What Base and Rings Do I Need? Start Here.

What Base and Rings Do I Need? Start Here.

Pick the base that fits your receiver, the rings that fit your scope, and a height that clears your barrel — then torque all of it to the numbers we publish. Here’s how each of those decisions works, and the fastest way to skip straight to the answer.

It’s the most common question we get, and it’s a fair one. You’ve got a rifle, you’ve got a scope, and now you’re ready to pick up a base and a set of rings to get your new rig rolling. But what base and rings do you need?

The Fit Finder

A quick way to determine the correct base for your make and model of firearm is to let us look it up for you.

For those of you that understand the why behind which base and ring set you need, read on.

Weaver Base Numbers

If you’ve referenced our Weaver chart online or at your local gun store, you’ve seen Weaver base numbers and wondered what they correspond to. This number isn’t a measurement. It doesn’t encode height or length or hole spacing. It’s a catalog index — an identifier we assigned to a specific combination of receiver hole spacing and receiver top contour, back when that combination first needed a part.

The numbers run from single digits into the hundreds and they were assigned over the better part of a century, as rifles came and went. There’s no formula hiding in there. Base 46 fits what base 46 fits.

A rifle often needs two different bases

On a two-piece setup, the front and rear of your receiver frequently aren’t the same shape, so they don’t take the same part. Plenty of rifles do take two of the same number, but never assume this. Check both.

The exact variant of your rifle matters more than you’d think

Not just the model — the generation. A Savage Axis built before June 2021 uses 6-48 screws and takes one base. The same model built after uses 8-40 screws and takes a different one. Same name on the barrel, different hardware.

How to Find the Right Size Rings

Two questions, in this order.

What’s your scope’s tube diameter? Look it up in your scope’s manual, packaging or on the maker’s spec sheet. Most scopes will be 1 inch, 30mm, or 34mm. You’ll want a ring set or mount that matches up exactly. A 30mm scope does not go in 1-inch rings, and a 34mm main tube scope needs 34mm rings.

Do you want a base-and-ring setup, or rings that go straight on the receiver? Most rifles use bases plus rings. But if you’re mounting on a .22 with a grooved receiver, our .22 Tip-Off Adapter Bases handle that, and our See-Through Steel Lock Ring Mounts bolt directly to certain receivers with no base at all.

From there, pick the family that suits the rifle. Our Grand Slam Steel Top Mount Rings use an integrated square recoil lug and all-steel construction, which is hard to argue with on a hard-kicking hunting rifle. Our Precision Rings and Precision Tactical Rings are 7075-T6 aluminum with hardcoat anodizing, for anyone building something serious. Four-Hole Skeleton Rings and Four-Hole Picatinny Rings split the difference on price.

Ring Height

The job of ring height is simple: hold the scope high enough that the objective bell clears the barrel. From there, most shooters and hunters will want the objective bell as close as possible to the barrel.

1. Measure, don’t assume

   Your scope’s “50mm objective” is the lens. The bell housing wrapped around it is bigger — commonly five to eight millimeters bigger, sometimes more. Put calipers on the outside of the bell and work from that number, not the one on the box.

2. Then decide how much daylight you want over the barrel

   Two to four millimeters of clearance is a safe minimum. You don’t need much but you do need some.

3. Read Weaver’s Saddle Height Chart

   We publish saddle heights for every ring family, alongside the largest objective each one is meant to handle. A saddle height is not a center height — it’s the distance up to the seat the tube rests in, not to the middle of the tube. Manufacturers genuinely differ on this convention, and holding a saddle figure up against somebody else’s center figure puts you off by half a tube diameter. So if you’re going to do the arithmetic instead of trial-fitting, check the number against the rings in your hand before you trust it.

4. Trial-fit

   Set the scope in the rings, snug them enough to hold, and look. Check the objective bell against the barrel. Check the ocular bell against the rear base and against your bolt shroud. Work the bolt through a full cycle with the scope in place. Shoulder the rifle with your eyes closed, open them, and see whether your eye lands behind the scope naturally or whether you’re lifting your head to find the picture. Arithmetic gets you close; your cheek and your feel tell you the truth.

Go as low as comfort allows. A low mount buys you a repeatable cheek weld and less error from rifle cant — the higher your scope sits above the bore, the more a few degrees of tilt walks your bullet sideways. A high mount that leaves you with a chin weld instead of a cheek weld will cost you far more accuracy than the mount height itself ever could.

Sometimes you deliberately go higher: a big objective, a front focal plane housing, a bolt handle that needs room, or an AR where a taller mount actually gives you a better head position, or a semi-automatic setup that needs to clear co-witnessed iron or other sights.

Will Weaver rings fit a Picatinny rail?

Usually yes. The reverse, however, is not true: Picatinny rings will not fit well on a Weaver rail.

So a Weaver-spec ring, with its narrower locking bar, drops into a Picatinny slot with room to spare. A Picatinny-spec ring has a locking bar too wide to enter a Weaver slot. It simply won’t go.

Torque: use the chart, not your elbow

For base screws, our published values are typically:

Those are small numbers. Fifteen inch-pounds is barely more than snug — considerably less than most people apply by feel.

For rings, there is no single torque spec number. Values differ by family and by fastener.

Find your product on our Recommended Torque Specs chart and use what it says.

Right base, right rings, right height, right torque. Here’s all of it put together on a rifle: