Review – SPUHR ISMS

When I think of Sweden I think of beautiful women, the Swedish Chef from the Muppets and IKEA. While the creator of Spuhr weapon accessories, Håkan Spuhr, is Swedish, he isn't like any of those. No, he is more like a real life Tony Stark mixed with Frank Castles love for firearms. In all seriousness though if you haven't heard of Spuhr mounts you're likely putting NCStar on your rifles.

Shame on you if you do.

Spuhr makes industry leading mounting accessories for your rifles. His gear is in the hands of some of the top competitors and military end users. The saying “buy once, cry once” is very true when your shopping for the best.

The Spuhr ISMS comes in a nice little cardboard box with foam inside that protects your new investment. One of the first things you notice as you pull the mount out of the box is the quality of machining. Everything looks like a 3d model its so perfect. You almost feel bad attaching it to a rifle knowing it may get marred up. This would be an expensive paperweight, however, and is far better served holding an expensive piece of glass.

Every part of the Spuhr ISMS SP-3001 has a nice chamfer on it.

Now that you have finished drooling all over your new toy it's time to install it. The side of the mount has 4 bolts to hold it onto the pic rail. If you're confused for whatever reason about which end faces forward, you'll likely want to see the bubble level when you're shooting. Follow the instructions regarding the proper order in which to tighten the bolts down and voilà, the mount should be solidly attached to your rifle. I would have preferred if the instructions advised an inch/lbs torque for the side clamp like they did for the rings, but 2 seconds on google fixed this.

Now, you're likely looking at the mount wondering why it's cut at a 45 instead of the usual horizontal split. This is to ensure that where the bolts mount, the two rings together doesn't obscure your parallax and windage knobs. This is just one of many well thought-out features.

You can see the ACO in the Spuhr mounting bracket as well as the 45 degree cut in the rings.

The bubble level that should now be facing the back is there to make sure you don't cant your rifle. A rifle and scope work properly when at a 90 degree angle from the ground. Slight tilt won't be noticed at 100 yards but push that out to 500 or more and it will be come immediately (and drastically) apparent. Then as you try to adjust for windage and elevation a left adjustment isn't just left and you will play chase the zero. The white background of the bubble is easy to see. You will see more of this bubble level and another from Vortex as well (though in a later article).

My new best friend the built in bubble level. No fighting trying to install a scope mounted one and make sure its level.

The ISMS has a angled cut in the top of the center section of the mount. If you read our previous article on the Arisaka Defense Optics Leveler, you would know that Spuhr has a ton of fans and that he pioneered this form of optic leveling. Ironically despite the amount of hate we received for that article Håkan personally said told us he thought it a well written article and wanted an article on the ISMS to happen. The ISMS has the optics leveling slot built right into the mount. All you gotta do is tighten your rings down just enough that you can turn the scope, adjust for eye relief and then insert the leveling wedge. Now you just tighten the many bolts that hold each top section of the scope in and you're set.

If you own a quality scope chances are that the reticle is lined up with the bottom of the turret cluster. The cutout and wedge make lining the scope up a breeze.

The ISMS comes with the Spuhr Mounting Interface built into the top and sides of the scope. This allows lasers, angle indicators, range finders and short range optics to be mounted to the scope mount. On this particular build we have a Sniper Tools Angle Cosine Indicator attached to the left side. On the top we have a picatinny rail attached to the interface and are currently trying to decide which red dot to attach to it. When we do it will be zeroed for 100 meters allowing close up shots to be taken quickly while allowing the rifle to be zeroed out to a further distance.

The Spuhr mounting system is unique and works very well. It's sturdy, accurate and unobtrusive. While you may not get the weight savings of KeyMod or M-Lok, good luck getting them to work on the side of a scope. An added benefit is that if you have a laser attached to the front end of your chassis it can flex a bit; however when attached to the scope it will remain true.

There are certain places where M-LOK, KeyMod and Picatinny rails wont work and the Spuhr Mounting Interface works perfectly there.

I can see why so many people use the Spuhr ISMS in competition and for dropping terrorizers. The mount being made as one piece means you don't have to lap rings to get them concentric. The Spuhr mount is also sturdier than two piece rings. The built in bubble level is guaranteed to be installed right as long as your rifle was drilled and tapped correctly. The Spuhr mounting system allows for a wide range of accessories to be used that will remain zeroed. Using the Spuhr leveling system your scope can be accurately installed and doesn't require a ton of screwing around. You can buy the ISMS and various configurations this one for instance is a 0 MOA mount as my rifle already has a EGW 20 MOA rail on it. They don't offer mounts for scopes that are 1 in. tubes though so you will need a 30mm tube or bigger. If you hold on until later this year you will also see the QD mount we posted about during SHOT Show see its release.

For those who are always interested in parts for a build this rifle uses:
Remington 700 SPS Tactical
EGW 20 MOA base
Spuhr ISMS SP-3001
KRG Bolt Lift
Vortex Viper PST 6-24×50 FFB with EBR-2C reticle
Sniper Tools Design ACI
MDT HS3 Chassis
MDT Skeleton Rifle Stock
Mystic Precision MPOD

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