Bsa Mercury Mounts Problem / Advice Please

[mjr88 50]

Hi all

 

I have recently come into the possession of a late 70's .177 Bsa mercury , so i have decided to give it a total refurb. The problem i seem to be having is , i cant seem to find any scope rails that stay on the rifles mounting grooves. I had a set 2 piece mounts laying about the house , so i obviously tried these first.

 

However , after only a few shots the mounts simply came off , and this happened after 2 or 3 different attempts to attach them. I then decided to buy a set of one piece mounts off the bay , made by Hawke , item number 360173943410 , after reading that one piece mounts are the best option on most springers.

 

When the mounts arrived they looked like a decent piece of kit for the money , but i soon found that this was not the case. I found it very difficult to get the mounts rails attached to the rifles mounting grooves. This i did manage a few times , but on each occasion at some point , the mount just come off , scope and all. If that's not bad enough , i have now noticed that the mounts attaching rails have become slightly mangled up in places , and there were small pieces of metal in the rifles dovetail grooves. Surely these mounts cant be made of metal ?

 

I then proceeded to phone up jsramsbottom to gety some advice , and was basically told that they dont recommened any mounts for the early Bsa mercurys because the mounting rails on the rifle are too shallow which results in the same problem as i was having.

 

I am currently working on the Mercurys woodwork , and if push comes to shove i will simply use the open sights for close up shooting , but if this mounting problem can be sorted , any advice will be greatly appreciated ,

 

Regards

 

John

[Pink or stink 162]

This was always a problem with earlier meteors/airsporters/mecury's. The dovetail was too shallow so you would always slice into the mount grips. Years ago I tried a very small traingular file to try and get more depth in the ramp but I scratched the cylinder to death. If you are set on having telescopic sights then a decent smith will braze or tap a ramp onto the cylinder but it will spoil the original looks of the rifle.

[mjr88 50]

Thanks for the reply Pink or stink

 

I'm in no immediate rush to sort this problem , so i'll just keep my options open for now and see what happens ,

 

John

[Pink or stink 162]

Some mounts provide shallower/sharper feet that may allow you to get some purchase on the dovetails but it could be a long search. If the mounts were a little less "soft" it would help.