Arriving home Tuesday night after Susan recovered me from a local McDonald’s after my failure to complete a bicycle ride from the terminal, to the apartment I was greeted by three slobbering dogs, and a dining room table of stuff.
As I sat on the couch admiring the ammunition that was part of the pile I could feel the pain in my shoulder already. But that is a later discussion.
Also the scope mount and snap caps were waiting for my attention.
The next day after taking care of a few things I started with mounting the Wyatt’s DETMAG bottom metal, and five round magazine. I was pleasantly surprised when the parts matched up without any problems. The original stock that this magazine system was mounted on required several hours of fitting before it would work right.
I tested the functionality with the snap caps and it seemed to be working well, so I started on mounting the Weaver 20 MOA scope base.
I cleaned the screw holes, then mounted the mount. First I applied a small drop of gun tight to the new screws then torqued them to 50 inch pounds of pressure. This is where I may have some trouble in the future as the two center screws were wanting to round out. Because of this I did not torque them to the full 50 inch pounds. At some later date the offending screws will be replaced.
The next step was to mount the scope.
This was a pretty easy task because the Weaver base mount is a rail type that has become a common design feature on all types of firearms in this day and age. We are the better for it also. The scope is already mounted in a detachable mount that is designed for use on AR15 rifles using the same rail mount system.
This presents a couple of problems, the most notable is the height of the mount. This causes a poor cheek weld or maybe I should say chin weld. This will be rectified with a more traditional set of mounts in the near future.
The scope is a SWFA SS 10x that I have been using for about 18 months. It has a Mil-Quad (Mil-Dot) reticle and the adjustment knobs are calibrated in 1/10 Mil increments.
The cost of this scope at this time depending on the model is anywhere between $300.00 and $400.00 dollars. The fact that it is a fixed 10 power allows the manufacturer to put more resources into the ruggedness and quality of the adjustment knobs, and internal parts making it possible for a new shooter to get into a scope capable of fast adjustments and corrections without having to get a bank loan.
A U.S. Optics fixed 10x will start at around the $1,200.00 mark.
I used a set of levels specifically designed for the task of squaring the scope reticle with the center of the bore, then tighten the mounting screws to 20 inch pounds.
All of this took about two hours, having some experience doing these task before allowed me to quickly move through the needed steps, but the most important tool is just that, tools, having the correct tools, and a little bit of experience using them make the job at hand more enjoyable.
More to come soon.
Rollis' 300 RUM 