Xtreme Hardcore Rail

[WildRose]

Can't you use a Bushnell bore-mounted style bore-sighter with the grid and adjust your crosshairs up and down to see if they are aligned? Level the rifle, level the scope, and then check side travel with the grid on your boresighter...That's what I do. Works great for me.

Yes. Just set the rifle in the stand and get it level then rotate the scope and grid till they are in perfect alignment and you are good to go.

 

[MudRunner2005]

Yes. Just set the rifle in the stand and get it level then rotate the scope and grid till they are in perfect alignment and you are good to go.

That's what I was thinking...

 

[WildRose]

If the fella holding the rifle was to cant the rifle a little more as it looks to me the scope would be in perfect alignment with the bore and would shoot perfectly. Aligning the bore with the reticle is not brain surgery!

How come the picture did not come with the quote????

This really is a pretty simple process.

Set the rifle up. Level It. It really makes little difference if you level off of the raceway, the top of the receiver, or the top of the rail.

The whole purpose is using a level is to plum your vertical crosshair so that your elevation adjustments will always be true along the same vertical axis.

If one is convinced the leveling off of the raceway is the only way to go when setting up a rifle fine, do so. The end result will be the same either way.

All you are doing by boresighting to start with is to hopefully get your scope centered left to right before you waste a bunch of rounds down range in attempting to do so.

Even with a laser boresighter though it will be incredibly rate to get it exactly right from the beginning especially if you don't account for the height of your vertical crosshair above the bore such that your crosshair is centered about 1"-2" depending on your scope and mounting system above the point at which the laser is hitting the target.

With a system like the one I posted this thread about if you had an obvious error in level upon mounting you'd figure it out right fast because it would be impossible to get that level to match up with your raceway level which in the end could save you some serious aggravation later anyhow.

Either way if the top of your rail is not level due to eccentricities in either it's milling or that of the receiver you probably want to figure it out so you can correct for it. Without leveling off of the top of the rail you won't know that error is even there unless it's a gross error to begin with which you'll notice when tightening down the base anyhow.

 

[kcebcj]

Originally Posted by kcebcj
If the fella holding the rifle was to cant the rifle a little more as it looks to me the scope would be in perfect alignment with the bore and would shoot perfectly. Aligning the bore with the reticle is not brain surgery!

This really is a pretty simple process.

Set the rifle up. Level It. It really makes little difference if you level off of the raceway, the top of the receiver, or the top of the rail.

The whole purpose is using a level is to plum your vertical crosshair so that your elevation adjustments will always be true along the same vertical axis.

If one is convinced the leveling off of the raceway is the only way to go when setting up a rifle fine, do so. The end result will be the same either way.

All you are doing by boresighting to start with is to hopefully get your scope centered left to right before you waste a bunch of rounds down range in attempting to do so.

Even with a laser boresighter though it will be incredibly rate to get it exactly right from the beginning especially if you don't account for the height of your vertical crosshair above the bore such that your crosshair is centered about 1"-2" depending on your scope and mounting system above the point at which the laser is hitting the target.

With a system like the one I posted this thread about if you had an obvious error in level upon mounting you'd figure it out right fast because it would be impossible to get that level to match up with your raceway level which in the end could save you some serious aggravation later anyhow.

Either way if the top of your rail is not level due to eccentricities in either it's milling or that of the receiver you probably want to figure it out so you can correct for it. Without leveling off of the top of the rail you won't know that error is even there unless it's a gross error to begin with which you'll notice when tightening down the base anyhow.

I don't understand why you quoted me. I was just commenting on Montana Rifleman's post of the picture with the scope offset and agreeing with him. The point he was trying to make was correct.

If you misunderstood my post and were attempting to explain how to align a scope and a rifle thank you but have been doing just that for quite a long time with precision. Both you and Montana are correct in you process just have different ways of getting there and mine is just a little different yet.

If the rail is properly installed (bedded) using a mill and a dial indicator for precision then the level in the rail shown in your original post would be perfect and that is what Montana Rifleman was getting at I think. In my experience **** few receivers are perfect so any quality rail should be bedded then aligning the scope is a walk in the park.

 

[WildRose]

I don't understand why you quoted me. I was just commenting on Montana Rifleman's post of the picture with the scope offset and agreeing with him. The point he was trying to make was correct.

If you misunderstood my post and were attempting to explain how to align a scope and a rifle thank you but have been doing just that for quite a long time with precision. Both you and Montana are correct in you process just have different ways of getting there and mine is just a little different yet.

If the rail is properly installed (bedded) using a mill and a dial indicator for precision then the level in the rail shown in your original post would be perfect and that is what Montana Rifleman was getting at I think. In my experience **** few receivers are perfect so any quality rail should be bedded then aligning the scope is a walk in the park.

I was playing off of your lead. See your last sentence and then read my first.

My point is, we are making this sound a hell of a lot more complicated than it really is.

Level is level, square is square, and plum is plum. You need one point of reference to start with and you square and level off of it.

MR's question pointed out the simplicity.

Level the rifle, and use a borescope with a collimator checkerboard pattern then rotate the scope and collimator/target from opposite directions till they are perfectly aligned in the vertical plane and you are off and running in about two minutes.

You can easily then check for plum and square with whatever leveling system one chooses by placing the crosshair on a plum line and checking to ensure the level shows level. If it does you are done.

Like you said it ain't brain surgery.

 

[FEENIX]

Both you and Montana are correct in you process just have different ways of getting there and mine is just a little different yet.

Just quoting you in agreement! gun)

Cheers!

 

[MontanaRifleman]

I don't understand why you quoted me. I was just commenting on Montana Rifleman's post of the picture with the scope offset and agreeing with him. The point he was trying to make was correct.

If you misunderstood my post and were attempting to explain how to align a scope and a rifle thank you but have been doing just that for quite a long time with precision. Both you and Montana are correct in you process just have different ways of getting there and mine is just a little different yet.

If the rail is properly installed (bedded) using a mill and a dial indicator for precision then the level in the rail shown in your original post would be perfect and that is what Montana Rifleman was getting at I think. In my experience **** few receivers are perfect so any quality rail should be bedded then aligning the scope is a walk in the park.

What I was getting at is that in order for this in-rail level to work correctly, the receiver and rail need to be machined and drilled perfectly and the bubble tube itself installed correctly. I'm not sure how one could bed the rail properly without the scope already installed and aligned to the bore. Aligning the scope to the bore is step 1. Adjusting the level so it plumbs the scope is step 2.

Like I said in my first post, it's a great idea.... but the devil is in the details.

 

[MontanaRifleman]

The more I think about this.... If you mounted the rail and then plumbed the scope to a plumb line with the rail level reading level, that would probably work OK. The reticle wouldn't necessarily be perfectly aligned to the bore but it would probably be close enough to work.

 

[kcebcj]

You know this subject keeps bubbling up and it's really hard to make a point just posting. Someone (rifle smith) should make a video starting right at the receiver showing the process all the way up to installing the scope.

Great thread!

 

[WildRose]

What I was getting at is that in order for this in-rail level to work correctly, the receiver and rail need to be machined and drilled perfectly and the bubble tube itself installed correctly. I'm not sure how one could bed the rail properly without the scope already installed and aligned to the bore. Aligning the scope to the bore is step 1. Adjusting the level so it plumbs the scope is step 2.

Like I said in my first post, it's a great idea.... but the devil is in the details.

How would one go about installing a rail with the scope already mounted to it?

 

[MontanaRifleman]

How would one go about installing a rail with the scope already mounted to it?

That was my point. That said, I think the way I described in the next post (#36) would work.