The first thing that many people will notice is the price. You can get a set
of rings and bases together for about $130, where as you will be spending up
to twice that price if you go with Leupold Mark 4, Badger Ordnance, or US Optics.
Does that mean these rings & bases suffer in quality? Well, lets find out.
When comparing the TPS base side by side with a USO and a Ken Ferrell, the quality
compares favorably, things line up nice, are well machined and have a nice
finish to them. The designs are different on all three bases, but they generally
have the same concepts and ideas. In terms of the 30mm rings, I compared them
side by side with a pair of Leupold Mark 4 rings. The TPS rings are a bit
thinner in about every dimension. But at the same time, they are slightly
taller than the mark 4 low rings I was comparing to. While they are thinner and
less "beefy" in all dimensions, that in no way means they are not as sufficient
as the Mark 4's. The TPS rings have a nice profile, are durable, and appear
to be engineered plenty strong for their intended application. The TPS rings
have a 7/16" nut for tightening down the rings to the base. This is also
different from the Mark 4's, as they have a 1/2" nut. Which one do I prefer?
Either one, they both have plenty of size to use for their intended purpose.
I mounted the rings/bases to a SC1A2 (remington 700) chambered in .308. Here,
I ran into problems. 3 of the 4 screw holes on the base fit perfect, one hole
did not. The front screw hole in the "Rear" pair did not line up. It was
close, but nothing I could do would make it so this screw could be threaded.
I took the base off and mounted it on another rem 700 short action I had
available, and this time, the screw hole was still not perfect, but it was
close enough to make it work with a very tight fit. It appears that on my
example of the scope base, this hole is just not properly lined up. Since it
was so tight on the 2nd one, I'm thinking the screw hole placement needs to be
double-checked. So, as it was, I mounted the base using the 3 screws I could
get lined up and drove on.
The rings fit great, and the Holland Tactical scope fit in the rings just right.
I need to make mention here that you should follow the directions carefully
that are provided with the rings. The process is slightly different from a
normal set of rings because of the indexing of the rings. If you use the
ring index system it is designed to more properly line up the rings, much like
lapping the rings will do. (they do not recommend lapping their rings).
The Holland is a 30mm tube and a 40mm objective and the bell had plenty of
room off the barrel with the "low" profile rings. After tightening down
everything, we went to the range and put the rings and base (and scope) through
its paces to see how they faired. Through all the testing we could not
fault the rings and/or bases for anything. (No real surprise there). Everything
maintained its zero and the 20 MOA base was exactly 20 MOA low based on range results.
Conclusion Well, provided the misaligned screw problem gets fixed (or was only on our
single base) then we have a very nice set of rings and bases. Things are a little less
beefy than Leupold Mk 4 rings, as well as the base is a bit less beefy than the
USO and Ken Ferrell bases. But these things are very nice and so far have
helded up great with everything we have done. I recommend a serious look at these
rings and bases if you are in the market, they are a very nice buy for the price.
UPDATE (12/17/05)
After this review, TPS requested that we send back the base so they
could determine if the base was a defect or if there were problems.
They discovered that the dimensions on some of the older remington
actions are slightly different and their drill holes would not work
on them. They made a slight adjustment to their specs that is incorporated
into all of their new bases and sent out a new base for us to try out.
Well, the changes worked and everything lined up and fit as they should.
We tried the base on several actions, new and old, and everything
lined up as it should and fit correctly. As far as we can tell, the
problem we originally found is no longer there and all is well.
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