Hi guys I have just put a Leupold 2-7 VXII on my .416 rigby. Today when I attempted to sight it in, I ran out of adjustment hight wise, with my 410 grain loads hitting 5-6 inches low at 50 meters and my 340 grain loads being about 3 inches low at the same distance. Is there anything I can do to fix this? I am useing warn QD rings, and the previous scope (a B&L 1.5 - 6) had plenty of adjustment but just not enough eye relief.
Hope sombody can help
Cheers
Steve

You need to shim the rear mount. A thin brass shim, or a couple cut from a soft drink can (know you Aussies don't drink beer down there, so doubt if you can find any empty beer cans! :p ) slipped under the mount will help with your problem. You should really use a ring lapping tool to assure the new alignment between the rings won't damage the scope body after doing this.

Re-center the elevation adjustment and if possible, bore sight and add shims until the coarse ajdustment is made. Use the elevation adjustment for fine tuning.

Start your zeroing at 25 yds or meters and get dead center prior to moving out to further ranges.

If you can't find the right thickness cans, here's some shims from Brownell's.

http://www.brownells.com/aspx/NS/store/ProductDetail.aspx?p=6883&title=HART%20SCOPE%20BASE%20SHIMS

Hi guys, I dont know if you are familiar with the CZ 550 safri magnum, but it does not have screwed on mounts like a rem 700, but uses claw mounts. Am I still able to shim with these?
Thanks for the help
Steve

Ah the 550 with it's built in scope base mounts, that's a different story. You can still shim between the mount that doesn't have the recoil lug to some extent and the scope base, but it's not near as easy as rifles with separate bases. You usually can get brass shim stock at most auto-parts stores in different thickness's and just cut to fit between the base and the ring.

You can also use some pieces in the bottom of one ring or the other between the ring and the scope. Just use a piece that is the same width as the ring and cut long enough to fit about half the ring width. You have to be careful doing this as it can place some stress on the scope as any type of shimming can that make rings out of line. You can't lap a set of rings when you shim in the scope rings, but the brass stock does have some give if stacked so that helps and it comes in measured sizes so it can be consistant, each piece giving so much elevation. I've done this to gain windage also on not windage adjustable scope rings.

Would substituting different rings help me? These rings are the QD type, and they are quite high? If I get a set of lower mounts would this help? I am not sure about shimming as I have never done it before, will they stand up to the recoil of the big .416 rigby?
Cheers
Steve

Yes, you should mount the lowest rings possible on the rifle. Bringing the two centerlines (bore and scope) as close to one another as possible will greatly benefit your adjustment range for elevation.

Hi faucettb, I am onto a lower set of rings for the rifle, so I am hopping this will help with the problem.
Cheers
Steve

Steve see if Burris makes a set of rings for your rifle. They have plastic shims that go in the rings designed to correct for windage and elevation problems. I'm just not sure they make a set for the CZ 550.

burris does not make their 'signature' rings for the 550 action. i use a set of their 'solid steel' rings, low, on a rifle with a 550 action and they are solid and true.
not sure i would want to shim a scope mounted on a 416 rigby, think i would start looking at different mounts.

My thoughts exactly Richard. Be best if you could get away from the shimming, at least shimming in the scope rings. That kind of recoil really needs the best contact between the rings and the scope you can get and I'd also recommend lapping the scope rings for best contact along with a little lock tight bearing lock applied in the rings.

Once again guys thanks for the replys. I have lapped the scope rings as I do on all my rifles, but I dont use loctite I use a small amount of black silicone. I will look up the burris "solid steel" mounts and see if I cant get a set here in Oz. I have as am experiment shimmed the base of my mounts and that has given me some extra hight, just dont know if it will be enough, I'll see today though
Thanks for the help
Steve

Well my very scientific experiment ( three sheets of aluminium can) as a shim worked well enough that I am now dead on at 50, which should put me somwhere around dead on at 100 and roughly 4.5 inches low at 200, with 340 grain bullets at 2800 fps.
Steve

Hi guys, well the experiment worked, in that three sheets of aluminium can wall enabled me to be dead on at 50 meters. This puts my 340 grain load dead on at 100 and 4.5 inches low at 200, which is plenty flat enough for a .416 rigby anyhow. I will try and find some burris mounts (I'm in Oz and I dont think they have a dealer here) so that my fix will be permanent.
cheers
Steve

Fellas,
I need your help for a similar problem that I'm having. I mounted up a Burris 4-12x Laser scope on a Rem 700 243 this evening. I inserted the collimater/boresighter and windage was about right on, but crosshairs were positioned quite high, off the grid, elevation-wise. Cranking the elevation adjustment down revealed not enough adjustment in the scope to get to center position on the grid.

I'd seen this thread, and thought of shims; it's not a hard kicker, so I'm not worried about that aspect. There are no rings with this scope, only Weaver-style clamps that clamp the scope rail to the weaver base mounts, so, I can't shim in rings. Shimming under one base seems to be my option.

I loosened the clamps to allow upward movement of each end of the scope, and lifting the rear of the scope brought the crosshairs down towards the grid center. I read through this thread, and what confuses me is that Aussie steve's bullets were printing low and kdub advised to shim the rear base, which intuitively seems backward if my crosshairs are high, which would print bullets high on the target. Yet it seems both of us should be shimming the rear. Or am I confusing bullet placement with crosshair position in our two situations? Or some reverse triple-lindy optical illusion in the collimater boresighter? Shimming under the rear mount seems like the right action, but now I'm not sure, and could use your advice.

Also, do beer can shims seem to work fine for everyone that has used them? Or should I go for "real" shims?

First of all Shawn, do you have a one, or a two piece mount?

First of all Shawn, do you have a one, or a two piece mount?

Two-piece aluminum.

Edit: Hmmm, I'm thinking that's not the best answer of the two, is it? Two different bases being out of plane alignment, where you would still be in plane alignment with a one piece base even if you did shim. Am I looking at a new one-piece base?

shawn you're correct in thinking shimming one of a two piece system will misallign them. faucettb entered a post earlier suggesting the burris signature rings and i second that. they offer them for weaver style bases.
i've never been a big fan of shimming or one piece bases!

Thx Richard and kdub.

Wish the scope could take the Burris rings, but it can't.
http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z210/shwncrea/100_0143.jpg
I think I'll get a new one-piece base. I kind of planned to do that from the start, but then remembered I had several Weaver base sets from past used gun purchases, but all two-piece. Thought I was going to get off cheap! Guess I still can if I buy an aluminum one for under $15. But I kind of like the idea of gun metal and mount metal having somewhat equal thermal expansion rates. The new base may eliminate the problem of getting the crosshairs to the grid center, without the need for shimming.

You would be best using a one-piece for shimming purposes, Shawn.

Racked my feeble brain trying to come up with a way to shim the two-piece, but then you would need something to lap them to assure proper height alignment. Don't know how much stress the body of that new laser scope can take without screwing it up.

burris 'signature' rings will most definately not work with that setup!

Well kdub, I would not have wanted to 'customize' the two-piece bases. Don't know if Remington has modified their relative front and rear action elevations from the early years (from which the two-piece base probably came from), but a new one-piece Weaver aluminum base has solved the 'getting the crosshairs on the grid' problem, with plenty of adjustment left in the scope. Wanted a steel base, but Sportsmen's didn't have it. That's probably OK; they've been working for years, apparently! Thx for the help everyone. Have yet to shoot this setup....