Sportsmatch Scope Mounts

It’s easy to overlook the obvious things in life if they form part of the fabric of your shooting kit which never goes wrong and continues to perform as expected. In a nutshell, that describes Sportsmatch scope mounts, the unsung heroes that secure optics to air pistols/rifles, rimfires, centrefires and even sniper rifles.

Sportsmatch UK Ltd was established in 1972 by John Ford, who was not satisfied with the Japanese air rifle scope mounts on the market at the time or like today, cheap Chinese copies!

Fed up with mounts that crept and lost zero, he decided to design and produce a British-made mount of superior quality. Now, Sportsmatch is found in over 40 countries and caters for all areas of the shooting market, because their mounts are built to a quality not a price and have thus earned a reputation as the go-to scope mounting system.

Continued investment into new technologies sees the latest CNC machines producing every component in-house, with a final inspection by hand. In this way, Sportsmatch mounts will always align correctly and provide a rock-solid union between scope and rifle. The difference between Sportsmatch and quite frankly, shameless and shoddy Chinese copies, is that they are guaranteed not to lose zero. Plus, they all have a lifetime guarantee with their high tensile construction making them suitable for airgun, rimfire and centrefire rifles alike. Also, don’t forget that they are all made in good old Blighty!

Choose your mount

Famous for its complete range of mounting solutions, Sportsmatch offers two-piece, single or twin-screw fitment mounts in either 1” or 30mm scope tube sizes, as well as low, medium or high configurations. You can also have extended mounts for small actions, where the eye relief is tricky, as well as see-through or angle adjustment mounts to compensate for MOA changes down range.

With the one-piece mounts on offer, there are options for adjustable windage and elevation for scopes that run out of internal adjustment range. There are even specific mounts for unusual dovetail widths, such as old 13mm Weihrauchs or 15mm Tikka and CZ rifles. There are also lots of options for rifles with Picatinny or Weaver rails, with some of the mounts offering spirit levels, torch mounts, adapter rails for dovetail to Weaver or vice versa. The list goes on!

I recommend getting their catalogue, which is colour coded and makes choosing a mount for your gun so much easier.

On Test

I had a set of two-piece 30mm HT036C mounts (£30.49) for 13mm dovetails, which are excellent for old Weihrauchs and BSA air rifles. Being a lifelong Weihrauch fan (HW35 break barrel air rifles in particular), these Sportsmatch mounts are just the ticket to secure your scope on those odd-sized dovetails. What I like about Sportsmatch is the excellent attention to detail, with these being a double screw clamp system for the top rings on both sides and dual securing screws for the dovetail clamp. This clamp is correctly profiled to engage the dovetail rails with the maximum amount of purchase, so it not only provides a vice-like grip but evens the pressure over a greater length, thus ensuring recoiling guns do not shift the mount.

You get both Allen keys needed for ring and clamp screws and you are supplied with an arrestor or recoil pin that can be fitted if your rifle has the necessary action cutaway to receive it.

Sportsmatch also wisely give you a guide for each scope mount with regard to the best torque settings. For ring screws, a recommendation of 15 in-lbs is best and the dovetail clamp screws are best done up to 38 in-lbs for the 4mm thread diameter and 55 in-lbs for the 5mm thread diameter.

The next ones

The one-piece mounts look very nice on any air rifle and offer an incredibly stable platform for scope mounting. I had a set of 1” and 30mm one-piece mounts (OP25C £32.99 and HOP40c £54.99), with scope height maximums of 45mm and 56mm respectively. There are plenty of height options to choose from, so you can achieve perfect scope height and eye alignment.

You have a flawless satin black anodised finish to these aluminium mounts, with the tell-tale Sportsmatch blue sticker and logo on the ring tops for authenticity. These one-piece mounts offer a very large clamping area that is 4.73” long, so your scope stays absolutely rigid and on zero at all times.

Finally, the OP15C mount (£30.99) offers 20 MOA of droop compensation, which is very handy on air rifles that show a slightly droopy barrel, commonly seen on airguns fitted with aperture sights. They are a single screw ring top arrangement and give you the necessary additional degrees if your scope is running out of internal adjustment. They are equally good as a standard 20 MOA mount on a 22 rimfire, so you can optically centre the scope for the same reason and increase long range shooting potential.

Conclusions

It’s often the things you take for granted that you forget about, as they cause you no issues at all, and that’s Sportsmatch scope mounts. I have bought, owned and used these mounts on a diverse selection of rifles from .17 Ackley Hornet, right up to a fire-breathing .458 Lott, and had no issues ever! In fact, customer service is so good, Matthew Ford helped me with some lost parts for my Theoben Eliminator scope mounts, made by Sportsmatch. Overall, a brilliant company.

Contact:

Sportsmatch UK - www.sportsmatch-uk.com