My scope will not go high enough!

[docone31]

Frustrating,
A few years ago, I had these two rifles built by a reputable gunsmith. Phooey.
They took three years to chamber, and cost over 3 grand each. They were supposed to be the rifles my wife and I could go to the range with.
Well, my scope will not go high enough by a long shot. I run out of adjustment and are still three feet low at 100yds.
This is not to mention, the bolt needs to be reshaped, and I have to slam the bolt down to chamber. They are miserable.
They are chambered in .243 and should be very accurate.
I am suspecting the stock is misaligned. It is a Culbertson that the gunsmith cut the barrel channel completely out of. The barrel and stock look completely misaligned.
My thoughts are,
The misalignment of the stock and action is the culprit on the scope. The heel of the recoil pad is above the center line of the bore.
I am thinking of rebedding the action. It is so far off it is sad that someone who proclaims to be that level of professional could do such junk work.
He spelled my name wrong on the barrel!
I had asked for DOC, He spelled it DOD.
My issue is the alignment. With the front lense of the scope that far off, would rebedding the rifle accomplish anything?
I am thinking I am looking down into the scope rather than through the scope.
It is that far off.
Any help or even thoughts would be appreciated on this.

[bhn22]

It kind of sounds like you have mismatched front & rear scope blocks and/or rings. I'm assuming you have 2 piece bases. Have you checked your ring alignment?

[docone31]

It is an one piece base. Leopold style.
I checked the rings. Even though they came from the package, mistakes do happen.
They both measure the same from the bottom of the ring base to the inside of the bottom of the base to the scope.
A lot of these bases on military conversions, the rear charger mill does make a poor fit sometimes. Some people add .012 to the rear screw mount. I am thinking though, it would make the scope go to the low, rather than the high.

[tomme boy]

What action was this built on? One thing that would help is to get a set of Burris Zee Signiture rings. They have inserts that can be changed to give you more offset to help zero the scope. You will have to get the offsets seperatly. They come in 5min, 10min, an 20min. If that does not work, you should be able to get a EGW one piece base in 20min. And with the rings, you can get up to 40 min of extra adjustment.

[Rick459]

scroll down

http://www.abousainc.com/SightIn.htm

[docone31]

This is on a large ring 98 action.
This is the same base I have built on before. Same base, same rings, same everything.
This time though, it is a mess.
I am wondering, if I rebed the action, if I raise the rear, possibly my cheek weld will be closer to the center. Or If I drop the front of the action. Same thing mostly.
I have never experienced such mickey mouse **** work before. At least the chamber is good.
I made a match pair. His, and Hers.
What a mistake.

[tomme boy]

The bedding is not going to change anything. If this is a military action, the EGW mount will not work. Try this, loosen up the rear of the mount and see if there is a gap between the mount and the action. If there is a gap under this you could put a shim on the rear and tighten it back down.

What kind of scope? Some scopes just do not have enough adjustment to work right.

[scb]

3 feet low at 100 sounds like more than a bedding problem to me. Hopefully I'm wrong.

[docone31]

I did find several issues on a relook.
There is a pull down at the rear of the reciever. I shimmed the rear to make it "natural". On reading the comments on this mount and reciever on the Midway site, that is not uncommon.
I have also shimmed the front ring. I used card stock.
When I first put the scope on, and to use, I could see a shadow of the globe front sight. That indicated it was pointing down inrelation to the muzzle. The bedding issue is where the barrel is out of line in regards to the cheek weld. Frankly, it is miserable.
With the adjustments I have done, especially the rear of the mount, Tomorrow I will bore sight the scope.
The rear of the mount took three layers of business card stock to take the flex out of it.
If this works, then I will do my wife's scope.
The alignment of the barrel, and stock is another issue.
Wow, I paid a lot to have this, this far off.

[tomme boy]

You are going to need to shim the rear ring to get it on. If you shim the front it will lower the point of impact more. You bring the cross hairs to where the bullet hit. Be very careful on how much you shim. It can bind up the scope and dent the tube.

[6.5 mike]

Hi Doc, try putting your action in the other stock , minus bolt, & see if the alinement is the same or raises the action in the front. Some pics would be a real help. Another thought, are the stocks marked to the s/n's of the rifles ? Might be in the wrong stocks if they where done together. mike

[docone31]

Hey Mike, welcome dirtside.
I have tried relieving the bedding around the action, so it eases into the stock. I have dropped the muzzle down an inch at least. The other stock is also buried in the mess here. I have no way to get to it yet. I am building a new shop for our business.
It seems like, when I raised the front of the scope, It brought the POI up. I have also raised the rear of the base with shim stock. .012. That took the "wiggle" out of the base. Now it is aligned with the reciever.
Man, this rifle has been a saga. The dies were hard to get used to. They are collet dies. The first batch of 100, the bullet was loose. One dropped into the case. I got them adjusted now, and I will load another batch for the range on Tuesday.
I can though, switch from the Lyman #57 reciever sight to scope. I had the barrel milled for a front globe sight. My eyes like scopes now though. I used to like reciever sights.
What a trip it has been.

[Larry Gibson]

It is an one piece base. Leopold style.

I've D&T'd a lot of Mausers and put Leupold and Redfield one piece bases on them. These have been SR and LR Mausers. You've had to use 3 thicknesses of business card to keep the rear of the base from bending down(?) so that imediately tells me the base is incorrect for the action. Is it possible you have a SR base instead of the LR base? Putting a SR base on a LR action will cause the exact condition you describe. Also, is it a Redfield or a Leupold base? If it is for the LR Mauser is it for the M98 or the commercial action? Did you or the gunsmith put the base on?

