The recent .22LR pistol thread and the direction that it was headed had me thinking...

I have a Browning Buck Mark Hunter; while it's a really nice shooter as-is, the Hunter's sight mount bridge sucks when it comes to playing nice with optics. It uses its own rail with U-shaped slots that winds up excluding A LOT of current red dot options on the market. Even the one decent red dot that I did find (and bought) that uses a round-section cross shaft had too big of a diameter to get the optic's mount to seat on the rail correctly.

Squared slot replacement options (M1913 or even Weaver) have been hard for me to identify and/or source. For instance, TacSol makes a couple of slotted rail solutions "for Buckmarks" (their wording) but according to the company via correspondence neither will work without some significant hand fitting with the Hunter's barrel profile, which is unique to this version of the Buck Mark. The only option I have to make their rail work is to buy a new barrel that's comes shaped for their rail bridge. However I really like the factory 7 1/4" Hunter barrel and its associated sight radius. TacSol offers a 5.5" barrel option that of course works perfectly with their rail bridge. But naturally I really am not at all amused that I would have to spend $270+ on a new barrel and toss the perfectly fine 7 1/4" in the spare parts drawer, plus another $85 for their sight bridge, AND add insult to injury and lose 1 3/4" of sight radius just so I can use a damn modern red dot.

I found a pic on guns.com of a used Hunter that they had listed a while ago. In that pic is what looks like a square-slotted rail bridge, exactly the type I'd like to get for my gun. However I've not been able to identify who makes it. So my question to the gallery is: does anyone on the forum have any ideas on who might have made this rail?


A pic of a factory Buck Mark Hunter (not my pic; 'borrowed' off of Armslist):



The guns.com pic with as yet unidentified rail bridge:

A couple of years ago I bought a Buckmark Hunter to replace one I had sold several years before. I also bought a Cabelas Firefly (IIRC) to mount on it and had no problem doing so. How old is your Hunter? I wonder if newer ones have a different rail on them.

I'm pretty sure that rail is factory Browning but just a later model pistol and you should be able to source the part from one of the gun supply companies.

I believe this is the scope mount you are looking for, red the comments in the review as you may need a different rear site as well:

https://www.midwestgunworks.co...e/mgwi/prod/B5150024

Would grinding down the screw of the optic mount (or sourcing a new screw of the appropriate diameter) not be an easier and cheaper option that replacing the whole rail assembly?

I am not sure why the Tacticol Solutions rail would not work. May not be pretty on the front end since it does not taper like the factory rail.

This seems odd to me as I bought a Browning Buck Mark SS Contour URX and installed Trijicon RM04 with no problems. That was a few years ago, perhaps Browning has changed their rail.

Check out this mount.
https://outerimpact.com/shop/b...ed-dot-mountadapter/

Not that it matters in all this, but if you are putting on a red dot "sight radius" is not a consideration. So if a shorter barrel is the best solution, that's the best solution.

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:
I am not sure why the Tacticol Solutions rail would not work. May not be pretty on the front end since it does not taper like the factory rail.

Your barrel has that flat horizontal 'notch' cut into the top, right next the receiver. That flat area will accept the TacSol rail or any other similarly flat-bottomed rail that's sized to length correctly. For whatever reason Browning didn't cut that same sort of notch into the top of the Hunter barrel, at least my Hunter doesn't have it (for that matter, the last Hunter we got in the shop about two years ago didn't either, and it had the SAME stupid rail as mine from about 8 years earlier). The top of my Hunter's barrel in that area is radiused following the curvature of the outside perimeter of the bull barrel in that area. For the factory supplied Browning rail that came with with the Hunter to seat properly, they scalloped its underside in that area to a matching radius. AFAIK, the Hunter is the only Buck Mark variant that Browning made in this way.

That's why that bottom picture in my OP is so intriguing. Someone made the effort to scallop the underside of the rail...or maybe had the barrel machined to have that flat spot for a 'regular' rail to seat properly.

quote:

Not that it matters in all this, but if you are putting on a red dot "sight radius" is not a consideration. So if a shorter barrel is the best solution, that's the best solution.

A valid point on the sight radius factor, but one thing I'll add in defense of keeping the factory barrel is that I do like and appreciate the heft that its steel bull-barrel self brings to the shooting bench. TacSol's barrel is 1 3/4" shorter and its primary build material is aluminum, plus they BRAG on how "lightweight" it is (bleah). However being threaded though is a big bonus point for the TacSol. As for other factors, I also think that I value keeping that factory barrel more than the notion of adding a red dot to the gun, though frankly this is one of those 'having your cake and eating it too' moments. Why not have both, so to speak. Plus I won't have to fork out an additional $300ish for a new barrel to replace one that's still got a LOT of accurate-shooting mileage left. Spending less is always a good thing, after all. Especially since that TacSol barrel + rail is almost as much as what I paid for the gun itself, albeit that was a decade or so ago.

I think the issue is that your top rail is a "scope base" and not a "rail" for red dots.

You could get a traditional tube and use scope rings (something like an accudot).

You could also go with a regular 5.5 inch bull barrel with red dot base for when you want to do red dot shooting. It's only 3oz lighter than the 7.5 in Hunter barrel.

After studying the 2nd picture of the rail with multiple square slots I think the owner had extra slots milled into the original rail.

Wouldn't be hard to do on a Bridgeport mill. I've done this on Weaver rails before to add a slot where I wanted.

You could always buy a factory rail from Browning or MGW and have this done and keep your original rail intact.

quote:

You could also go with a regular 5.5 inch bull barrel with red dot base for when you want to do red dot shooting. It's only 3oz lighter than the 7.5 in Hunter barrel.

I like this suggestion. Browning OEM barrels are far cheaper than the aftermarket offerings. I can also have my original barrel (or buy a spare) machined to add that rail ledge if I insist on keeping the length.