choice of scopes

[dpapadimitrio@g]

Price of confidence...

Friend bought a nice new hunting rifle 2 seasons ago. He had a Winchester his dad gave him and wanted one of the new "ultra mag" caliber. Bought the gun and transferred the inexpensive scope that was on his dad's rifle.

Went to the range and couldn't sight the gun in, he'd make scope adjustments and the impact point would just kind of wander around. Suggested he go out and buy a Leupold (not knocking March). He did as suggested, went thru how to sight thru the bore, get close, and how to get the scope on target in about 3 rounds down the barrel.

He followed the instructions and was dumbfounded when impact point at 100 yds matched the adjustments he'd made to the scope

Had Him buy 2 boxes of ammo (same lot, that was a surprise too), use 1 for sighting in and practice, and used the 2nd round out of the other box to knock down an Elk, 1 shot at @ 200 yards.

He commented he had total confidence his gun would hit what he was aiming at if he did his part, had never had that kind of confidence in the old Winchester (no reason not to, he's buying a Leupold for it this year).

Moral of the story is, you have to have utter confidence in your equipment, and that it will get the job done, provided the nut behind the butt plate does their job.

Sometimes its the cost of the Sightron, sometimes the March. The more variation you are able to take out of the equation the more important the March becomes....

Good shooting to all

 

[First Sergeant]

Leopold, VXIII, Premiere boosted to 16X40X50AO is my choice on my Rifle with Ken Ferrell, Inc. base and rings.

 

[tim]

if you buy a leupold its gauranteed forever ,send it back in the off season and let them go thru it , good luck with that on a march plus its only gauranteed for 5 yrs to original owner

If you know anything about the history of the Comp series, you'd realize that statement does'nt mean too much in the world of actual match shooting. According to Jim Kelbly there has not been one single March BR scope that has ever suffered a failure of the adjustment mechanicals....not one.

 

[Dave S]

I guess the bottom line is.. Spend your money and eat your cake...

Dave

 

[glp]

Tim..

Bill you make a good point, but it raises a question. If I may, your scope, [not to pick on yours] is very precise. How do you know? I mean how exactly do you know, not guess? Testing? Verification against a known scope? The point is, few of us actually know because we don't test [yes it's possible]. Now I doubt many are going to run out and drop a couple thou for a March for our .22's but they don't move...ever and at some point that becomes a consideration I guess. Remember most scopes that are suspect tend not to just fail but just creep a wee little bit here and there, something on the order of 1/10th-1/8th MOA @100 yards with a 6PPC. Less recoil, distance, etc, with .22's but still. I'd bet as scores get even closer to zero tolerance, etc. we see more of these optics, just as has happened in the CF game. The arms race continues.

if I was going to shoot .22 RF benchrest I would put one of my frozen Leupold comp in Brackney rings on the gun and then could tell FOR SURE, how may flyers per box I was getting from my ammo! But I don't shoot rimfire, just centerfire BR so for the fun shoots I attend with my rimfire I'll just stick with my Unertl. I have had too many Weaver 36X's and used some of the old Bausch and Lomb 36's and all have failed, eventually, to hold POI. Just my experience in cf br. --Greg

 

[Bill B]

Tim,

I haven't tested it other then when I use it and see that the adjustments appear to still predictably move the cross hairs when adjustments are needed. If I start to see erratic behavior and suspect the scope, I'll buy a new one, send the old one back for repair and I should be good to go for a goodly number of years.

Those March scopes may be all that they are touted to be, but are they that much better to justify the price, especially on a rimfire? I guess that's a personal choice. None of us make a living doing this. I'd just rather replace a good scope @ $400 every 10 years or so then spend $2,500. My point, you don't need a March to win, even at the highest level of this sport. Plenty of matches have been one with Leupold, Weaver and Sightron scopes. You also don't need a $10,000 Calfee rifle to win, but we all have to make those decisons for ourselves I guess.

 

[model14]

While on this subject many confuse parallax adjustment with focus adjustment. Hunters are the biggest group in the catagory. Also a number of shooters don't lock the eye piece 'caus they like to tweek the focus. I suspect the reason many on this forum can't shoot good groups is less than perfect parallax adjustment.