All indications are that the base is obviously not correct. As mentioned changing the bedding is not going to change the alignment of the scope to the barrel/receiver. You have to change the base for that. Pictures would indeed help.

Larry Gibson

[docone31]

I put the base on. When I took it out of the package, it said large ring Mauser.
If I had one that was mis packaged, I could see that, but not both. My other reciever, done in .308, the base and scope went right on.
I am going to approach this as a mis base. The D&T of the three screws is good, but the back needs to be shimmed. If that works, I will consider changeing bases.
It looks like the charger bar is contacting the base.
The bedding, made it so looking through the scope, you looked through the top of the rear lense, then the bottom of the front lense. I am going to do a lot of work here.
I am thinking a new stock might be in order.
It has been discouraging.

[6.5 mike]

Naw, I'm still on the boat. The newer lepould 1 pc bases are recessed to go over the charger lips. Think I remember you saying these where built on vz-24 actions, I know the base clears on them, tried it on one of mine. Talk at you wensday when I get to the house.
I think Larry may be telling you right, I know there is a big difference between a s/r & a l/r on the back ring. It would not be the first time something got mismarked by the maker.

[tomme boy]

Did the GS mill off the rear charging guide? If he did, then maybe he milled too much off the whole rear bridge. I have done a few of these myself and all needed to be shimed on the front or the rear. This is just part of the build when doing a Mauser. Buy the rings I told you to and it will take care of the problem. Buy taking out the bedding you might be actually putting more stress on the action and making thing even worse. And it also sounds like your rings are too low if you are having a problem with the comb on the stock being too high. Post up some pics of the bedding and the scope and mounts an rings.

[docone31]

Hokay.
New day.
I tried the scope after making adjustments. Dropping the reciver into the stock makes the cheek weld a little better. Not great, but better. I rebedded the action so it is "square" to the stock. The scope mount, I shimmed the rear. I took the forward two screws, torqued them down, and put in the shim stock. The charger rail recquires three pieces of card stock to keep it inline. I then put one piece of card stock under the front of the scope in the ring.
On bore sighting it, The scope is on, with plenty of adjustment both up and down.
Off to the range tomorrow to fire it.
I believe, when money allows, I will get new mounts, rings, and do this again. I am not sure what the GS did, but it is not "clean" like I prefer it.
The rings I have now are High rings. I need them to clear the bolt after it has been bent.
My .308 reciever, I got a new bolt that had a turned down bolt with knurled knob.
I have had no issues with that rifle other than it shoots great. The stock I have is the Fagen Varmint barrel stock. Great stock, fits well. Only recquired JB Weld for bedding in the forward area.
These two rifles have been a real challenge, and disappointment.
Maybe now, we can use them.

[hiram]

Reverse the rings. Front to back and back to front.

That might solve it or at least help.

[docone31]

That won't work.
They are for a Leopold mount. If they were Weaver that might work.
I definately appreciate all the help here.
I have learned a lot!
Thanks guys.

[CJR]

Docone31,

After building a number of rifles on Mauser 98 actions, here's what I've evolved to. I don't use Leupold 3 screw, adjustable windage bases anymore. They are now apparently made of MIM and I've had a number of recent bases deform. My earlier made Leupold bases never deformed. In addition, on heavy recoiling rifles the rear screw always loosened up no matter how tight the screws were torqued and Locktited. My actions were flexing during recoil and since the Leupold bases are on the thin side, they provided no flexural stiffness to the action. There is literature available that describes how an action was stiffened up significantly by carefully silver-soldering bases to the action rings. I've gone to the well-made 4-screw steel Farrell Picatinny bases which stiffen up the action on the top side. Likewise, I now drop the actions into Bell & Carlson stocks, with factory imbedded aluminum bedding blocks, which also stiffen the action from the bottom side. For heavy recoiling rifles, I go to 8-40 screws. The Picatinnys are also available with various built-in MOA for long range shooting. I tried Burris rings with the plastic inserts. But I know that plastic eventually cold flows and will change slightly and I didn't want that. So I went to steel TPS Picatinny rings.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,

CJR

[docone31]

I just got back from the range with my wife!
Yeppir, I got it down pat.
I shimmed the rear, and that was the issue. I did not want to deflect the base, so I did not mill the charger guide slot. I got it within 3 shots after bore sighting it. The rest of the day was refineing it. I still have some to go, but I can hit a cigarette butt at 100yds. Much better than not being able to get the scope close.
Again, My thanks to everyone. Everthing has been helpful. I always fashioned the scope base as a stiffener, but never ran into this untill now.
Thanks everyone!
Made my day.
Oh, and my wife hit the upright using an identical rifle with Lyman #17 front sight, and #57 rear sight. My rifle is also set up to use that rig.
All I have to do is remove the scope, and set down the reciever sight.
Dual purpose.

[tomme boy]

Glad you got it figured out. It is very upsetting when you pay someone with hard earned money and they mess things up.

[docone31]

It was very upsetting.
My wife was a die hard Liberal from Los Angeles. This was to be her entry into what we do.
She had gotten a pistol out there as she had been really harmed in a violent attack. When I met and later married her, I checked her pistol. It was a 686 with 4" Barrel. They gave her .44spl ammo for it!
No worries on fighting back there.
So with that behind her, these rifles were our gift to ourselves, and recreation for safe/involved shooting in the sport for what it is. A challenge. We target shoot.
While these were being messed up, I got her a G-63 Swede in 7.62.
Well, that is her favourite. She just tears up the range with that. I love watching an old lady trouncing the pants off Mall Ninjas! They go home, and she is still firing!
It all worked out.
We came back today, and she had a lot of .308, and .30-06 brass. She has people walk up to her and drop it off.
I am not too proud of her.
Thanks for all the help.
I saved some, and used some.
We got it done.