I bought a nice little 1.5-5 leupold optic to mount on my 30-30. This will be my first time mounting a scope. So far I’ve concluded that I will have to buy a standard leupold mounting plate, and some standard rings. The part I can’t figure out is what height should I buy? How do you figure that out before buying rings? Since there’s really no “objective lens bell” on my lpvo is it safe to just buy the lowest ones?

The real answer is:  it depends. 

There are 3 checkpoints.  Choose the lowest height rings that provide:

(1)  clearance for your scope (objective lens),

(2) clearance for your bolt, and

(3)  best position for your aiming eye in line with the ocular lens.

This keeps the optic and bore as close as possible (reduces parallax) and assists with proper cheek weld so that you’re not raising or tilting your head to look through the scope.

Obviously, if the objective lens is resting on the barrel, the rings are too short for that scope.  Just as obviously, if you can't easily work the bolt without the knob or your hand hitting the scope, the rings are too short.  If you can at least get those two mechanical criteria satisfied, the only thing left to decide is where in your line of vision when taking aim do you want the scope to be positioned? 

You might find that an adjustable comb can help dial in your eye alignment as long as the scope is mounted as low as possible with the first two check points met.

 

I don’t have experience with a Marlin, but other lever actions. Here is what I suggest you do and to look out for. Flapp is right about the clearance of the objective. However, a lot of lever actions, and I believe this applies to the Marlin, is the receiver is a tad taller than the height of the barrel. Allowing for you to use low rings with smaller and medium diameter objective scopes like yours. BUT, in many cases the shorter scopes’ objectives falls right where the rear sight occurs. Requiring you to either use medium height rings or remove the rear sight and use low rings. Again, it depends on the diameter of the objective and where the objective falls in relation to the rear sight. If the scope is longer or can be mounted a little farther forward you can avoid the rear sight. It really depends on the 3 things I mentioned, objective diameter, length of scope and where the objective falls in relation to the rear sight. Without knowing all the specifics I cannot give you an exact solution. All I can do is suggest what to look out for. Deciding where on the gun the scope is going to be mounted by trial and error before you buy the rings might help you decide.

With all that said, there is another thing to take into consideration. It depends on the stock and your physical makeup. Some lever actions have what they call straight stocks while others have a slightly more downward angle to them with more of a “pistol” grip. And some have a cheek piece while others don’t. So it depends where your line of sight falls with this gun. If the stock forces your line of sight a little higher then medium rings might work better for you. If you have a straight stock with no cheek piece then your line of sight might be lower. Once again, playing around with mounting locations BEFORE you buy the rings might help you decide.

One last thing. I assume this is a newer Marlin that ejects cases off to the side. If it is an old gun and ejects the cases straight up then you probably should not use a scope.

Ohh i wanna jump in. The obective side should be 20mm iirc. No more than 30 mm for sure. I had firedot 1-4 and iirc it was 20mm objective. So it shouldnt be a problem.

Are you mounting on the receiver or far forward like that silver 45-70 that has xs sights? I hope its the receiver as you will not get the eye relief if its far forward.

1. As inspector said, itll depend on top or side eject. I seen both but not sure if the top eject was 3030 or 357. I forget.

2. Do you own an ar15 or ak? If ya do, what height is it your optic above top rail? Take that measurement and try to apply your leupy scope above your lever action, while laying it down on its side. I know its not ideal since i know itll be too high. I kinda like tall optics myself. One is 1.93 inches tall and the other is 1.8 inches tall. My offset red dots are much shorter maybe 1.4-1.5. I just learned muscle memory when i switch to my offset red dots.

Second option.

Itll help if you have a gun rest and a kitchen table. If not, use your imagination and jerry rig it. Put rifle into gun rest. Use quarters and lay flat ontop receiver, use double sided sticky tape to get the scope adhere to the top quarter or legos or whatever your using. Take that measurement and compare it to the rings. Do not lift your gun off the rest, otherwise byebye scope. Just try to get cheekweld and see how high or low you want.

