Accessorize Your Firearms

Is It or Isn't It?

When  thinking of accessories, usually we think about the things we don't really need, but it would be nice to have them.  In truth, what some companies call accessories are, in fact, more like necessities.  So, let's start with some of the things we need to have in order to mount the scopes  and then we'll move on to the things that are probably more in line with the meaning of accessories.

Basic Necessities/Accessories

The scope base - really a very necessary part of the mounting procedure - is attached to the rifle, most often with screws, and it is designed to have a low profile which allows for use of the iron sights if the scope is not on the rifle.  Many bases are already part of the firearm, such as on the Ruger Super Redhawk revolver.  Dovetails, or tip-off mounts as they are sometimes called, are among the most commonly encountered and there are manufacturers who have created scope bases and mounting systems with adapters in order to convert the base to fit a different type of scope if desired.

Once the base is in place, the next accessory would be the rings which are used to hold the scope to the mount.  Rings come in a variety of sizes, so it's imperative that the right size be chosen for the particular base being used.  Ring height is chosen to position the scope high enough to clear the firearm and at a height that is comfortable for the shooter.

The Real Accessories

While we're still talking about scopes, we can now mention some of the items that perhaps we'd really consider to be accessories.  Lens hoods are available for mounting on the objective and/or ocular lens to either reduce or eliminate stray light which can impair image quality.  There are lens hoods that extend the full length of the gun barrel which will block out mirage induced by shot strings.  Light reflections can compromise a sniper so to address that problem, there are kill flash filters and eye safe laser filters to protect operators from being blinded by laser light.

And For Law Enforcement and Military Use

For law enforcement and military firearms, detachable magazines assemblies with two ten-round magazines for a Remington 700 action will run about $775.  A muzzle brake to reduce the feeling of the recoil by nearly half can also be purchased.  While we're at it, you can even get a stainless steel barrel for sniping if you want to replace the barrel on your rifle. Change the stock on your gun to a tactical sniper stock and get a faster trigger if you think you need one.  For students of law enforcement who have made the unfortunate error of turning the elevation or windage adjustment knob the wrong direction, MilCun has come up with a solution for the Leopold Vari-X by creating a simplified turret scales to replace the target turret scales.  The new turret scales have numbers on every major adjustment line to make elevation easier and on the windage scale, there are now two rows of numbers.

And the list goes on...