TACTICAL PRECISION SYSTEMS RINGS AND BASES

Recently there have been a few new comers to the arena of high quality tactical rings and bases. One of these new commers is Tactical Precision Systems, or TPS for short. TPS makes several styles of rings, out of several different materials. They also make bases that are 0 MOA and 20 MOA cant, out of the same variety of material (Stainless Steel and Alloys). For this review, I received a set of 30mm Alloy TSR “low” rings, and a XP 20 MOA base for a remington short action.

The first thing that many people will notice is the price. You can get a set of rings and bases together for about $130, where as you will be spending up to twice that price if you go with Leupold Mark 4, Badger Ordnance, or US Optics. Does that mean these rings & bases suffer in quality? Well, lets find out.

When comparing the TPS base side by side with a USO and a Ken Ferrell, the quality compares favorably, things line up nice, are well machined and have a nice finish to them. The designs are different on all three bases, but they generally have the same concepts and ideas. In terms of the 30mm rings, I compared them side by side with a pair of Leupold Mark 4 rings. The TPS rings are a bit thinner in about every dimension. But at the same time, they are slightly taller than the mark 4 low rings I was comparing to. While they are thinner and less “beefy” in all dimensions, that in no way means they are not as sufficient as the Mark 4’s. The TPS rings have a nice profile, are durable, and appear to be engineered plenty strong for their intended application. The TPS rings have a 7/16″ nut for tightening down the rings to the base. This is also different from the Mark 4’s, as they have a 1/2″ nut. Which one do I prefer? Either one, they both have plenty of size to use for their intended purpose.

I mounted the rings/bases to a SC1A2 (remington 700) chambered in .308. Here, I ran into problems. 3 of the 4 screw holes on the base fit perfect, one hole did not. The front screw hole in the “Rear” pair did not line up. It was close, but nothing I could do would make it so this screw could be threaded. I took the base off and mounted it on another rem 700 short action I had available, and this time, the screw hole was still not perfect, but it was close enough to make it work with a very tight fit. It appears that on my example of the scope base, this hole is just not properly lined up. Since it was so tight on the 2nd one, I’m thinking the screw hole placement needs to be double-checked. So, as it was, I mounted the base using the 3 screws I could get lined up and drove on.

The rings fit great, and the Holland Tactical scope fit in the rings just right. I need to make mention here that you should follow the directions carefully that are provided with the rings. The process is slightly different from a normal set of rings because of the indexing of the rings. If you use the ring index system it is designed to more properly line up the rings, much like lapping the rings will do. (they do not recommend lapping their rings). The Holland is a 30mm tube and a 40mm objective and the bell had plenty of room off the barrel with the “low” profile rings. After tightening down everything, we went to the range and put the rings and base (and scope) through its paces to see how they faired. Through all the testing we could not fault the rings and/or bases for anything. (No real surprise there). Everything maintained its zero and the 20 MOA base was exactly 20 MOA low based on range results.

Conclusion Well, provided the misaligned screw problem gets fixed (or was only on our single base) then we have a very nice set of rings and bases. Things are a little less beefy than Leupold Mk 4 rings, as well as the base is a bit less beefy than the USO and Ken Ferrell bases. But these things are very nice and so far have helded up great with everything we have done. I recommend a serious look at these rings and bases if you are in the market, they are a very nice buy for the price.

UPDATE (12/17/05)
After this review, TPS requested that we send back the base so they could determine if the base was a defect or if there were problems. They discovered that the dimensions on some of the older Remington actions are slightly different and their drill holes would not work on them. They made a slight adjustment to their specs that is incorporated into all of their new bases and sent out a new base for us to try out. Well, the changes worked and everything lined up and fit as they should. We tried the base on several actions, new and old, and everything lined up as it should and fit correctly. As far as we can tell, the problem we originally found is no longer there and all is well.