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Some time ago
I published a story about how my good friend Dennis “Moose” Edwards attended
the West Coast Championship in Oregon last year and saw a unique Anschutz
scope mount that one of the local competitors had on his gun. It was basically
a home made scope rail that ran over the ejection port rearward and just over
the gun’s iron sight. Attaching it was easy as it clamped to the gun’s built
in dove tail rail. A pistol scope in Weaver rings was then mounted on the
scope rail.
Now, rear
mounted scope rails are nothing new of course but this one for the Anschutz,
(easily the most popular gun used for the rimfire Unlimited class) was
different. Thanks to the dovetail clamping, it could be taken on and off the
gun very easily. Couple this with the fact that the Anschutz rear sight didn’t
have to be removed in order to mount the rail, and you have a whole new set of
possibilities. The idea and goal was that the Anschutz could be shot first in
the Unlimited category with its iron sights alone, and then the rail and scope
combo could be attached and then shot again in the Unlimited Any Sight
category. It’s a super concept to get double duty out of a single gun. In
other words there’s no need to buy a separate gun for each category. It was a
stroke of genius. Unfortunately, Moose couldn’t remember the name of the
individual who came up with this great idea and I haven’t be able to identify
them either. So who ever you are - good thinking.
Upon
returning to California from the match, Moose decided to try to cobble
together a similar mount from materials that he happen to have on hand.
Essentially what he did is take a couple of high dovetail rings, then sawed
off the ring part, and then attached a Weaver rail to the remaining mounting
posts. He then mounted a high set of Weaver rings on the rail and dropped in a
long eye relief pistol scope. The rail was plenty high enough to clear his
open rear sight. The set up was kind of rough but it worked great. When Moose
showed it to me I was blown away by this innovative concept, and by Moose’s
inventiveness in putting his version of it together. Moose even let me shoot
the gun that day and I was definitely hooked.
A couple of
month’s later; Moose and I ran into Ken Light at the LA Silhouette Club’s 2004
Extravaganza match which is held in September of every year. We immediately
showed the gun and mount to Ken and talked up a storm trying to convince him
to make a commercial version. Ken took a bunch of measurements and said he’d
think about it.
Fast forward
one year to September 2005 - I get a call from Ken saying he’s made a mount
and would I be interested in checking it out. Does Popeye eat spinach? You
bet!
At first
glance, the mount looked functionally similar to Moose’s but obviously was
mechanically much cleaner. At second glance however, I noticed that there was
a fundamental difference between the two mounts. On the “Moose Mount”,
the Weaver rail was attached to two mounting posts. One
is located in front of the ejector port and one behind the ejector port.
On Ken’s mount, the two
clamping points are integrated into the whole unit and they’re both
located close together behind the port.
So what you end up with is a very clean one piece cantilever rail
mount with five Weaver styled notches machined into the top.
My Anschutz
has a BoMar open rear sight mounted on a high block. Ken’s mount fit like a
glove on the Anschutz rail and comfortably cleared the rear sight blade. I now
mounted my Leupold 2.5 X 8 pistol scope on the rail using a set of Weaver
double strap rings. The double straps are over kill on a rimfire I know, but I
like their looks. The question now became whether removing the rail and then
re-installing it would change the scope’s point of aim. There was only one way
to find out.
Basically what I did was set up a simple home made crosshair type target at
100 yards which would be used in this informal evaluation. The idea was to
zero the scope and then shoot a group which would provide a baseline against
which to measure whether taking the rail off and then on the gun would move or
enlarge the group. The ammo used was Federals 711B. Five shots went into
a group of 1.37”. I then removed the rail and attached scope and then
remounted it being very careful to position it in exactly the same place as
before i.e. the front edge of the rail clamp was aligned with the back edge of
the ejector port. I even made a little hash mark on each clamping screw with a
magic marker and aligned it with a index mark similarly made on the receiver.
That way I ensured that each screw was turned down an equal amount as the time
before. A shot would be fired and the rail would be removed again. I did this
five times (once for each shot in the group). At the end of the five shots,
the resulting group measured 1.252” - slightly smaller than the baseline
group. The relative position of the group on the target didn’t move either.
Bottom line - if care is taken mounting and then re-attaching the rail/scope
when switching categories, you can rest assured that all the shots will go
exactly where they’re supposed to. The Ken Light Anschutz scope rail is a very
well made product that will never wear out and is a must have for anyone that
shoots 22 Unlimited.
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