Despite weighing a mere 35 grams each, these Warne HyperLite scope rings are amazingly solid, with exceptionally close tolerances and a superb ability to maintain zero, even after being dismounted.
The Warnes are exquisite little pieces of engineering that grabbed my attention the moment I removed them from their packet.
They are made from what Warne calls MagnaFusion alloy, which is claimed to be 35% lighter than the aluminium in typical rings, but Warne doesn’t elaborate on its make-up.
They’re CNC machined with an attractive design boasting smooth edges, no protrusions and some weight-saving minimisation of metal.
The mounting clamps are each secured by a pair of screws for greater security, but Warne goes further in the pursuit of excellence here by adopting the STANAG 4694 mounting interface pattern, which is superior to the Picatinny MIL-STD 1913 system that is so commonplace.
STANAG 4694 is a NATO standard that ensures greater mounting repeatability, meaning if you remove and remount your optic it’s more likely to have exactly the same zero.
The 4694 design is far more demanding in terms of tolerances and uses the top surface of the rail as the reference point for the mount, rather than the angled sides of the Pic rail. 4694 is also metric, which makes Warne’s choice even more notable — you know how much the Americans hate metric!
The HyperLite rings are still compatible with Picatinny 1913 rails and even Weaver-style ones.
I can’t argue with the choice. I tried the HyperLites on two very accurate rifles with 1913-spec rails, dismounting and remounting them repeatedly to see what happened.
Both rifles shot groups as perfectly zeroed as their levels of accuracy would allow, to the point where I am so confident in the HyperLites that I’d recommend them for something as accurate as my .204 Lithgow LA102 Varmint, a rifle that serves as a testbed for many scopes so its regular one is removed frequently. (I can’t tell you how much time and ammo has gone into re-checking its zero until now.)
The mounting face of the HyperLites includes a recoil bar 3.6mm thick, which should handle high levels of recoil (and helps ensure compatibility across rail specs).
The scope-mounting faces are perfectly machined for an even fit around the scope’s tube, and the surface is just over 18mm front-to-back for wide contact and therefore firm grip; the four-screw ring mounting setup is not likely to let the scope move if you fasten it to correct torque for the scope.
They come in a Cerakote finish: matte black or flat dark earth.
The HyperLites are not cheap, starting at about $280 depending on the colour, but there are few ring sets that combine this high a standard of quality with such light weight — and those that do are typically more costly again. In the current market, if you’re looking for excellent rings, these are good value.
They’re available in ring diameters of 1”, 30mm and 34mm, all in three heights: low with a rise of 22mm, medium at 25.1mm, and high at 29mm. The 35g weight I’ve quoted applies to the 30mm medium rings, and weight of the others varies slightly from that, of course.
Warne packages them with a thorough set of mounting instructions complete with torque settings, which is a nice touch that so many ring makers don’t add.
If you could call a set of scope rings “uncompromised” you’d apply it to these. Super-light, superbly designed and equally well made, they’re brilliant.
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