Blaser BB 97

About the Blaser

Blaser Jagdwaffen GmbH was founded in 1957 by Horst Blaser in Isny im Allgäu, a town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It was then taken over in 1986 by the company’s master gunsmith, Gerhart Blenk. Since its beginning, the company has specialized in high-quality hunting rifles. In 1993, Blaser developed a straight-pull bolt-action hunting rifle, Blaser R93, with which they achieved great success in Europe. By 2016 – when the R93 model was discontinued and replaced by Blaser R8 – they had produced more than 200,000 R93 rifles. In 1997, they merged with Sigarms but remained autonomous in their rifle production, and in 1999 they began distribution of their rifles to the USA.

Blaser has revolutionized the way riflescopes are mounted on rifles by introducing a unique mounting system, called the Blaser Saddle. They were one of the first rifle manufacturing companies that introduced a barrel-mounting system. Most Blaser rifles are made with the same barrel mounting surface with four notches. Today, their rifle products include Blaser R8, combination guns, single-shot rifles, and shotguns. They have also started designing and producing binoculars in 2017, and telescopic and reflex sights in the year after that.

Blaser BB 97 Rifle Review

Blaser BB 97 is an over-and-under double break-barrel rifle introduced in 1995. It consists of two free-floating, cold hammer forged barrels, both available for the same range of calibers. The rifle features interchangeable barrels and can be disassembled and packed away in a matter of seconds, making it very practical, portable and discrete to travel with. Instead of a safety mechanism, Blaser BB 97 features a cocking mechanism where the rifle has to be cocked in order to be able to fire. The mechanism is a so-called double-lock mechanism, which means that firing the rifle only once will not decock the mechanism; instead, the rifle will decock by itself only when both barrels are fired. As with every multi-barrel rifle, the non-primary upper barrel has to be regulated to have the same point of impact as the primary barrel at the zeroed distance. However, Blaser made this somewhat easier by equipping the non-primary barrels with screws that the user can turn to adjust the barrel without the help of a professional gunsmith.

Blaser BB 97

Figure 1: Blaser BB 97. Source: https://www.blaser.de/en/products/firearms/combination-guns/double-rifle-bb-97/double-rifle-bb-97/

The upper barrel is available in the following calibers:

7x65 R
.30-06 Spr.
.30 R Blaser
8x57 IRS
9.3x74 R

The lower barrel is available in the following calibers:

7x65 R
.30-06 Spr.
.30 R Blaser
8x57 IRS
9.3x74 R

Blaser BB 97 is available in the following variants:

Standard
Classic

Blaser BB 97 features a barrel-mounting system where the mounts are mounted directly on the barrel instead of on the receiver. All modern Blaser guns (repeating rifles, break-barrel rifles, combination rifles, express rifles ...) have the same four notches on the barrel. Thus the same mounts fit on all Blaser modern rifles. The only exception here are some red dot sight mounts that are made specifically for R8 or R93 -- these do not fit other Blaser rifles.

Blaser BB 97

Figure 2: Blaser BB 97 receiver. Source: https://www.blaser.de/en/products/firearms/combination-guns/double-rifle-bb-97/double-rifle-bb-97/

Which rifles have interchangeable mounts

Two-piece mounts

For two-piece mounts to be interchangeable the mounting surfaces of the rifles must match in every dimension except the B dimension which can vary. This is because the distance between the two pieces of the mount is not fixed. Blaser rifles have a special Saddle mount mounting surface, making their mounts interchangeable with most of their rifles. The following rifles have interchangeable mounts:

One-piece mounts

The necessary condition for rifles to have one-piece mounts interchangeable is that the mounting surfaces of these rifles match in every dimension. Again, most Blaser rifles feature a special Saddle mount mounting surface, making their mounts interchangeable with most of their rifles. These are the following:

Important to note: once a mount for a Blaser rifle is mounted, it cannot be used on other Blaser rifle barrels – these mounts are designed so that they can only be used with one barrel. This means that you can use multiple optical sights on one Blaser barrel, but you cannot use one optic on multiple Blaser barrels.

Our recommendations for mounts

Detachable repeatable mounts

We recommend this 100% repeatable, reliable, and high-quality Saddle mount from Blaser.

