I got myself a Winchester Model 70 Featherweight in .270 Winchester for Christmas. I have been having trouble figuring out what scope to put on it, because I want a fairly light scope to not turn it into a heavy, unbalanced beast to carry, but I want a variable with enough power to make moving up in caliber/power to the .270 worthwhile. And I don’t want to just throw money at it, so Kahles, Zeiss, Nightforce, etc aren’t really in the budget. I’ve kind of narrowed it down to Leupold and Vortex mostly.
Where I hunt Coues whitetail, we climb mountains, find a vantage point, and glass with high power binos and spotting scopes on tripods. The binos are the most important glass. Usually, when I’m hunting alone, I skip the spotting scope and go with my 15x Vortex Razors. It’s kind of like what I read about hunting Dall sheep, except the mountains aren’t quite as tall and the weather is usually better. LOL. Some guys build and hunt with extreme long-range rigs. I looked at a buck through a friend’s huge Nightforce scope on a 6.5-.284 28” carbon fiber wrapped barreled rifle. Quite the rig. Way out of my budget, not to mention I don’t really want to shoot at deer half a mile away. On the other hand, I sold my .30-30 because of a lack of effective range.
My other existing hunting rifles are a .50 muzzleloader that I hardly ever shoot anymore, a Savage 11 .243 I really like and a 16” 6.8 SPC II AR I built for my son. I don’t know if he’s interested in hunting anymore now that he’s at university, so that may not stick around because I personally don’t really care about hunting with an AR. The muzzleloader has no scope, the .243 has a 3-9x Burris Fullfield II and the 6.8 has a 2-7x, again a Burris Fullfield II.
The .270 is supposed to be my “nice” rifle (figured walnut and nicer looking metal vs cheap black plastic Savage stock) and also the more powerful & heavier caliber rifle for when that is called for, such as if I go hunt elk again (I took the .243 before b/c it’s what I had, but didn’t get a shot) or if I need to shoot deer farther than the effective range of my 22” .243 sporter, which I see as between 300 yards with most loads, and up to 400 on the extreme end with a few specialized bullets and powders. When I’m in practice, 400 yards on a stationary deer target is very make-able with it, but the longest shot on a live deer I’ve taken was 300 yards - bang-flop. I figure the .270 can take me confidently to and possibly beyond 400, with extreme limits to be determined based on load development and skill building.
That said, I’ve purchased and returned a set of scope bases and rings, bought another set, and bought and sold a used scope I thought would work but it was too short, took every scope I have off the rifles they were on and they’re all too short, and today purchased a scope I hope will do the job: Vortex Diamondback 3-9x40 with Dead Hold BDC SFP reticle. Weighs a bit under a pound.
But. It’s too short to work with this set of bases and rings (traditional Leupold). I’m ready to throw up my hands and put a DNZ rail on it and some compatible 1” rings so I can use the tube length it has and stop fussing around. I just wanted to be able to put my thumb between the scope and bolt while carrying it, and I guess I won’t be able to do that.
So: TL;DR. Any other ideas for mounting this scope, or for a different one that won’t bust my budget?