Scope shimming advice on Rem 223 varmint

[Wallowa Hunter]

Scope shimming is something I have never had to do. Always been lucky I guess.

Last week I found a mint mid 60's Remington 700 .223 with a 24" heavy varmint barrel, with a mint Redfield 6-18x. I paid $450 for the whole shabang and it came with the original box and box and paper work for the scope. Looks like the rings are medium height.

Took it out last night and noticed the windage adjustment was all the way over to the left on the scope. Seeing it has a Redfield base's on it I adjusted the rear windage screws and centered the windage adjustement dial on the scope. It was now on the paper at 100 yards.

Somebody must not have known that the rear base was for windage adjustment, and the scope dial was for the fine tuning!

Soo after tuning in the windage and getting it on the paper, I start to deal with the 6" high at 100 yards problem. I thought all I had to do is run the elevation dial down a little and the bullet impact would come right down.
WRONG

The elevation dial was cranked within 2 clicks of being bottomed out. So dialing down the elevation is not going to work. The scope is functioning fine, I move it a couple clicks one way and the other and it tracks perfectly!

I have not removed the rings yet, to see if there is a difference of height from the front and back scope base? Will do tonight.....

Do you guys think it is possible to shim up the front base to bring the bullet impact down 6"? Plus that would be to get it right where I am aiming, next I need to center the dial which is still 2 clicks from being bottomed out, so I would imagine I would want to shim it up a little more so I have more than 2 clicks of adjustment..........

What do you all think I should do here? Would a different height of rings help me out?

Maybe I am backwards in my thinking? A low from would cause the bullet impact to be high? Or am I backwards???

I was laying awake all night wondering about this, It's almost like having a sick kid....I just want to make it better!!



Thanks much for any input!!


Wallowa Hunter

[NesikaChad]

Yeah, just raise the front of the scope and that'll get the point of impact down.

How much can be whittled down a couple ways. Guess and lots of trial and error, or get a caliper, take some numbers, and do a little Trig.

Somewhere in my head says that .005" is about a minute at 100 yards but I may be full of doo doo on that one. I don't know for sure.

Another option is just sand the base on the rear. Pull everything off the action and then stretch a piece of emery cloth over the rear part of the receiver.

Take the base and using a forward and back motion, sand the base some and then try it to see where you end up. I'd start with 120 grit for rapid stock removal. Kroil or WD40 will help float the chips to keep paper from loading up.

This will be the most labor intensive measure, but it avoids adding parts to the sight system and offers the most cosmetically clean appearance afterward if done with a little care. I like simple with fewest parts needed approaches myself. If you go this route, be sure to check your screws to ensure they don't blow through the action and hang up on the bolt.

Either way, good luck.

Chad