Al Kunard

Al,
How do you do a "perfect" parallax adjustment? Doesn't minimum parallax also occur at the same point of adjustment as best objective lense focus? I realize eyepiece adjustment has nothing to do with this.
Richard

 

[glp]

Richard...

Al,
How do you do a "perfect" parallax adjustment? Doesn't minimum parallax also occur at the same point of adjustment as best objective lense focus? I realize eyepiece adjustment has nothing to do with this.
Richard

parallax occurs when the image plane created by the front objective lens falls ahead of or behind the X hair. That may or may not be at the point of clearest focus. You have to learn to adjust parallax out to the best of your ability. Then what some do is pull their head back from the eyepiece. You'll see the field of view narrow down to a point where you can center your view in the center of the eyepeice. There is no parallax if you look throught the very center of the lens. --Greg

 

[alan k]

Greg--very well stated.

In optics you get or should get what you pay for. When I was a young man (the old days) lens grinding was very expensive to do properly. Scopes of moderate price only had good focus in the center and as your eye moved to the edge of the lens the focus and parallax changed drastically. To adjust for this you used the "stock weld" method. One would put a tack or piece of tape on the stock and place your cheek on the tape to put your head in the same position for each shot. Scopes/optics are not undrestood by many shooters. At the range and for that matter this forum you will often hear shooters brag on their $100 scope stating it does the job why pay more. I applaud their bliss.

Al Kunard

 

[El Paso Mark]

In optics you get or should get what you pay for. At the range and for that matter this forum you will often hear shooters brag on their $100 scope stating it does the job why pay more. I applaud their bliss.
Al Kunard

Sometimes it’s unintentional ignorance too Al. Prior to my eye sight starting to deteriorating with age all I'd ever shot in my life were iron sights. So I just put “Any ol’ scope” on a rifle thinking that a scope was a scope was a scope. I just didn’t know any better. Why spend several hundred dollars on a scope when I can get one for $60.00 and it looks good to me, right? Unintentional ignorance of the facts. Took me a while and more than a few bucks to learn.

Cheers,

Mark

 

[tim]

Tim,

I haven't tested it other then when I use it and see that the adjustments appear to still predictably move the cross hairs when adjustments are needed. If I start to see erratic behavior and suspect the scope, I'll buy a new one, send the old one back for repair and I should be good to go for a goodly number of years.

Those March scopes may be all that they are touted to be, but are they that much better to justify the price, especially on a rimfire? I guess that's a personal choice. None of us make a living doing this. I'd just rather replace a good scope @ $400 every 10 years or so then spend $2,500. My point, you don't need a March to win, even at the highest level of this sport. Plenty of matches have been one with Leupold, Weaver and Sightron scopes. You also don't need a $10,000 Calfee rifle to win, but we all have to make those decisons for ourselves I guess.

As far as the March/.22 tough question, no doubt. As far as the scope going where clicked, that's not where they fail generally, most that go tend to creep around shot to shot, often without anything obvious going on. The real point is that most of us never know for sure and never test/verify our scopes.

 

[alan k]

Sometimes it’s unintentional ignorance too Al. Prior to my eye sight starting to deteriorating with age all I'd ever shot in my life were iron sights. So I just put “Any ol’ scope” on a rifle thinking that a scope was a scope was a scope. I just didn’t know any better. Why spend several hundred dollars on a scope when I can get one for $60.00 and it looks good to me, right? Unintentional ignorance of the facts. Took me a while and more than a few bucks to learn.

Cheers,

Mark

That is why I introduced the parallax/focus topic. I just bet a few here will be able to tighten their groups with a better understanding of the parallax adjustment vers. focus adjustment.

 

[El Paso Mark]

That is why I introduced the parallax/focus topic. I just bet a few here will be able to tighten their groups with a better understanding of the parallax adjustment vers. focus adjustment.

And there's that too Al. Parallax? What's parallax? Don't you just put a scope on and shoot? I didn't know any better.

Cheers,

Mark