Allumium vs Steel Picatinny

**Adoons** · 16-10-2023, 08:56

When I was young, my Dad installed Alluminium scope bases and rings on his Musgrave 30-06 rifle. They worked, but after a lot of use worked loose. Maybe poor quality or not tightened correctly etc. This is just the history of my question. From those days I only use steel mounts and rings on all of my rifles.

I recieved little Adoons's Howa M1500 30-06 license and collected the rifle. Myself don't like Picatinny rails on hunting rifles, but then this is not really mine. The youngster want to use a picatinny. Then he can mount a Red Dot when hunting close range and a decent scope when hunting other types on hunts and mount a night sight for the bushpigs or whatever. I will give it to him, the options with a picatinny is more and easier.

Alluminium rails are all over to be found. Steel rails can also be found. Steel not really more expensive, so pricing not the issue.

What pro's and con's exist between alluminium ans steel rails for this intended use?

**Pirate** · 16-10-2023, 09:10

Not all aluminium is created equal ;-) modern components made of 6061 or 7075 will be more than strong enough.

The Warne Mountaintech rails are good quality, and drop-in on the Howa.

Lynx makes steel rails, you can check their website and have your local dealer order for you.

**aimpoint** · 16-10-2023, 09:27

Weight

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**tobie** · 16-10-2023, 10:11

I would opt for steel, especially when little Adoons would want to change over frequently between Dot and scope. Then again maybe pairing AL rail with AL rings would negate the potential for wear / damage caused by steel rings. I also have dim view of Aluminium. My first .308 Musgrave also had the abominable Aluminium Weaver bases and my first modern pistol was a well worn out Beretta 92, the slide would rattle around on the frame. To be fair, this pistol belonged to a sport shooter that fired many thousands of rounds, but the o'l Luger with steel parts never rattled

**Heath Robinson** · 16-10-2023, 11:23

I think fit/dimensional accuracy is more important than material.

**oafpatroll** · 16-10-2023, 11:45

Originally Posted by Heath Robinson

I think fit/dimensional accuracy is more important than material.

I would tend to agree. I have an ally rail on my semi auto shotgun and swap between ghost ring irons and a scope (for slug shooting) pretty much whenever I train with it. In 10 years of use it hasn't loosened or worn appreciably.

**Adoons** · 16-10-2023, 12:17

What about creating more action rigidity with steel than Aluminium? A "gun guru" friend (dangerous people sometimes....) is of opinion a steel rail add to rigidity but a Aluminium one not. My opinion: Those 4 small screws are the weakest link.

**Pirate** · 16-10-2023, 17:21

Originally Posted by Adoons

What about creating more action rigidity with steel than Aluminium? A "gun guru" friend (dangerous people sometimes....) is of opinion a steel rail add to rigidity but a Aluminium one not. My opinion: Those 4 small screws are the weakest link.

The action itself is plenty stiff. It doesn't NEED any additional stiffness provided by the rail.

For the same cross section, a component made from Aluminium would only have 1/3 of the axial stiffness as one made from steel. However, (as you intuitively deduced) the stiffness "transfer" between the action and the rail would be dominated by the properties of the bolted connection. That's also not quite as simple as it seems (for a very simple mechanism, bolted connections are way more complex than we think... pet subject of mine) and depends very strongly on the interface conditions between the rail and the action (basically how high can you guarantee the friction is).

However, its all nitpicking, as we've been shooting with "normal" scope mounts for ages, very successfully, and we don't use our scopes to add stiffness to the action, neither should we require our rails to do so (and again, they don't need to).

**Adoons** · 16-10-2023, 18:46

So then the answer is simple: Get the best rail available from my local gunshop, steel or aluminium, it should work and keep on doing so as lomg as the dimensions are correct and the screws stay tight.

Thanks for all the input. I have the answer - It doesn't matter, as long it is sound metalurgy and good tolerances used.

**Pirate** · 16-10-2023, 19:14

Sounds about right. I only have experience with the Warne Mountaintech, and it's on my 223, not a firebreathing recoil monster like a 30-06 but I was really impressed with the build quality (as I've come to expect from Warne). It fit the Howa action like it was made for it

what I specifically like is that it's no higher than it needs to be. I got the 20MOA one because tacticool. I mounted mine with some loctite between the action and the rail, after properly degreasing both interface surfaces.

I'm also strongly considering getting a rail for my Musgrave 308, which also still has the Aluminium Weaver bases my dad mounted just over 50y ago. When I got the rifle I just flipped one of them front to back to accommodate my scope with its Warne Maxima mounts. That rifle still happily shoots 1MOA, only reason I'm thinking about a rail is that I'd really like to be able to put the 223's scope on the Musgrave for playing with gongs. My loads for both guns have essentially the same trajectory, but 150gr does give a more definite feedback on steel than 70gr does! Lynx makes a rail for the Musgrave's action, so in it's case it will be steel.