Fitting Davidson bases

F

Fergus Bailey

New member
I am in the process of replacing the BAT rings I have on several rifles so that I can run higher rings. I have some Davison style bases and wanted to know if I should loctite these down to ensure they dont move? Any other considerations?
 
Bases

Fergus I have Davidson bases on my Bat...Just use some Araldite on them...Yatesy had an accuracy problem with his Bat and it was a loose base.
 
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Pin and Glue???

For BR would you benefit from pinning and gluing Picatinny rails??? Or is either sufficient on its own??‘
 
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Ricco1949 said:
For BR would you benefit from pinning and gluing Picatinny rails??? Or is either sufficient on its own??‘
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Biggest problem Ricco is weight. For the typical short range BR rifle most commonly fielded by the competitors on this site WEIGHT is the big deciding factor. "Davidson" style bases and rings are single-purpose and very lightweight. Also not very robust and are prone to slipping on anything larger than a 30-30 class cartridge.

As far as "sufficient" against movement of the bases themselves, Davidson style setups do also offer one-piece rails but none that I know of are designed to be pinned to the action and the jury is still out as to whether a one-piece or a two-piece is more prone to debonding. I will say this, I use heat, best degreasing methods I can find and high quality fresh epoxy because I've had many bases shoot loose. Currently Hysol epoxies are high on my list for bonding.

At first glance the two-piece would seem to be "weaker" but in reality I've seen one-piece rails debond because they sat out in the sun and got hot, and because they were used or left out in cold........the expansion rate of a steel receiver (typically ferritic) is 1/3 that of the aluminum rail

It is my belief that two-piece may be LESS prone to debond if a setup is exposed to temperature extremes.

IME neither setup, rail or two-piece is better aligned......ie both systems must be checked and most often lapped to alignment. and also IME both systems WILL move if not epoxied down.

These are of course MY OPINIONS
 
BTW, to you engineering types I must apologize for the statement "expansion rate....1/3 AL rail"

Perhaps someone cares to quantify it more precisely, if not I'll leave my verbiage stand. Point is, they're DIFFERENT so when temp changes, stresses are produced.
 
Thanks Al. I should noted that this is for LR application. I've previously only pinned my rails. There's still a few tenths theoretical movement on the slip side of each dowel pin, which I put on the action rather than the rail, so it appears that it would benefit from gluing as well.
 
Ricco1949 said:
Thanks Al. I should noted that this is for LR application. I've previously only pinned my rails. There's still a few tenths theoretical movement on the slip side of each dowel pin, which I put on the action rather than the rail, so it appears that it would benefit from gluing as well.
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FWIW, the first thing I do with one of Jerry Stiller's actions (pinned/picatinny/big screws) like a Predator or TAC is thoroughly degrease and glue the base down. This to IMO one of the best designed setups on thee planet.

On my big LR guns I sometimes glue the rings to the picatinny rail and on two have epoxied the scope into the rings. Not bedded, epoxied.
 
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