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for the tl;dr folks...
cliffs notes: i got a sa 4th gen steel scope mount, it didn't work, now I'm sad.
Well I got a 4th gen steel scope mount from springfield a couple weeks ago. I figured I'd give my review of it. The setup was a 3-9x Burris Fullfield II on Burris XTR 1" low rings, on my springfield m1a scout.
Installing the mount on the rifle wasn't too difficult and the mount seems fairly well made and solid. It came in a nice hard plastic case with some foam inside, and included the necessary hex wrenches to tighten down the set screws as well as the dovetail insert and decent install instructions.
That's about where the good ends.
On the inside of the mount that mates with the reciever there is no material to fit into the slot at the bottom of the receiver, it is perfectly flat. It does appear that there once was a key on the mount that would fit the slot but it was milled off, as you can see the markings. That seemed odd to me but I figured I have the mount here I may as well try it out.
The mount attaches to the reciever with a cam and bolt on the side, and with a dovetail insert that goes into the stripper clip guide. There is also a post at the front that you lower down to the top of the reciever and a set screw to hold that post in place.
Upon mounting it I found the mount was canted, visibly pointing to the left. I had a 2.5 foot long piece of straight steel rod that sat nicely on the mount and when I ran it along the mount up to the front sight the front of the steel rod was between 1/16" to 1/8" to the left on the center post on the front sight.
I also tossed one of those cheap lasers that you put down the barrel to see how that looked, not expecting prefect accuracy but just to judge it. Just across the room, maybe 20 feet or so, the laser was 3" low and right from center point.
I did take it all apart and try to remount everything thinking maybe I F'd it up. At this point I noticed when I tighten down the set screw to hold the dovetail in place the mount canted to the left more as I tightened it. It was pretty close to perfectly straight when that wasn't tightened down.
Well got it all back together and the results looked about the same so I wasn't expecting much but took it out to the range.
I decided to start by shooting on the 50 yard line to see if I was even on paper. The entire time I shoot 60 rounds of Hornady 168g ammo which I already knew my rifle shoots fairly well when I have a burris 2.75x scount scope up on the scout mount.
As expected I was way way low and right, probably 9-10" both ways. After about 20 or 30 rounds I was able to get my elevation dialed in but was still a few inches right. I took a break to change targets, smoke a cigarette, and let the gun cool down a little.
Before shooting my 2nd string I clicked out my windage a few more times and fire 2 perfect shots and was starting to get really pleased. Then my next 4 rounds were all 6" low and a little right again. I'm not a great shot btw and my eyesight is terrible, so I thought maybe it was just me but I dialed up my elevation knob some more and started bring the bullets up over the next 10 or so rounds.
Thats when i ran out of elevation adjustment and still was shooting a bit low and right. After doing some investigating I noticed the front post on the mount that touches the top of the reciever now has a 1/8" gap or so. It was no longer touching the reciever. Apparently the mount tilted up.
It wasn't lose or wobbly, it just seemed to move up a bit. I didn't have a torque wrench or tools with me but the bolt is only supposed to be tighted to 2.5lbs, so I'm guessing it losened a bit.
I'm definatly a bit of a noob to this stuff. it's entirely possible i did something, or many things wrong. but it's not exactly rocket science so I'm not sure. I am probably just going to pull it off the rifle and see about sending it back to springfield and putting the scout scope back on. 2.75x magnification wasn't really enough for my bad eyes but atleast it worked.
cliffs notes: i got a sa 4th gen steel scope mount, it didn't work, now I'm sad.
Well I got a 4th gen steel scope mount from springfield a couple weeks ago. I figured I'd give my review of it. The setup was a 3-9x Burris Fullfield II on Burris XTR 1" low rings, on my springfield m1a scout.
Installing the mount on the rifle wasn't too difficult and the mount seems fairly well made and solid. It came in a nice hard plastic case with some foam inside, and included the necessary hex wrenches to tighten down the set screws as well as the dovetail insert and decent install instructions.
That's about where the good ends.
On the inside of the mount that mates with the reciever there is no material to fit into the slot at the bottom of the receiver, it is perfectly flat. It does appear that there once was a key on the mount that would fit the slot but it was milled off, as you can see the markings. That seemed odd to me but I figured I have the mount here I may as well try it out.
The mount attaches to the reciever with a cam and bolt on the side, and with a dovetail insert that goes into the stripper clip guide. There is also a post at the front that you lower down to the top of the reciever and a set screw to hold that post in place.
Upon mounting it I found the mount was canted, visibly pointing to the left. I had a 2.5 foot long piece of straight steel rod that sat nicely on the mount and when I ran it along the mount up to the front sight the front of the steel rod was between 1/16" to 1/8" to the left on the center post on the front sight.
I also tossed one of those cheap lasers that you put down the barrel to see how that looked, not expecting prefect accuracy but just to judge it. Just across the room, maybe 20 feet or so, the laser was 3" low and right from center point.
I did take it all apart and try to remount everything thinking maybe I F'd it up. At this point I noticed when I tighten down the set screw to hold the dovetail in place the mount canted to the left more as I tightened it. It was pretty close to perfectly straight when that wasn't tightened down.
Well got it all back together and the results looked about the same so I wasn't expecting much but took it out to the range.
I decided to start by shooting on the 50 yard line to see if I was even on paper. The entire time I shoot 60 rounds of Hornady 168g ammo which I already knew my rifle shoots fairly well when I have a burris 2.75x scount scope up on the scout mount.
As expected I was way way low and right, probably 9-10" both ways. After about 20 or 30 rounds I was able to get my elevation dialed in but was still a few inches right. I took a break to change targets, smoke a cigarette, and let the gun cool down a little.
Before shooting my 2nd string I clicked out my windage a few more times and fire 2 perfect shots and was starting to get really pleased. Then my next 4 rounds were all 6" low and a little right again. I'm not a great shot btw and my eyesight is terrible, so I thought maybe it was just me but I dialed up my elevation knob some more and started bring the bullets up over the next 10 or so rounds.
Thats when i ran out of elevation adjustment and still was shooting a bit low and right. After doing some investigating I noticed the front post on the mount that touches the top of the reciever now has a 1/8" gap or so. It was no longer touching the reciever. Apparently the mount tilted up.
It wasn't lose or wobbly, it just seemed to move up a bit. I didn't have a torque wrench or tools with me but the bolt is only supposed to be tighted to 2.5lbs, so I'm guessing it losened a bit.
I'm definatly a bit of a noob to this stuff. it's entirely possible i did something, or many things wrong. but it's not exactly rocket science so I'm not sure. I am probably just going to pull it off the rifle and see about sending it back to springfield and putting the scout scope back on. 2.75x magnification wasn't really enough for my bad eyes but atleast it worked.