As many of you guys know, a lot of folks want very tight patterns on their turkey hunting guns. With this in mind, the term "aim small, miss small" comes to mind.

Problem is, especially with a lot of older guns, aiming with a bead sight and a very small column of shot flying downrange can make it all too easy to miss the relatively small head of a turkey especially at close distances.

So, more and more guys are turning to red dots and other types of sights so they can dial in their favorite hunting shell darn near at the point of aim as they can with a rifle.

This short tutorial covers how to do one of the most simple, yet very often requested jobs for a gunsmith.

How to install a scope rail on a receiver that wasn't designed for one.

Step 1.

Take everything apart and look at it to make sure that there is enough room and clearances to do what you want to do.

In this case, I bought a cheap Mossberg shotgun rail from ebay for about $7 to use on this Charles Daly Turkish shotgun import.

This means with the way the barrel and receiver is made that 3 of the 4 bolts were too long and will need to be shortened on a grinder or go to the corner hardware store and buy shorter ones.



Since I don't want to go the store and the bolts already came with the rail, one of the best methods for marking metal to grind is using white out. It's easy to see, dries fast, and doesn't just rub off like sharpie markers.



Okey dokey. Now that's out of the way, you need to center the rail (using the little grooves that are made into the receiver as a guide) and mark where the rail holes are going to go. This is where a sharpie comes in handy. You just put the tip of the marker through each hole and now you have a general idea of where the holes are going to need to be drilled





Then you find the center of the marks and use a centerpunch and hammer to give your drill bit(S) that you're going to use in a minute a solid place to seat.





Alright, now that all the holes are marked where you need to drill them, don't go straight to the largest size drill bit that you're going to need for the tap. You start with a smaller drill bit and make a small pilot hole all the way through the receiver for all four holes.



And to do that, I like to put the receiver in a vise to hold it still and I also normally use a scrap piece of cardboard to wrap the gun with so the vise doesn't scratch anything up in the process.



Alright, now that the holes are the proper placement and the pilot holes are drilled, you use the larger tap drill bit and easily open up the pilot holes to the proper diameter



Once they're drilled out, you simply use the tap and thread the holes by hand.





Once all the holes are done, I test fit the rail and all the bolts to make sure none of them need any further grinding so it doesn't interfere with installing and removing the barrel and to ensure that the rail is straight as possible.



If you look closely, you can see that one of the bolts is still a little long.



After everything fits the way you want it, remove one bolt at a time and put a drop of blue Loctite on the bolts to fasten everything down and that's about all there is to it. I did put a little spray paint on the rail and the red dot because it is one of my turkey guns to help it blend in a little better, but that's not always needed.

Now, go zero that bad boy and Happy hunting.

Well done. Thanks for the tutorial.