Picatinny rails

For those who want to use a Picatinny rail, we recommend the Innomount Blaser Picatinny rail which is both reliable and sturdy.

Help us build our riflescope mounts database

If you happen to own this or any other rifle, we would appreciate it if you could help us expand our database by sending us some photos of the rifle receiver (the bare mounting surface of the rifle without the mounts installed). For your help, our company offers a fair return in terms of practical rewards.

Please send us an email for more information. You can contact us here: info@optics-trade.eu

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VIDEO

Introduction

In recent years we can observe that a trend of Picatinny rail has become widespread and global. It is driven by the NATO standardized rails, more commonly known as the Picatinny rail standard. Picatinny rail being the New Jersey Arsenal that developed it in 1995.

These mounting options are revolutionary. The biggest and best advantage being that the Picatinny rail can be used its entire length and not bordered to a few pre-designed slots like for example the Weaver rail standard was before.

The other main advantage is the ease of use and interchangeability. If a product is meant for a Picatinny rail design it will fit all Picatinny-rails, no matter the manufacturer or date of production.

Picatinny/Weaver Rail

Picatinny Rail and Weaver rail profile

Design

The Picatinny rail is almost exclusively crafted from a single piece of metal (in some cases aluminum). In this manner, the axis of the Picatinny rail is perfectly straight and aligned with the axis of the firearm. Therefore the rifle scope which is mounted onto this kind of configuration is certainly aligned with the rifle / gun and the trajectory of the ammunition.

Weaver rail design on the other hand is usually manufactured in two separate pieces, greatly increasing the possibilities for the axis to be crooked, overlapping, and out of line.

It is always harder to align two separate pieces to a third line than it is to align one piece to another. In this way, the lapping of two mounting rings on a single-piece Picatinny rail is no longer required.

The single-piece rail will assure that both rings are perfectly aligned to each other and that no unwished stress is transferred to the riflescope.

Picatinny compare to Weaver Rail

The Picatinny rail itself is an evolutionary step forward from the older Weaver rail. The main difference between Picatinny rail and Weaver rail is the spacing of the slots. Picatinny rail design has them evenly placed exactly 5.23 mm from one slot to the other, 3 mm deep. For this reason, the mounting options are repeatable and the same as other firearms using the Picatinny rail standard.

Interchangeability was a major driving force in the development of the new standard as different NATO armies need to be compatible with each other.

Weaver rail has 3.8mm wide slots and these slots can be placed anywhere on the Weaver rail and in any number that the producer wished.

Advantages of Picatinny design

A big advantage for using the Picatinny rail design is the ever-present recoil stop. Furthermore, the manufacturing of the rail is not very technically demanding and can be done without the use of state-of-the-art machines which greatly reduces the cost of the finished product, making it very affordable.

The Picatinny rail is easy to mount and usually, this type of configuration does not transfer negative stresses and forces from the fired weapon to the rifle scope.

In addition, the Picatinny rail with its very long useable surface works well for mounting longer rifle scopes or to achieve optimum eye relief.

The durability and toughness are other big pluses for this solution.

Manufacturers of Popular Models

A majority of the Picatinny rings are fixed, but a number of best rated European manufacturers (EAW, MAK,..) have, in recent years, put a lot of effort into the development of detachable ring with100% repeatability, with which it becomes easy to remove the scope from the weapon without the use of tools.

No re-zeroing is needed with such mount options, but these models tend to be expensive.

Weaver and Picatinny Rings

Picatinny rail and weaver rail share one more thing. It is possible to use the Weaver ring and the Picatinny ring on the Picatinny-rails, but it is usually impossible to use the Picatinny ring on the Weaver base. The reason being the above-mentioned positioning and spacing of the slots.

Picatinny mounts have a 5mm recoil stop that goes into the rail slot and since
Weaver rail only has 3.8mm wide slots such rings do not fit on Weaver rails.

Due to this reason, the Picatinny-rails are popular and prevailing on the market in recent years and eventually, these options will completely oust the Weaver rail from the market.

Blaser BB 97

About the Blaser

Blaser BB 97 Rifle Review