Websites may or may not have the measurements from top of rail to bottom of rings. Warne scope rings website does and thats how i figured out some of my measurements. Some will give top of rail to middle of scope rings height measurement.  So be careful. Also factor in the top rail or whatever your purchasing. Leupold has great customer service. They can answer all those technical questions.

Good luck 👍🏻

Ohh i wanna jump in. The obective side should be 20mm iirc. No more than 30 mm for sure. I had firedot 1-4 and iirc it was 20mm objective. So it shouldnt be a problem.

Are you mounting on the receiver or far forward like that silver 45-70 that has xs sights? I hope its the receiver as you will not get the eye relief if its far forward.

1. As inspector said, itll depend on top or side eject. I seen both but not sure if the top eject was 3030 or 357. I forget.

2. Do you own an ar15 or ak? If ya do, what height is it your optic above top rail? Take that measurement and try to apply your leupy scope above your lever action, while its not ideal since i know itll be too high. I kinda like tall opyics myself. One is 1.93 inches tall and the other is 1.8 inches tall. My offset red dots are much shorter maybe 1.4-1.5. I just learned muscle memory .

Second option.

Itll help if you have a gun rest and a kitchen table. If not, use your imagination and jerry rig it. Put rifle into gun rest. Use quarters and lay flat ontop receiver, use a cut up slicone pad or double sided sticky tape the scope to the quarters or legos. Take that measurement and compare it to the rings. Do not lift your gun off the rest, otherwise byebye scope. Just try to get cheekweld and see how high or low you want.

Websites may or may not have the measurements from top of rail to bottom of rings. Warne scope rings website does and thats how i figured out some of my measurements. Some will give top of rail to middle of scope rings height measurement.  So be careful. Also factor in the top rail or whatever your purchasing. Leupold has great customer service. They can answer all those technical questions.

Good luck 👍🏻

All good points. I thought of something based on what you said. Some top eject Winchesters (I am not familiar with Marlins) actually do eject up and to the right. So they can be used with a scope if desired. But in this case a scope might have to be mounted higher in order to not interfere with proper ejection.

For shits and gigs, also being home cause i got a minor cold. I decided to hit youtube and it appears all marlin 336 are side ejecting.

And most vids i watched that had the XS rail, that extends from rear sight to middle of forearm or so have medium rings to clear rear peep sight. Others include see through rings from leupold and a bunch of red dots. Lol
 

I screebshot a tr24- red post with trijicon aluminum intermediate rings to clear rear peep sight. And it barely clears

For shits and gigs, also being home cause i got a minor cold. I decided to hit youtube and it appears all marlin 336 are side ejecting.

And most vids i watched that had the XS rail, that extends from rear sight to middle of forearm or so have medium rings to clear rear peep sight. Others include see through rings from leupold and a bunch of red dots. Lol
 

I screebshot a tr24- red post with trijicon aluminum intermediate rings to clear rear peep sight. And it barely clears

That’s great info, thanks.

Personally, I prefer to put peep sights on my lever action. With my aging eyes a scope would be helpful but I think it takes away from how well these guns handle. For 100-150 yards my peep sights are pretty good.Anything beyond that then a scope would be mandatory.

If money isnt a real issue, maybe you should get an xs top rail. Looking at the rifleman top rail your very limited on eye relief. Ir has only 3 slots??

Atleast with the xs rail your pretty much capable of playing with eye relief. Plus you can get qd rings by leupy or warne and have a peep sight as backup. Im not a real big fan of peeps like inspector.. hell only 1 of my ar15s  have a a2 fsb. No rear sights at all. I trust my "bomb proof" acogs, h2's, holosuns, rmrs. But i do see advantages in peep sights. I tried them once. Good challenge in using them.

Mahalo gentleman for the advice. My marlin is side eject and my rear sight can be folded down to clear the objective. Aaron I had forgot about the coin trick to guess the measurement of the scope rings. I just pulled the trigger on a leupold STD mounting rail and low scope rings.

Mahalos guys!

don't forget the pics!

Not sure if anyone had mentioned this in any of the previous comments, but don't forget a hammer extension. You may not be able to get your thumb between the hammer and scope? (You may already have one that was supplied with the rifle).