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Picatinny Rails and Quick Detach Mounts - Educate me Please.


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First up, some background. New Zealand hunters don’t seem to be big on Quick Detach mounts for scopes. This is possibly because we have never had a large following of the AR Platform and since the terrorist attack on the Mosque and the Arms-Buyback the AR platform is now securely in the hands of Police and Defence only with a smattering in the hands of collectors and serious Pest Control operators - those mainly operating out of helicopters. Hence, there seems to be a lack of knowledge and experience in QD mounts. This is starting to change with the advent of Thermal Scopes and especially if they are required to be moved between rifles, as is my case. At this point of time though, I believe the knowledgebase of such devices and rails will be somewhat larger in the UK purely from a numbers point of view, hence this post.

Until about a month ago I had not even owned a Picatinny rail as all of my scopes are on weaver mounts. And then Sharon bought me a Infiray GL 35 which comes standard with a QD mount for a picatinny rail.

IRayMount.jpg.782839fb58e039b3e5c4caebe34293d6.jpg

No problem. Talk to some gun stores. They all seem to carry EGW picatinny rails and all seem to be agreed that they are a reasonable product. One of the stores had a rail to fit my Howa 1500 long action so I ordered.

EGWPicatinny.jpg.017ac5c47d70e941692e7c1195a2177a.jpg

When it arrived, I fitted it on the Howa, attached the GL 35 and successfully zeroed it. Tried detaching and reattaching the sope a few times and the zero was wandering, not excessively but wandering nonetheless. I guessed that it was just my poor technique and thought with a bit of practice and always ensuring I mounted it the same way the problem might resolve itself.

So off I went, though noting to myself to use it only on game at close quarters and see how it went. Everything went well, first pig at 30 meters slowly extending out 65 meters on another four pigs over a weekend and then finally a stag at 86 meters. At the 86 meter mark I thought the POI was out a little but nothing serious. Then a small pig at 146 meters and it was a complete miss. Now I am not bragging here, and I am the first to admit that I am an average shooter, but I haven't missed a shot like that in a very long time. Maybe I was having an off night or maybe the Zero does actually change everytime I detach and reattach the scope. More caution needed. 

Then Sharon announces that another picatinny rail that she ordered for the Remington 783 .223 had arrived and that she would like that fitted please. No problem, I’m on this. When she ordered the rail she didn’t specify any brand and was sent a Leupold rail.

LeupoldPicatinny.jpg.407699f13aa5dc325e9b67c434c8cf61.jpg

The first thing that I noticed was the two rails are quite different in design and makeup. But Picatinny is a standard right…????....so I just figured that any mount set to attach to one rail will automatically be correctly adjusted to just slot onto the next rail. 

Well I got that one wrong didn’t I. Going from the EGW rail to the Leupold, the mount slides back and forth in the slot a few millimetres, suggesting that the EGW rail is marginally wider than the Leupold. Anyway, I ignored all of that for the time being, set up the scope for the Remington by retensioning the mount and headed for the range. It was challenging to zero it as the weather was variable and I could not get proper thermal targets anywhere in New Zealand - we just seem to be out of them - so I made do with a Birchwood Casey Dirty Bird, Sight in Splattering Targets. I find that if you have consistent sun or even lack of sun on these targets, they actually work reasonably well for thermal scopes. It is only when the sun keeps disappearing and then reappearing from behind clouds that they can be a bit of a challenge. However, all said and done I got the scope to zero in reasonably well on the Remington .223. At the end of the session I detached the scope from the rifle to transport them home again.

So Thursday night I am off up the hill to lay waste to hares (Jack Rabbits). I reattached the scope and hope that it has zeroed correctly. First hare 30 meters….easy as. Next hare 60 meters….equally easy. Slowly I took it out to 160 meters and by the end of the evening I was head shooting at 140 meters. It appeared that the scope had rezeroed perfectly.

Friday night, off for hares again. Attach the scope and away I go. Started at short distances and worked my way out to 170 meters, no problem. I wasn’t attempting any fancy head shots as the wind was up a bit and a little fickle. Twenty-three hares on one paddock and I called it a night with only two misses, but that is probably more to do with tired ‘old man shakes’ rather than the zeroing.

So tonight I want to go and target pig and deer. To do this I am going to put the scope back on the Howa .270 with the EGW rail. To get it on I am going to have to adjust the base of the mount, as in open it up a bit. So straight off it will be a lottery getting it back to the exact same tension that I had originally. How is this going to affect my zero? No doubt I will find out.

Anyway, from all the dribble above, any thoughts, hints or suggestions from other forum members? I am here to be educated. I am already thinking that I need to standardise my rail brand across the two rifles. Any help gratefully accepted.

Cheers
Phil
 

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Kia ora

Once you have zeroed you scope in detatch it from you gun and then reattach it in the same location on the picatinny and in theory it should still be zeroed in.

 i have then on my rifles and swop them from nightvision to day scopes without to much trouble.

Where abouts are you at in Nz, i used to live in north island 

Atb

Mart

 

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Thanks for that @Mmamonster, I do exactly that and I have had some successes but a couple of shots that i am not sure I should have missed. I really need some more time at the range with it to really be comfortable with it, but that is a 150 km round trip. 

Yes, I did 22 years in the north Island after my first 18 years in the South Island and then did 17 years based in UK but working there, Europe and US before returning to NZ. Now based in the Canterbury foothills.

Cheers

Phil

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21 hours ago, Mmamonster said:

I would love to go back but at the moment its impossible for me.

Atb

Mart

Impossible seems pretty dire, but if only for the moment, I guess not to bad. Hurry mind, the place is starting to fill up. A lot of UK exiles turning up at the door.

Hell, the little town of Oxford, about 65 km from my place used to be such a sleepy little hollow when i was a boy. Now it is euphemistically referred to as 'Little Britain' . The Brit's love it for some reason and pay extraordinary dollars to live there. If you don't speak with a Brit accent there, they mark you as an outsider. Thank God I can still wing one...... ?

Cheers

Phil

Edited by PhilH
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