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Talley lightweights

338win

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Sep 19, 2015
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Had/have inconsistent accuracy with my ca ridgeline. Never could keep consistent sub moa and I was always tinkering with an adjustment here or there . Attributed it to a lack of ability to do a load development with component shortages and lack of time. Have a hunt in a few months so I pulled the gun out to clean and plan a rage trip. The crosshairs looked off. Put a level on the cap and it didn’t match my ring bubble. My sharpe index marks from scope to ring were also out of alignment. I used 19 or 20 inch pounds and the rings were still at torque. Never had issues with warne or ruger factory rings before and never had a scope slip in the rings Before. broke torque and aligned the crosshairs with a plumb line and retorqued

I suspect the scope moving had something to do with inconsistent accuracy results but I’ll rule that out later on when I have time and powder.

Has anyone had scopes move in the talleys and what’s the go to non Talley ring setup w/30mm tubes? Probably going to use my old ruger this season since I don’t really trust the current rings now because this gun has never been dropped or really abused.

ca ridgeline ti
300 win
talley lightweights
vx3
 
Ive got talley lightweights on a magnum rifle with a heavy scope. If they were gonna fail mine would be the setup they would fail on, but I havent had an issue going on 3 years of putting it through the ringer.
 
I have talleys on a rem700 300winmag. Definitely not a light setup like yours but assuming you have a brake the recoil may be similar. Lots of 208gr ELD-Ms and dangerous hot Hammer loads shot through mine and holds true.

Can you rotate the scope in the rings? Have you talked to Talley? Even via email they generally respond within hours. How are the internals of the scope holding up?...lots of grumbling about Leupold quality these days (I have 3 so I'm not hating just checking boxes to ask)
 
I have talleys on a rem700 300winmag. Definitely not a light setup like yours but assuming you have a brake the recoil may be similar. Lots of 208gr ELD-Ms and dangerous hot Hammer loads shot through mine and holds true.

Can you rotate the scope in the rings? Have you talked to Talley? Even via email they generally respond within hours. How are the internals of the scope holding up?...lots of grumbling about Leupold quality these days (I have 3 so I'm not hating just checking boxes to ask)
You can’t rotate it by hand at torque. scope rotated about 1/16 of an inch with proper ring torque and about 30 rounds and normal handling. I took the brake off for my next range session to eliminate a variable. I’m going to email Talley. Not sure how to tell if the internals are working unless it’s something obvious. If a vx3 failed I’m going to be annoyEd. I have rolled wheelers over and dropped from moving snow machines old vx1 and vx2s and never had issues.
 
You can’t rotate it by hand at torque. scope rotated about 1/16 of an inch with proper ring torque and about 30 rounds and normal handling. I took the brake off for my next range session to eliminate a variable. I’m going to email Talley. Not sure how to tell if the internals are working unless it’s something obvious. If a vx3 failed I’m going to be annoyEd. I have rolled wheelers over and dropped from moving snow machines old vx1 and vx2s and never had issues.
Did you lap the rings? Talley says you don't have to, but getting them exact with a lapping kit seems to give consistent results for us.
 
Did you lap the rings? Talley says you don't have to, but getting them exact with a lapping kit seems to give consistent results for us.
I did not lap.

First update. Talley gave me a higher than published torque to try. I am going to put on new torque/alignment stripe with the increased setting and see if it holds.
 
See this thread...

 
Had a 300 rum that was braked with a Trijicon credo. Slipped twice in talleys. Once at what Talley recommended for torque and a second time with a lot more torque. Still slipped. First time I’ve ever had issues with them and I’ve had them on harder recoiling rifles
 
Had a 300 rum that was braked with a Trijicon credo. Slipped twice in talleys. Once at what Talley recommended for torque and a second time with a lot more torque. Still slipped. First time I’ve ever had issues with them and I’ve had them on harder recoiling rifles
Leupold rings on a RUM for 22 years. Never a slip. Upgrading to Backcountry's though. Just for fun. mtmuley
 
I have mounted at least three dozen scopes in Talley lightweight rings and only had one issue with them. On a .243 tikka, the scope was visibly skewed in the rings, I lapped them so much that the scope couldn't be clamped down . I contacted Talley and they agreed to exchange the mounts and paid shipping both ways. After installing the second set I realized that the problem was the Tikka reciever....not the mounts.
 
Have a few sets, no issues. I lap them, at least a small amount. None were perfectly aligned. I have a set on my 375 and no issues so far, they are lock-tighted to the receiver and the scope is glued in too. :)
 
I would start over if it was my set up. I’m a Talley LW fan and have them on at least ten rifles but if I had even a 1% concern about my scope and mount set up reliability I would go a different direction.
I have Warnes on my 270 and 300 Weatherby magnums but everything else except my old 30-06 tanger has Talley LW. My rifles don't get tossed off a cliff but they ride on washboard logging roads on an atv. No issues yet but even one issue would cause me to toss that particular set. That just me.
 
I've got talleys on multiple guns. Namely a 50 cal muzzleloader shooting 290gr bullets behind 150 grains of powder and a 7mm rem mag pushing 162gr bullets at almost 3200 fps. Neither scope has budged in either gun in 5 plus years. The days of having to sight in guns before hunting season are a thing of the past for setups that are setup. Last year I shot one round out of my 7mm off a tailgate and hit the bullseye and then went hunting. I have complete and total trust I can pull any gun out of my safe with Talley rings (and a leupold) and go hunting without even checking it from last year. My rimfire savages also have talley rings.

I have no faith at all in any multi piece base/ring setup. I had an expensive set of all steel weavers break on me. My opinion is, combining the base, lower ring, screw, wing tab thing, nut all into one solid piece is inherently stronger and more reliable than 5 or 6 seperate pieces.

I always use blue loctite on all hardware on scopes.
 
I've used talley LWs on a couple rifles a fair bit without issue but seen enough reports of them cracking that I wouldn't buy them again.
 
I think a lot of issues come from heavy scopes in talleys on heavy recoiling rifles
 
Have or had em on all the mag hard chargers since switching from Talley steel...no problems with either. The only mount QC issue I've had was with a duel steel Leupold twist base that was off center.
 

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