I love my Ruger American Rimfire. A lot. So much so that I end up shooting it more than my Appleseed compliant 10/22. Even with .22LR prices what they are, it is still a deliriously fun time to rack that short throw bolt and burn through a few hundred rounds on a lazy Sunday afternoon. It is especially well suited to teaching the fundamentals of “precision” rifle shooting to new shooters. As I mentioned in my review of the gun, one of the best features is the ability to swap from open sights to scoped shooting with the addition of a different stock comb. One of the essential pieces of gear that facilitates that sort of swapping back and forth is a set of quick detach scope rings like the Maxima rings from Warne.
For some reason known only to Ruger engineers, the RAR ships with a grooved receiver that refused to accept the set of rings that my other Ruger .22 had used for over a decade. I’ll never know why Ruger made that design choice, but it did give me an opportunity to get on the blower with Warne, and get a set of rings coming. I’d never actually planned on getting a set of QD rings, but I was pleasantly surprised to find them nicely packaged on my doorstep.
Once I ripped through the shrink wrap, I got them loosely mounted to the receiver, and used the include Torx bit to clamp them down on the scope. One of the most appreciated features for the detail obsessed is the ability to tighten the inner screw of the clamp piece enough that a 1/4 turn of the handle clamps the whole things down. You can match both the front and back so they look symmetrical. The small things count.
Speaking of small things, even a small change in point of impact from removing and reinstalling the scope make quick detach rings totally worthless. As you can see, the first group was high and right from the point of aim, and the second group after removal and reinstallation was still right of the point of aim, but “on” elevation wise. That’s not encouraging to see, but to put some numbers around it, I calculated the shift in POI to be 5% in the horizontal plane and 26% in the vertical plane. Those are pretty big shifts, and for a 1000 yard gun, these mounts would be totally out. But its important to remember that this is a .22 that probably won’t get shot much beyond 50 to 75 yards. In practical terms, those shifts were .063 inches in the horizontal and .334 inches in the vertical at 50 yards. That’s well within the bounds of practical accuracy in my book, and at a touch under $40, I really think they’re a solid buy.
Specifications: Warne Maxima 7.3/22 QD Scope Rings
- Diameter: 1 inch
- Price: $39.94
Overall Rating * * * *
While I’d love a set of rings that returned to an absolute zero each and every time I removed and reinstalled them, I’m also a practical guy. My testing showed a shift in point of impact of roughly 1/3 of an inch at 50 yards. That’s a very small difference and well inside the range of what this gun can accurately shoot.