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2 Piece Ringmounts vs 1 Piece Scope Mounts

2 Piece Ringmounts vs 1 Piece Scope Mounts

The most popular way of mounting a scope to your rifle is to use 2 Piece Ringmounts. The 2 Piece design is very flexible as it allows the extraction port on bolt action rifles such as the Tikka T3 not to be fouled and it also allows precharged (pcp) pneumatic airguns with magazines to function properly without the risk of loading and cartridge case extraction issues.

However the downside to the 2 piece ringmount is that the rifle scopes body tube is to a degree used as a brace.  Most modern rifles scopes are made from much thinner material than people realise so any amount of force applied is not ideal.  The advantage of a 1 piece or single piece scope mount is that the scope rings at each end of the mount are an integral solid piece of material so the rifle scope cannot be put under any undue stress.  The amounts we are talking about are unlikely to damage the scope tube or the lenses inside but could possibly mean a slight loss of accuracy at long range.  A big part of shooting accurately comes down to confidence in your equipment so that’s why it is best to use a single piece scope mount instead of ringmounts wherever possible when mounting a rifle scope.

If you look at most army, police and special forces sniper rifles such as the models from Accuracy International you will often see picatinny one piece monomounts being fitted.  These rifles may be knocked around and have a hard working life so this goes to prove that these top end rifles and scopes rely on the additional ruggedness and security of a single piece unimount.

Another advantage of using a one piece gun scope mount is that an angle can be easily machined into the rings to allow for the bullet drop at long ranges.  30 or 40 MOA is quite common when large calibers with heavy bullets are being used at distances in excess of 1000 yards and often considerably further.

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Height of Scope Mount Required

In each product catergory we state a maximum (upto) objective lens diameter dimension. Due to both rifle and scope designs varying this can only be used as a guide. If you are unsure that the height of the Sportsmatch scope mount you have chosen will be sufficient to clear your rifle scopes objective lens from the barrel of your rifle, we suggest (prior to purchase) you check. The way you calculate the clearance is by halving the overall outside diameter of your rifle scopes objective lens and then deducting half the rifle scopes body tube diameter. For scopes with a 1″ inch diameter body tube diameter this would mean deducting 12.7mm, 15mm for scopes with a 30mm diameter body tube and 17mm for 34mm scopes. This dimension then gives the figure comparible with the ‘A’ dimension that is shown below. The amount our ‘A’ dimension is greater than the figure you have calculated is the amount of clearance your scopes objective lens will be clear of your rifles barrel (dont forget to allow around 2mm for the scope covers). Calculating your rifle scopes clearance in this way does assume your dovetail or Picatinny rail is not raised above or below your rifles barrel. Please consider that rifles with grooved receivers such as some models of airgun and .22 rimfire rifle will mean the scope sits lower than a rifle with a raised dovetail or Picatinny base fitted. Something else to consider is that some rifles with a high or adjustable cheek pieces may require high or extra scope mounts so that your eye is in line with the rifle scope and your head is kept in an upright comfortable position.