How to Shim Your Scope

Keep it simple. If your elevation adjustments are maxed out. Still shooting low-shim the rear ring. Shooting hi-shim the front ring. Cutting a business card worked for me.

Just get a MOA Rail and do it the correct way.

Will Tire tube work?

Awesome

Both of my rifles .22-250 and 30-06, I have shimmed the rear scope BASE not the ring. Instead of cutting aluminum cans, I picked up a sheet of aluminum roll from a hard ware store. Try the roofing section of the big box stores. They come in few thickness sizes. On my rifles you can't even see that there is a shim under the base after I hit them with black spray paint before screwing them down. I don't recall the thickness of the shims I used but here is a formula from a hunters forum -> A .014" thick shim raises the back ring 10 MOA.
For the years I have been shooting I think the idea of bending a scope is BS. Hasn't happened yet and its been over 10 years of prairie dog, coyote, deer and elk hunting. Plus my scopes are a Burris and Leupold so each has a lifetime warranty if they were to magically "bend" because of the rear base shim. Or you can so spend your dollars and pick up a 20 MOA base ... or like me $5 roll of aluminum sheet that will last a lifetime. Thanks for your video, its absolutely true and works !

Use a feeler gauge as your shim material. the bladed kind like you use to set valve gap on a motorcycle. Then you can alter the thickness of the shim by using the designed thickness of the feeler gauge blade. They cut easily and start paper thin and go up from there. THese shims are also good when you have a front dovetail iron sight on a handgun that keeps moving...

I just got a BAR Safari II and I'm wanting to put a 56mm objective optic and I saw someone else mounted an optic with the same objective size and he claimed it shot a foot low at 100 yards.

That scares me.

Excellent video..............well done, thanks for posting

this guy knows what hes talking about. had the same problem with a 22 bolt. i put 2 shims in the back and raise it 12" at 40 yards and it only took 10 minutes. Thanks for the post.

So with the shims in the rear, your scope is now on a downward angle but your front ring is no longer angled in the same direct as the scope and is still pointing perfectly straight forward, which puts stress on the tube when you tighten the ring caps down.. An easier and proper fix is to use an MOA base or Burris Zee rings with the offset inserts. This way your rings are at the same angle as the scope so there is no stress on the tube.. Also, if the gun was zeroed at one time and you make a trip and now it out of alignment and no longer has enough adjustment to get it back to zero, something got bent.. I work as a tech for a major scope company..

Apparently LHO did not know how to do shim his scope....Authorities had to shim the scope to bring it into the adjustment range so the rifle could be zeroed and test fired...If I recall the rifle had about 10 moa of dispersion at 100 yards...the barrel was apparently shot out. It may not have been 10 moa but it was a lot...it was about 20 years ago when I read about...the long nutter narrative is still the official theory of the US government which is complete nonsense.

This helps a lot. Thanks

Please don’t do this. This process bends the scope tube and can damage or lock up the internals. Just buy the right rings to start and you’ll never have this issue.

If you feel you MUST do this, add counter shims in the front so you don’t bend the tube.

I don’t know what sort of “trouble” you’d ever be in to need to do this. Lol

I need to shim my scope to get POI to the right is it possible?help

I'll be your Huckelberry

My brother in law gave me a scope confiscated from isis in marawe it had can strippings on the scope mounts the terrorists probably watched your video lol

ive shimmed with card board and tape but I also put counter shims on the other three mount areas, this way there would be no danger of tube warping ect.

you were solid in Tombstone

There is so much wrong with all of this. Please nobody do this. Lap your rings but lap the rear or front ring a little more to seat the scope deeper. Don’t do what this guy is doing. Yes in a pinch it’s a rig job but should not be done as a way to mount something. And I love the comment about. Just take an Allen wrench and make em good and tight.

Excellence video. You may want to center your scope tube in the middle of the scope 1st, using a mirror with bright lighting. It allows for maximum adjustment! Then shim. Thank you.

Great vid mate cheers🇦🇺

Thanks for that really useful and informative

I had mounted a Leupold VX3i LRP on my Weatherby MkV Sporter and was 10” high at 100 yds; The scope was bottomed out on elevation adjustment. After some online research I added three “beer can” shims under the front base. After remounting the scope I was 3.5” high at 100 yds which is what I needed for zero at 300 yds (I’m shooting 300 WBY Mag 180gr Barnes TTSXBT). Since that modification I’ve been successful out to 600yds. According to info on Leupold’s website, shimming the scope in this manner does not induce damaging stress on the scope tube. I took a cow elk in the 2018 season in Colorado. My shot placement was dead on and have meat in the freezer.

Terrible idea. Don't be cheap, get a different base with increased MOA.

A fold of duct tape works great too. Cheap as chips and easy peasy. Never had a problem 😎

I need the little caps for my nicon scope over the ajustment for elevation does anybody know what I'm talking about shit

Sweet, I put a scope on my 12g ( wanting to confidently reach out to 150 yds ) but when sighting in, I was hitting close to 2 ft higher than I was aiming at 50 yards. Got the scope maxed out and I'm still about a foot and a half too high, hopefully this can get me straightened away, sure does suck running through 2 boxes of 12g slugs. Ouch.

dude, what the fuck is your accent? i can't figure it out for the life of me. sounds like half american and half australian

Excellent!
^..^~~

My problem is windage. I can't get enough left adjustment.

Thank you for this video.

My M1A has been sitting in my safe for months because I couldn't get my scope sighted in.

I wanted a 50 yard zero and I couldn't get the the gun to shoot low enough. This might do the trick.

I had a issue my scope shooting 6 inches high. It ran out of adjustments and would not adjust to the rifle. What is the shimming technique for this problem.

I agree with you in concept to put shims inside the rings to increase the scope's elevation adjustment. However, using varying shim widths the rings are not evenly distributing the force to hold the scope in place. There will be more pressure on the scope tube where the shims are narrow, and accidentally over tightening the scope rings may deform your scope tube. Shim contact area should be the same as the ring contact area.

I was under the impression that you placed shims under the base not under the svcope in the rings as this might damage the scope

Great video and addresses the issue I was hoping to solve. At the range today with my Ruger 10/22 Target model and a Mueller 5.5-25-50 I ran out of vertical adjustment on my scope at 100yds. I was hoping there was a way to shim and bring some extra MOA into the picture.

Thanks for making this video! You just made my life a WHOLE lot easier!