I came across this old thread recently;
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/anyone-using-stronlight-chainrings-cant-get-them-to-shift
and wondered if it got resolved?
I’ve just bought a 110bcd 46T Zicral ring and am noticing similar things as Stumpy01.
The ring seems to be a little cack-handed, i.e. the shift pins protrude on the same side as the bolt counterbores.
Am I to infer that these are inner rings for a race double? But then why have shift pins? Some big-geared triple then? I’ll load some photos this afternoon.

I replaced the 53/39 – 130BCD rings on my 5700 chainset with 50/38 stronglight rings when I finally admitted my legs aren’t quite up to the task, down-shifts are fine, up-shifts are marginally less slick.

I did have to move the mech down and re-attach the cable obviously…

I think mine are actually both “Dural” and have very little in the way of shift gates and pins, much “simpler” rings I guess

Is this 8,9,10 or 11 speed OP, might that have an effect?

It sounds like you’ve maybe bought a middle position 42t for a triple chainset, a double inner shouldn’t really need much in the way of shifting gates/pins should it? using it on the outer position, I guess all the shift features will essentially be the wrong way round then? So they won’t really be doing much to aid shifting in either direction will they…

Yeah, that’s what I thought. I just thought 46t would be a bit large for a middle position ring on a triple. Especially for a 110bcd compact.
The ad on Ebay didnt give much away position-wise, only that it was 9 and 10 speed compatible. There’s also not much in the way of ramping, so it may be possible to swap the pins over to the other side.

I’ve been using the Zircals for a few months now on 5700 and frankly I wish I’d bought the Shimano rings. Shifting is nowhere near as smooth and the chain catches on the outer ring when in 9th (of 10) whereas previously this didn’t happen. In hindsight it’s worth sticking with the Shimano ones.

That was my thread & no I haven’t resolved it – well, satisfactorily, anyway….!

Got fed up with the ring taunting me on the garage shelf a while back, so tried again.

To recap, I could get the shifting from the 34 Shimano ring up onto the 48T Stronglight ring to work fine. But, it wouldn’t then shift back down again. There was no more travel in the front mech to provide enough shove inwards, even with the cable removed & the limit screw wound all the way out. The mech physically had no more inward swing left.

To ‘guarantee’ (ahem…) success, I bought some chainring spacers (1mm). I figured that moving the Stronglight outer ring further outboard would effectively give the mech more inward swing relative to the outer ring position.

Initially I fitted just the ring & tried to get it set-up. No joy.

I then fitted the spacers & could shift up & down – yay! – but then the chain when dropping down from outer to inner ring would not always engage with the teeth on the inner ring, but rather sit on top of it with the ring spinning around beneath it; this was due to the larger gap created between the rings by adding the 1mm spacers. BUM.

So, I decided to remove the spacers & work on my next theory (that the axle length of the original sq taper BB was wider than the replacement SORA and so I had inadvertently moved both chainrings slightly inward and put them right on the limit of the front mechs inward travel).
To replicate a longer axle, I installed a 2.5mm HTII spacer behind the drive side BB cup to move the chainrings out by 2.5mm. I would have preferred a smaller amount, but could only find a 2.5mm spacer. Obviously, this resulted in there being less spline engagement on the NDS crank arm, but just to test a theory I figured it would be fine.
With the spacer in place, I had the mech set-up & shifting perfectly fine between inner & outer chainrings in no time at all (so, original Shimano inner ring & Stronlight 48T outer ring). I rode up & down the road about 10x shifting from inner to outer and back again at both ends of the cassette, shifting under load, shifting both mechs at once to try & force a problem but couldn’t provoke any. Shifting seemed a little slower than with both Shimano rings, but worked fine.

But, I wasn’t happy with the reduced spline engagement on the NDS. It was enough to stop the black safety tab on the NDS crank from being pushed into it’s ‘closed’ position.

I suspect that a 1mm spacer would also have worked & I would have probably ran with that – but 2.5mm less spline engagement felt like a bit of a risk.
I might get round to trying to find a 1mm spacer at some point & seeing how it goes. But at the moment, I am back to the original set-up.

Ah, Mr.Stumpy, I was hoping you would reply! That does sound encouraging at least, as I’m going from a 1×9, to a 2×9, so I’m not really comparing the shifting to anything else. Again, it just seems weird (to me, at least) to have such a large middle ring on a 110mm triple. I would have though 46T would be a small outer………..If I remember correctly, your ring was the same, with the pins protruding on the same side as the counterbores?
I have to say it also sounds strange that you could shift up, but not down. I would have thought that the problem would be reversed. I guess that could be because of the lack of ramps and full size teeth?
I’ll be using DT friction shifters anyway, I think that should help somewhat too.