Question on rifle scope mounting: Steel or aluminum base/rings?

I like both steel and aluminum rings/bases. I had aluminum on my Hall action bench 6PPC bench rest rifle and currently have steel on my hunting rifles. The added weight on the hunting rifles is a good thing to me. On the bench rest it's best to put the weight in the barrel and not the rings. Both work fine.
 
And after we mount rings to scope with 8 screws with lots of bearing surface between the two and mount rings to base with 2 grade 8 or Ti crossbolts, then we usually use 4 little 6-48 bolts to hold that ~2 #'s worth of stuff to the action. :)
 
Weaver aluminum bases and those tiny little bolts have held together with Weaver rings for some 4,000 rounds through my '06, these last forty or so years. :)

But ConeTrol rings are much purtier. :D
 
Mtncreek does have a point. However, under recoil I think the only force the base screws need to resist are shear forces. The tensile forces should be negligible. Four #6 machine screws should be able to resist quite a bit of shear, but maybe I'm oversimplifying.

In any case, one of the many things I liked about the old remington 788's was the use of 8-40 screws for the scope bases.
 
Weaver aluminum bases and those tiny little bolts have held together with Weaver rings for some 4,000 rounds through my '06, these last forty or so years.
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But have you ever got disgusted and thrown your rifle? :D
 
Basically, aluminum is lighter. If you hit the gun hard enough to bend or break an aluminum scope mount, the mount will be the least of your worries.
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Brian is correct. I use both kinds. The Talley aluminum one piece mounts are significantly lighter that the typical Leupold base/ring set up. The quality of the aluminum and how it is manufactured make a big difference and DNZ/Talley does theirs first rate. This really matters on a fly weight gun. I am gradually switching all my mounts over to the lighter Talley mounts. They look nicer too IMO.


I think you can see the Talley one piece mounts in this pic.
 
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unless I missed it, I don't think recoil was mentioned... a heavier ring / base puts more stress on the mounting screws during recoil... so provided machining were equal, the lighter weight rings & bases are probably better on big recoiling guns ( unless you are counting on the little extra mass to help cut down on felt recoil ??? ) that said, I have a tendency to prefer one piece steel bases & steel rings, but my preference is only that... "my" preference
 
MtnCreek said:
then we usually use 4 little 6-48 bolts to hold that ~2 #'s worth of stuff to the action.
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Yep... and a lot of folks underestimate the strength of those bolts.

If the metal has a 70,000psi tensile strength (pretty low for steel of any kind that would be in a bolt), the cross sectional area is 0.013872, the sheer strength would be 971 lbs.

So, conservatively, each one of those probably has 500-1000 pounds of shear strength, so 4 gives you at least 2,000 lbs (worst case), 3,884 lbs (as calculated) and maybe 8,000+ lbs (if they're grade 8).

Even if you figure they've only got 200 each, that's 800 pounds shear strength.
 
I have had a lot more problems with guns that were "Pre-drilled and tapped" than with the screws that came with the bases. Once you break through the shell on case hardened receivers, the steel underneath is softer than, and not as tough as the screws. Brownell's does not sell oversize base screws for no reason. There are a lot more problems created from bad D&T jobs than from cheap rings and bases. My first thought when junk rings and bases are mentioned is "See thru" set ups. Now there is junk.
 
...."least of your worries"

Tell you a little story. I lost a scoped rifle recently off the roof of a moving truck. Yeah, I know, pretty stupid. But....the rifle was undamaged...sort of.

A turret cap and the bell of the 6x Leupold seemed to take the lick. The scope, scope bell, itself was OK no damage, but the turret cap was dinged and...the aluminum Weaver base was sort of gull winged and had to be replaced. Had that been a steel base, I'm not sure the scope would have come through OK.

I'm not saying that aluminum bases will save your scope from abuse,.... don't do stupid stuff. But in this instance it worked out for me.

I've got a mix of steel and aluminum on all my rifles, one piece and two piece base, etc....and just try and stay with quality brands and avoid cheapo's.
 
