It can be quite a challenge to mount a scope on a gun for which no factory-made bases are available, such as this old Savage Model 219, but with some help from Reid, you can do the job yourself.

When I opened my gunsmithing shop in a little town in western North Carolina years ago, I drilled and tapped a lot of guns for scope mounts. Most of them were older military rifles that had been sporterized to one degree or another. However, there were a fair number of commercial sporting rifles, both rimfire and centerfire, as well. Keep in mind that it was quite some time after World War II before virtually all manufacturers set up just about every rifle for a scope. Until then, you often saw rifles that had not been drilled and tapped for scope bases.

Generally, this was a pretty straightforward gunsmithing job with few problems. From time to time, you'd run across a receiver harder than woodpecker lips and all but impossible to drill and tap, but mechanically, that was about it. There was one other problem, and that was finding appropriate scope bases.

As I think back, I believe it was a bit easier back then than it is now. You can definitely make the case that it's now more difficult to locate bases for some of the stranger, less popular, and seldom-seen guns. Many scope-base manufacturers have simply had to drop some of their lines because sales were so very limited. It's awfully hard, if not impossible, to justify maintaining tooling or inventory for a scope base where you might sell only half a dozen or so units per year. Not many successful businesses can afford to do that in this day and age.

About a year or so ago, I was at a local gun show and spotted an interesting old rifle. It was a Savage Model 219 single-shot, break-open, hammerless rifle that looks a lot like an ordinary break-open, single-barrel shotgun. In fact, this rifle was available in a number of calibers ranging from .22 Hornet to .30-30 and could be ordered with an additional shotgun barrel in either 12 or 16 gauge.

This old Savage came with a 12-gauge barrel duct-taped to the .30-30 rifle barrel. It was in fair shape. The stock had seen a lot of use and abuse, but after a modest amount of dickering, I bought it. I have to admit I have a weakness for single-shot rifles, and at the time, I had visions of finding a .22 Hornet barrel to go with the .30-30 barrel. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to locate one yet.

I decided to go ahead and do some work on this old girl. I opened up the choke on the shotgun barrel. Originally it was Full and then some. That was way too tight for most applications, so I opened it up to Modified. I also picked up a Boyd's stock and will eventually replace both the buttstock and the forearm.

I wanted to mount an old Weaver K2.5 scope on the .30-30 barrel, but it was not drilled or tapped for a scope base. I checked my Brownells catalog and found that Weaver still offers a two-piece base for the Model 219. That's great, but I didn't want to use a Weaver base for several reasons. First and most importantly, the Weaver base would not permit any windage adjustment. If the rifle tended to shoot to the right or the left, I would have to compensate with the internal scope adjustment. I really don't like to do that. I want as much useable adjustment as possible available in my scope.

In addition, a two-piece base would necessitate drilling and tapping four holes in my rifle's barrel. I don't like to drill more holes than are absolutely necessary. I guess part of that is seeing so many guns over the years that look like Swiss cheese after someone has gotten drill-happy on 'em.