Last Cheap Scope Finally Died :-(

[0ne5hot]

American Defense mounts are nice but they don't come with Dillo Dust Rub or the LaRue Tactical Beverage Entry Tool Dillo LT205

[MarcSpaz]

That is pretty cool!

[jdonovan]

I'll buy a range finder for sure... but I feel like that would be slower, especially for known objects.

The way ranging works in the reticle... measure size in mils, go to a chart/table look up size X in mils, caluculate Y = range. (usually a slide rule type device) Now move to dope chart, look up dope for range. dial knobs, get back behind scope, reacquire, fire.

yes this is a slow process.

[0ne5hot]

Also you can get spotting scopes that have the same reticle as your riflescope. $2,000 for a spotting scope might seem crazy, but If you are going to jump in might as well get your hair wet. YOLO

http://www.leupold.com/tactical/spottin ... ing-scope/

[MarcSpaz]

Sure... I'll higher a dedicate spotter to do call-outs too. I mean, shoot... its only money. My spotter has to eat. LOL

I can see the arguing now. "What do you mean you didn't see the splash? Did you follow the vapor trail? Never mind... you're fired."

[Reverenddel]

(blinks) Um. I put a $45 dollar 4x32 Hawke on the boy-childs single shot .22LR.

Think I'll just be okay with that... Ya'll talking BIGBOI prices on scopes.

A good scope is a thing of beauty. I have good glass on some, but on others? M'eh. I have a Barska 3x9x40 on my 10/22 heavy bbl.

That reaches out, and touches squirrels at 50 yards with no wind as head shots.

When ya'll talking "Vehicle prices" for glass? I have to ask...just what the hell are you shooting, and from how far away?

[MarcSpaz]

Cheap glass is great for 22LR. No need to spend crazy money there.

(blinks)When ya'll talking "Vehicle prices" for glass? I have to ask...just what the hell are you shooting, and from how far away?

When the SHTF, I'll be the guy on the neighborhood water tower dropping zombies from a "safe distance".

[grumpyMSG]

I'll buy a range finder for sure... but I feel like that would be slower, especially for known objects.

The way ranging works in the reticle... measure size in mils, go to a chart/table look up size X in mils, caluculate Y = range. (usually a slide rule type device) Now move to dope chart, look up dope for range. dial knobs, get back behind scope, reacquire, fire.

yes this is a slow process.

Follow the formula, do the math:
Actual target width in MM (why the metric tape measure is so useful)/ Target width in Mils = range in meters
Example: a target that is 500 MM (a hair more than 19 1/2 inches) tall or wide / 1 mil tall =500 meters, the same target .5 mils tall: 500/.5 = 1000M. You can use a calculator or a smartphone to do the math.

When it comes down to it, using a laser rangefinder would probably be just as fast, because you will have to estimate the target width or height if you don't know them, measure them with the reticle, plug them into a formula and do the math to estimate the range, versus pull out the rangefinder, turn it on, and shoot the distance to the target. After that you have to use either holdover or adjust the scope with a built in BDC turret, which is matched to a specific ammo or make the adjustments with the turrets via X number of clicks for a specific range.

[jdonovan]

Follow the formula, do the math

and learn why you are going to miss. if you estimate range... we'll go with a 'mid range' example.

.308 win, 2600 FPS, shooting a Berger 175gr long-range projectile. A fairly reasonable estimate for a 16-20" AR-10 pattern rifle.

your scope has 1/2 mil markings. Experiments have shown, that reliable estimations of size are about 1/2 the precision of the markings. So for practical purposes you should be able to estimate size to +/- 1/4 mil. We're also assuming a early in the day shot, with no mirage to make estimation a real challenge.

target is 1500 MM (1.5 Meters), you measure the size as 1.75 MIL - your calculated range is 857 meters

target is 1500 MM (1.5 Meters), you should have measured the size as 2.0 MIL - real range is 750 meters

you look at your dope card, and look up 850m, and dial 10.6MIL of elevation.
you look at your dope card, and look up 750m, and see you needed 8.6 MIL of elevation.

your shot goes 2 MIL high. 2 MIL @ 750m is 1500MM.... you miss by about 4.5 feet.

now we need to introduce your rifle's error... Say you have a 1.5MIL @ 100 M 'battle rifle' and your rifle has a circle of error that is 1.5 mil, or about 1M of group size at 750M.

wind... because of the range estimation error your windage will be off about 0.5mil / 10 MPH of wind.

