I've been wanting to mount a scope on my Pardner 12GA for a few years
and I decided real early that drilling a hole in that itty bitty skinny barrel right
where it is stressed the most would be an invitation to disaster.
Perhaps further down the barrel like a SCOUT scope would be a lot smarter
and I have almost done this but the gunsmith charge was more than
the gun was worth. In fact every option I looked at was more than
the price of a new rifled 12GA barrel with factory mounts.
Just so I could hit a barn from 50 feet I decided I could just use
a rear sight instead of a scope.
I actually was going to drill and tap a small hole right behind the
barrel and in front of the hammer and screw a flat head screw
turned sideways and use the groove in the screw head as the
rear sight. Then I found rear sight inserts for 6 or 7 bucks each
as slipped into inserts on Lever Action rifles and some others and
decided I would rather have a shallow dovetail cut into the receiver
in front of the hammer. Once again, too expensive. Someone mentioned
silver solder and I believe that could work if I could find a dovetail
base to solder to the rop of the receiver as I am pretty sure
it would hole because the rear sight inserts are aluminum.
I dont think a scope rail soldered on could hold up under
the recoil of these lightweight 12 ga guns. I would bet money against it.
Every shot is the same as a hammer the same weight as the scope.
