Is it a sin to mount a scope on a traditional lever-action rifle? Or is the combination just too useful to be restricted by orthodoxy
Ashley Emerson, one the founding partners of a company that would be known as XS Sights once said to me (and apparently a lot more people) “There’s a special spot in hell for anyone who places a scope on a legged gun.” While I don’t think condemnation to Hades is the right decree, Emerson’s opinion does have some merit. The true virtue of lever-action rifles, other than their handiness, is their traditional lever-action rifles. Lever-action rifles are easy to snap to the shoulder due to their heavy design. Rifles with a more precise nature are less handy and will require a muzzle to allow them to target. The balance of a lever-action rifle is altered when it adds a riflescope, whether it’s scout- or traditional-style. This can affect its handling characteristics and make it less stable. These sights do not provide magnification but, like traditional scopes, they eliminate the need for navigation of three focal planes–the target and the front sight–and can help shooters get hits quicker. They are also extremely light, so they don’t impact the weight or balance the lever gun. However, they can improve a shooter’s ability to get hits faster. The drop in traditional lever-action rifles makes it difficult to achieve a perfect cheek weld. Iron/open sights will only allow for this. Mounting any optic can raise the line of sight so that a good cheek weld is almost impossible. It hinders the shooter’s ability to snap the rifle onto their shoulder and instantly establish a good cheek weld that allows precise eye alignment behind sights. In addition, it reduces the shooter’s ability to accurately place shots and to quickly recover from recoil for another shot. The installation of an optical sight on a traditional-styled lever-action rifle can often make it less efficient. This also affects the accuracy of shots and the ability to recover from recoil quickly for a second shot. There are several ways to mount the optical sights to traditional lever-action rifles. These include traditional riflescopes, scoutscopes and reflex/red dots sights. Let’s take a look at each sighting system, and what you can do to mount them to traditional lever action rifles.
Sometimes creativity is required when scoping traditional lever gun sights. This Leupold riflescope is rotated 90 degrees to ensure that the windage turbine doesn’t interfere in ejection. Modern riflescopes are variable magnification and have a large objective bell. Large objective bells allow for the use of large objective lenses, which increases exit pupil and twilight factors. This allows the riflescope to perform better in low lighting. Traditional lever-action rifles have barrels that don’t taper in front of the action, unlike bolt-action rifles. Scopes with large objective bells need to be mounted high enough that they don’t touch the barrel. This is unlike bolt-action rifles. Leupold offers a VX Freedom 1-4X20mm riflescope. However, the large saddle on which the adjustment turrets are located can cause interference with ejection of Winchester rifles that have Angle Eject (AE). Leupold’s VX-3HD 1.5-5X20mm may be a better choice, but the large saddle where the adjustment turrets are mounted can cause interference with ejection on Winchester 94 Big Boy AE rifles in.307 Winchester. To get the best performance from the cartridge, the ballistics of.307 required an optical sight. Every scope I tried ended in mounts so high that I couldn’t get a good cheek weld. An older Leupold VX-II riflescope measuring 1-4X20mm had a small magnification adjustment dial and was supported by traditional Leupold mounts. The hammer was able to clear the VX-II’s smaller magnification adjustment dial. However, ejected cases kept bouncing back into action after they hit the windage adjustment cap/turret on exit. This seemed like a huge obstacle to overcome until I decided to rotate my scope 90 degrees to the right and use the windage adjustment to adjust for elevation and the elevation adjustment to adjust for windage. I was able mount it extremely low with no interference from the scope.
This Burris 2.75X Scout Scope mounts to a Marlin 336, with a Dove Guns custom-made scout base. You can see how low the scope is mounted. Scout scopes, which have an eye relief of about 10 inches, are popular for lever-action rifles. Usually, they are mounted on scout rails such as the XS Sights lever rail. They have Picatinny slots that allow scope mounting forward of an action. The rail for the Marlin mount begins at the rear. Winchester 94 mounts have the rail at the front. The objective bell size is not an issue with scout scopes. The eyepiece’s diameter is an issue. This VX-II 1.5-4x28mm IER Scout Scope is an older version of the VX-Freedom 1.5-4x28mm IER Scout Duplex Scope. The scope can be mounted to a Marlin 336, Dark using a Lever-Rail by XS Sights. The FX-II Scout 2.5X28mm fixed power scope’s eyepiece has a diameter of only 1.4 inches. It can be mounted on a scoutscope rail with rings that are only 1/4 inch apart from the scope and rail. The eyepiece diameter of the Burris 2.75X20mm fixed-power scout scope is only 1.384 inches. The Vortex Crossfire II Scout Scope 2.7X32mm Scout Scope’s eyepiece measures 1.61 inches. You will need rings that are significantly larger. The Burris 2-7X32mm variable-power scout scope eyepiece is only 1.481 inches. Unfortunately, Leupold has discontinued their Scout scope. This makes Burris scoutscopes the best choice for low mounting. Jim Brockman, Brockman Custom Guns, machined bases to fit Talley rings right into the barrel of this Marlin1894. This allowed for very low mounting of the discontinued Weaver 4X scoutscope. Although it is called a “scout” scope by Leupold, the scope has a 6 inch eye relief. It is more of an intermediate eye-relief (IER) scope, as the name suggests. This riflescope should be mounted so that its long eyepiece extends above the action for maximum effectiveness. The scope can be mounted with very low rings, as the eyepiece diameter of 1.4 inches is not too big. This will allow for maximum cheek weld protection. Jim Brockman from Brockman Custom Guns received it and had Jim machine the barrel for the direct attachment of Talley rings. This scope attachment method will work with many traditional lever guns. This eliminates the need for scope bases which eventually increase the scope’s mounting height. Another option is to have a custom mount made by a gunsmith such as Jerry Dove of Dove Custom Guns. I did this for another Marlin. Dove can make mounts very thin to keep the scope as low and light as possible. This scout scope was mounted to this Marlin 1894. This was possible due to the fact that base cuts for Talley rings were machinated right into the barrel.Reflex/Red Dot Lights
The Leupold Freedom RDS prismatic can be mounted low on traditional lever guns by using the right rings. These can most often be mounted to the same lever rail as a scoutscope. You can mount them to standard Weaver-style bases. Others, such as the Leupold DeltaPoint Pro can be mounted to standard Weaver-style bases. The mounting base for the Leupold DeltaPoint Pro Marlin lever guns is the best way to keep the sight low. With some gunsmith assistance, certain reflex sights can be mounted directly to the top action of some lever guns without the need for a mounting plate. Eye relief is unlimited. The AR-style mount that comes along with this red dot/prismatic view can be removed and replaced by low or medium 34mm scope rings. Aimpoint offers a range of red dot sights with similar sizes and designs that can be mounted low and in the exact same way. All these dot sights lack magnification. This is the main problem. The main downside to these dot sights is their lack of magnification. This mount must be replaced with a set 34mm rings for use on a levergun. You can mount any riflescope you like, provided you don’t mind destroying traditional lever guns’ handling characteristics. One time, I saw a man walking through the woods with a 4-12×44 riflescope attached. It even had target turrets. He seemed happy, despite looking foolish like a saddle on a horse. Although I doubt that the fellow was heading to the underworld, he seemed happy. Target grids and bullseye sizes can be downloaded in MOA. Get Free Targets