If you've not heard me say it before.... long range is ALL about good range estimation, and good wind reading. Missing the wind read/range will introduce more error than even a lower-precision battle rifle's group size.

[grumpyMSG]

and learn why you are going to miss. if you estimate range... we'll go with a 'mid range' example.

.308 win, 2600 FPS, shooting a Berger 175gr long-range projectile. A fairly reasonable estimate for a 16-20" AR-10 pattern rifle.

your scope has 1/2 mil markings. Experiments have shown, that reliable estimations of size are about 1/2 the precision of the markings. So for practical purposes you should be able to estimate size to +/- 1/4 mil. We're also assuming a early in the day shot, with no mirage to make estimation a real challenge.

target is 1500 MM (1.5 Meters), you measure the size as 1.75 MIL - your calculated range is 857 meters

target is 1500 MM (1.5 Meters), you should have measured the size as 2.0 MIL - real range is 750 meters

you look at your dope card, and look up 850m, and dial 10.6MIL of elevation.
you look at your dope card, and look up 750m, and see you needed 8.6 MIL of elevation.

your shot goes 2 MIL high. 2 MIL @ 750m is 1500MM.... you miss by about 4.5 feet.

now we need to introduce your rifle's error... Say you have a 1.5MIL @ 100 M 'battle rifle' and your rifle has a circle of error that is 1.5 mil, or about 1M of group size at 750M.

wind... because of the range estimation error your windage will be off about 0.5mil / 10 MPH of wind.

If you've not heard me say it before.... long range is ALL about good range estimation, and good wind reading. Missing the wind read/range will introduce more error than even a lower-precision battle rifle's group size.

You are assuming a lot about a scope and a well trained and practiced operator. and it's capabilities which are inaccurate. Let me use your 1.75 Mil versus 2.0 Mil argument:

The most common Mil dots out there are the older Army style from the chart. using it as an example I can see from using two dots that are 2 Mils apart if I use the top of the lower dot and the bottom of the upper dot, I can see whether it is 1.8 Mils, if I use the center of the lower dot and the bottom of the upper it is 1.9. Now if I split those differences splitting the top half or bottom half of a dot, I have the capability to go to 1.85 or 1.95.
Now I just got you to:
1500/1.8 = 833 M
1500/1.85 = 811 M
1500/1.9 = 789 M
1500/1.95 = 769 M

jdonavan, I understand you are a long range shooter, but there are way too many variables involved with shooting, to be 100% accurate with anything. Practice, experience and trigger time is how you make up for that. I on the other hand approach it from a combat shooter's aspect. You may not know the exact height or width of your target, but you may have something else nearby to range on or you will have to estimate how tall or wide it is. If you estimate a target is 36 inches tall and it is actually 40, you are off about 10% from the start. In a real world situation, I will do my best to get as accurate an estimate as possible whether and probably use a laser rangefinder if I have one available to use. If I miss with the first bullet and see the miss, I will have second going downrange pretty quickly to make up for the error in the first.

When it comes to practice though, I believe in practicing with all your tools in the toolbox, that means practice range estimation with things other than a laser range finder. It means practice navigating with a compass, map and protractor not just using GPS. Batteries have a way of dying and electronic can be broken, just like Back up iron sights are on battle rifles in case the ACOG or Aimpoints fail.

[jdonovan]

Yes there are a lot of places in the where you can get higher precision in measurement, but often you can't get the high precision marks to line up where you want to make the measurement. i.e. there is no good place to measure 1.75 vs 1.8 vs 1.85. All the individual elements are there, but not in one line.

also there is the question of memory... are you going to remember all the subtentions, reliably, repeatably, and quickly.

If this was your full time job, and you practice a lot, sure, it would be ready recall. But for the average person, with a few different rifles/scopes if you can remember the major subtentions and major distance dope between the rifles/scopes then you are doing ok.

None of the above few posts have talked at all about mirage, and how REALLY hard that makes it to find an edge of an object clearly.

all hair splitting I know.

For the recreational shooter, you can carry all the doc's with you, and spend a bunch of time looking at the subtention diagram for your retical, and figuring out where/how to measure.

And for some, that is an enjoyable part of the sport. Less so for my view of the hobby.

I find wind enough of a *&^%$% challenge that I lase my distance, and wrestle the wind alone.

