Burris Signature Ring Fix

I was installing a pair of the 30mm rings yesterday and had a problem with one base clamp screw. The ring base thread stripped before the ring tightened up on the Picatinny rail base. The other ring worked fine, so I suspect the stripped ring had an out of spec thread. I was always a little leery of the 6-40 clamp screw with todays' trends toward big scopes. Burris had to use it so that their rings would fit a Weaver base as the cross slots are too shallow( Weaver's original design) to accomodate a bigger clamp sccrew. Another characteristic of the Burris one-piece design is that substantial torque has to be applied before the clamp flange starts to move.

A Picatinny rail has much larger slots. A little measuring told me that an 8-32 screw would work, so i drilled and tapped the ring for that thread. It worked perfectly and the ring clamp flange is thick enough to allow for about 5 threads, so it is more than strong enough. The clearance drill size is .166(#19) . There is no need to tap drill the threaded side since it is already slightly larger that the proper tap drill( #30). Just run the tap through. Get a couple of 8-32 x 1" socket head cap screws and you are set. Now, if I could find some with Torx sockets with having to buy 50 of them....

RWO

That is a great idea. One thing I never liked about the rings was the cross slot screw. This is a fantastic alternative. I will try it this weekend. Thanks!

Good post, I've been thinking about doing that myself. Did you have any trouble with the drill wanting to walk off center? I did swap my original screws for 6-40 socket head screws and it helps if your using a picatinny rail if you tighten the ring clamp screw before installing the ring to tighten up the fit of the ring to the base. You can buy the 6-40 and 8-32 socket head screws in small quantity from Fasteners. Don't know if they have the torx head screws or not.

Mine stripped too. I drilled a larger hole and used a nut and bolt. It works but looks like hell..

Skunce, If you drill both legs from the outside in, the original hole guides the drill perfectly. It helps to do it in a vise on a drill press.

RWO

What's up with the screw holes stripping. Just went to install my first set of Burris , first one went fine second one stripped before
it got close to snug. Has anyone contacted Burris about this?

Same thing here! Mounting new viper pst on egw 20 moa last night, had one good and one bad. Called midway after 9 and ordered another set. Won't send anything back untill I've got 2 good pieces. Have 2 other sets of 1" in use, really like em'.
Greg

Huh? I have had tons of these rings and have yet to have any strip out like this. It is good to know though. Did it screw in hard all the way and strip the threads, like it was being crossthreaded?

If they fit very loose on your mounts, try pretightening them before you install them to get a tighter fit. Then it will take less torque to get them to tighten up on the mounts. I have a Ken Farrel mount that they fit very loose on and needed pretighten to slightly bend the side of the ring, but a second set of rings fit snug on an EGW mount that I just bought. I like the number eight screw idea though and will change mine.

One went just fine, the second just started to have tension and the ring stripped.
It's like the threads were a little oversize.
And FYI the high rings I started with seemed OK ,the med. rings are the ones that screwed up.