Texas Chinook
Member
You need to set your scope in the ringmount without the top ring & turn the "windage" screws in conjunction with the clamp screws until you get the scope centered on both rings so it slides back & forth without resistance & it is also fairly center with the barrel. You do this by turning both the windage screws & the clamp screws to properly align things.
Thanks and sorry for the long response time.
The rings I acquired were used and taken from a similar Sako as my Forester. I really thought I could just set them on and go. But, of course, they may not have been installed properly by the previous owner.
I've now discovered that the rings are very close to being aligned but not quite along my barrel's axis. I say "very close" because when I clamped the rings firmly in their approximate positions and lay the scope in the bottom halves, the scope could rotate with no detectable binding. But... when the top ring halves were loosely tightened, the scope would no longer rotate. When I loosened one of the clamp screws (freeing side-to-side movement between the two rings), scope rotation became easier. So close but not perfect.
I found the small shift in scope rings and barrel axis using a SiteLite laser. I first centered the vertical reticle in the scope using the scope's adjustments and then measured the scope offset with the SiteLite. It's probably close enough to sight in with the scope's adjustment screws but since the Sako rings allow for base windage adjustment, I may as well use them.
Question: If I loosen both clamp screws and then tighten the ring screws (allowing the rings to be seated in perfect alignment) and then tighten the clamp screws, will the risks to the scope be mitigated?