[MarcSpaz]

I feel like ranging is going to be the easy part for me. I have a seriously difficult time reading mirage. I understand the concept, but when I look through the spotter or rifle scope all I can tell is the image is distorted and changing. I can't really tell the angle or direction. My eyes just see one big mess.

[j1mmyd]

That looks really nice, but I already ordered the American Defense mount. Basically the same mount, but not as well polished. It was about $180.

My last LaRue mount was $200, but came with what must have been $100 worth of extra swag.

[MarcSpaz]

THe new scope has arrived!!!

Teaser photos with crappy cell phone... I'll post some nice shots. The sun is supposed to be out tomorrow, so I will shot some nice pics on the deck.

Burris XTR II with a 4" hood.

[0ne5hot]

[MarcSpaz]

For you folk who have been shooting with adjustable focus scopes with success, any pointers on how to adjust the objective focus? I noticed the range numbers on the side are worthless.

I dialed to 100 meters on a target 100 yards away. The target looked like it was in focus and it did not appear to be moving at a different rate than the reticle, but my groups were 10 MOA. I couldn't figure out what the heck was going on. I spent almost 100 rounds before I notice, when I focused on the reticle instead of the target, the target look a little hazy. I dialed the side focus to 150 meters, which didn't really improve the image sharpness, but my groups dropped to about 2 MOA. I ran out of ammo, so I couldn't test other focal points and dial it in any better.

Next time I go to the range, what should I do to help get that focus dialed in right away? If I use this for coyote or boar (which is why I have been trying to get an SASS or DMR working), I can't spend 100 rounds trying to focus on my target. I need it to be right the first time.

Well, the picture opportunity wasn't too hot today. The sun was in my face on the deck, so I popped a few off in the driveway.

http://fiveguysracing.com/marc/Gun_Stuf ... ndCaps.bmp



http://fiveguysracing.com/marc/Gun_Stuf ... W-Hood.bmp



http://fiveguysracing.com/marc/Gun_Stuf ... Scope1.bmp

[MarcSpaz]

I've been watching video and reading up. I haven't really heard or read anything I wasn't aware of before. They all talk about adjusting the objective focus until the reticle doesn't travel off target as you move your head. I thought I did that, but I am guessing I did something wrong.

Should I be making adjustments at minimum focus, maximum focus, does it matter as long as I see my intended target clearly?

Also, some of what I read leads me to believe that at 100 yards I should have not had such a big spread regardless of how far out of focus the objective is. A video I saw from a guy who works for Leupold said if my focus is set for 150 meters, my max parallax would be 44mm, and at 600m, the parallax would only be 88mm... and so on.

[grumpyMSG]

Call me crazy, but just for starters your scope looks like it is mounted too far to the rear. It should be mounted so that you have the correct eye relief (distance between your eye and the scope) for that particular scope. ACOGs are notoriously short eye relief scopes and they tend to be mounted about even with the rear of the charging handle.

If you are trying to hold your head back to get enough eye relief, the strain will definitely cause you to have sight alignment issues as well as preventing you from having a good cheek weld.

[MarcSpaz]

I have a really long length of pull. My arms are actually pretty long, so for me to be comfortable with my arms as far as support and trigger hands, I need the adjustable stock all the way out. Today, I did push it forward about 1.5 inches. It was far enough back that the scope was making it hard to pull the charging handle. I figured pushing the stock in one notch would be better than fighting with the handle around the scope.

I got some more ammo and headed back to the range today. Once I realized that the range numbers on the focus knob are worthless, I went about things a little different today. I ignored the reticle and dialed the objective focus until it was really as crisp as it could be. The focus number ended at 200m, though I was shooting a target 100m away. I made a note of it for quick reference in the future.

Anyway, I had much, much better results today. After I got the scoped zeroed about as close as I can get it on the "click" level, I was shooting a solid, repeatable 2 MOA group (I'm not a great shot). My two best groups were a 1 MOA and a 1.5 MOA. Seeing as in how the rifle is rated for 1.5 MOA, I am much happier. Hopefully the scope holds together. this time.

1 MOA

http://fiveguysracing.com/marc/Gun_Stuf ... eGroup.bmp



1.5 MOA

http://fiveguysracing.com/marc/Gun_Stuf ... eGroup.bmp

[AlanM]

Just a nit pick.
You do know, don't you, that it's more accurate to measure right edge to right edge, (or left edge to left edge) than it is to try to estimate the centers of two holes?
As long as the holes are produced by the same size bullet, of course.