New scope rings and stock adjustments:
The initial plan was to use these silver cerakoted offset rings.
WIth the silver color and the cutouts, they just seemed like they'd be a good match for the rifle. The problem was that the offsets were simply too great for the scope's eye relief. And i couldnt turn them around with getting into the gears for the sidewheel attachment. Was kinda bummed that they wouldn't work, but told myself the color wasn't quite a match anyway (attempt to make myself feel better about it).
So, up til tonight I was using some REALLY cheap mounts that I had retired into a junk box some time ago. I had them both placed in front of the turret-less than ideal.
I ordered in some new UTG mounts. I've had good results using the lever lock type and decided to go with them again. I chose high mounts because I wanted to make single-loading easier and allow plenty of clearance for the magazine.
Mounting this scope was a little bit of a pain, mostly because of the 3d printed contraption I use to convert the rear ao swfa 20x to a sidewheel set-up. That device takes up a fair amount of the scope tube, right in front of the rear bell. I also needed to make sure the lever lock didnt stick into the breech cut-out. There isn't enough wheel clearance on the other side to put the levers on that side, and even if there was, I wouldn't want to take the wheel off in order to release the levers on the scope mount.
So, I got the scope mounted in a way I like and that didn't cause problems with the 3d printed sidewheel, or the breech cut-out for loading pellets. But it kicked the scope back about an inch. That lead me to the stock adjustments while trying to get the eye relief right.
I decided to take some pics of the full range of adjustment on the butt stock, while I had the screws out and was playing with it. LOTS of range.
The ruler is lined up with the junction of the gun's tube, and the butt stock tube. The angle makes it look slightly off in the pics but it's pretty close to the same place in each of them.
All that range would fit a wide range of shooter preference and size, from 6'5" 280# MAN (not me), to my six year old son, or a lady shooter in the middle.
The cheekrest is high here just to give enough room to access the screws underneath. I can't even imagine how high the scope rings would need to be to need that much vertical adjustment on the cheek piece. Even with these really high rings, I'm only needing about 1/8inch up from its lowest setting for things to feel right.
While I was at it I decided to see what the shoulder pad adjustment looks like.
I adjusted it down a little. Butt "pad" is just a hard hollow plastic. There's no way to grind out the section between the holes for a more curved buttpad.
I do see some potential for FT customization here. It would not be too hard to retrofit one of the 3d printed or machined aluminum butthooks onto the baseplate.
I'm also seeing that the rear-ward weight I was looking to add could be placed inside the current hollow butt pad, or inside the buttstock tube. Hmmmm ideas ideas.
Yeah, there are some missing components in these pics (pic rail, trigger, grip). I've got it apart while waiting for the new trigger group. USPS is saying Saturday.