Thanks all for your replies. As I'm thinking through this issue - your comments are extremely helpful.

As I am doing my research on this, I heard that mixing steel and aluminum rings/bases might not be a good idea in this particular context: When hunting in regions with extreme temperatures (i.e., below 0 F, and above 100 F). The problem appears to be differential expansion of aluminum v. steel. So, if you have steel base, and aluminum rings, and they each expand differently, they might come loose... Is there any truth to that? Sounds logical. But, does this have any tangible real-world effects (as opposed to theoretically possible effects)?
 
I don't have any knowledge of that being a problem, but that's not to say there isn't truth to it.

You're going to transition from steel to aluminum at some point (assuming aluminum scope tube). I have several mix / match setup; I'll swap scopes around when I get a new scope or rifle. I have a set of aluminum Leopold rings on a Nightforce steel base. I have steel Nightforce rings on an aluminum EGW base. All are torqued to spec and installed w/ blue loc-tight. The only changes I've seen in extreme temps (20* to 95*) have been normal POI changes that you would expect due to conditions.
 
ezmiraldo said:
Thanks all for your replies. As I'm thinking through this issue - your comments are extremely helpful.



As I am doing my research on this, I heard that mixing steel and aluminum rings/bases might not be a good idea in this particular context: When hunting in regions with extreme temperatures (i.e., below 0 F, and above 100 F). The problem appears to be differential expansion of aluminum v. steel. So, if you have steel base, and aluminum rings, and they each expand differently, they might come loose... Is there any truth to that? Sounds logical. But, does this have any tangible real-world effects (as opposed to theoretically possible effects)?
Click to expand...


Well, depending on the type of steel, the expansion rate is around 0.0000073" in/in per degree F, aluminum is 0.0000126". That's a difference of 0.000005"/dg. So, a 100dg difference would be 0.0005"/in.

Considering that you're going to be tightening them at 70F, or so, you're not going to see anything close to a 100F swing from "tight" unless you hunt between -30 and 170.
 
I look to the mounting "rail" to do two things on my rifles. Obviously to hold the scope on the rifle is it's primary mission but I see a secondary mission, to stiffen the action itself.

The .308 I built solely for accuracy at long distances is first bedded in an aluminum action block even though no needed. I want the action to be solid and a skim bedding of Devcon does the job. That only 'stiffens' one side of the action so now I mount a Steel Picatinney Rail (from Ken Farrell) that I've re-drilled and counter-bored for #8-40 mounting screws. When mounting the I bed it in devcon, only applying parting agent to the screws and inside of the mounting holes. The rest of the rail, as well as the top of the action has been bead blasted and left unfinished. (I paint the rifle with duracoat when all is finished) The rail then bonded to the action with Devcon with the screws only finger tight and the scope/ring assembly installed/torqued to the rail. A piece or two of surgical tubing holds the rail in place while the devcon cures. Mounting the scope (a NF) on the rail holds the rail straight and doesn't let it "follow" the irregular surface of the action which may or may not be "tweaked" from the manufacturing process.

When the Devcon has cured at least 24 hours I remove the scope/rings and then torque the rail mount screws.

This gives me a piece of steel across the top of the action that adds to the rigidity and helps support the heavy varmint profile barrel.

This rifle shoots sub 1/4 MOA, day in, day out. Thursday's range session yielded a 300 Yard, 5 Shot group, of .779" (.248 MOA) with an "Average to Center" of .084"

This isn't a "Bench Rest Rifle", just a Remington on a B&C Stock I shoot from a bipod.
 
I agree with using a 1 piece to stiffen the action. I don't think it does much (or that much is needed) but it's certainly stronger than the "air" that's there otherwise.:D

However, I don't think the difference between aluminium one piece and steel makes any difference worth noting. We're already talking about immeasurable quantities. At most, it's "immeasurable" versus "slightly more or less immeasurable."
 
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