the eyes of some, but it is a master-stroke of engineering art to me. It is light. It is rugged. It is dependable. It is cheap.

I've used this old-fashioned stuff for 32 years on everything from my Ruger 10/22 Deluxe to a .375 H&H Whitworth Mauser and a bunch of different rifles and handguns in between those extremes. I've never once has an issue with the hardware loosening, or with it failing to secure a scope, or with it failing to maintain zero. I have found this hardware to be unfailingly rugged and 100% reliable.

Another thing I have found with the old-school Weaver system is that it has good "return to zero" capability on a par with a lot of heavier, more complicated, more expensive hardware specifically marketed as possessing that capability. Most of the time, my use of the old-school Weaver hardware has been "set it and forget it" in nature and "return to zero" has been a moot point, but in some instances, it's been mighty nice to have, and my most recent application of it is illustrative.

On my A-Bolt II, running a light, compact 32mm, 2-7X optic seems fitting for the "mountain rifle" POU.

This rifle happens to be one of the most accurate bolt-action sporter-style rifles that I have owned or shot. I got lucky and got a good one -a really good one. It is accurate enough to serve as a varmint rifle, but I need more magnification in an optic than 7X for it serve in a varmint-whacking POU.

Here, the good "return to zero" capability of the old-school Weaver system is a blessing. I can have my light 2-7X dialed in for the 117 grain loads used for the mountain rifle POU and I can have a 4-16X dialed in for the 87 grain loads used for a varmint-whacking POU and I can swap between them with only minimal turret tweaking required to re-establish zero is any is required at all.

I have no doubt that other styles of hardware may do the same thing, but I know from over three decades of using it that the Weaver stuff is pretty darn good where "return to zero" capability is concerned.

While I have no doubt that the Talley stuff is good, if I ever do find a need to own an X-Bolt (I like them, might get one "just because") it'll be old-school Weaver hardware I'll be using to marry an optic to it, because I haven't found a real compelling need to stop using it yet.

I too like the Weaver system and have used on rifles up to 375Magnum with not troubles at all.

You'll be glad to find out that Weaver has updated their old ring design with another that has four screws on the top strap. They are now offering both types. I bought 6 pairs last year and like them better than the old type.