Ok, all BS aside, what is a great scope for long range shooting?

[PhilC]

Not sure what components you have on hand but I did love 42 grains of R-16 with a Nosler 140 RDF sitting on top, for the Creedmoor.
Mine liked RL16 too with 129 & 142ABLRs.

[geneackley]

Ok, I just finished mounting my new Bushnell Elite DMR II scope, getting the proper eye relief, tightening all the screws down... and THE TRUTH is that the glass seems OUSTANDING to me!!!!. Mind you, I am coming from SWFAs so maybe I am easily impressed... but all through the magnification ranges I saw everything CLEARLY with NO PERCEPTIBLE DISTORSION or loss of clarity!!!

This was through my window in my "gun room" upstairs looking out on the countryside. I have not yet taken it out to the range to shoot to check out its mechanical aspects, but that will come shortly.

SO BOTTOM LINE, on OPTICS I give this scope an "A" so far.

The magnification ring sure is stiff... I hope it will loosen up a bit with use...

Also, at first I thought the Parallax knob didnt work... until I cranked it up into higher magnification and it worked wonderfully.

so, so far, so good.

[Robinhood]

I sense a chance to learn something. Please do share this procedure Robinhood. Thank you. I used to compete in FTR. There was this engineer guy, he had a nice custom rifle and a NF ATCR sitting on top. Me, a Savage 16 action with a criterion 308 and a Choate stock.(don't laugh, it got me high master at 300 and 600 and master at 1000). I am stomping this guy at every match. Afterwards a bunch of us would go and get a burger or something and do a little bonding. One time I ask him to meet me at the range on a Saturday. I loaded up some 175 FGMM loads and we got together. After a round of shooting at 300 I asked to shoot his rifle. The focus was off and the parallax wasn't close. I asked him If I could adjust it to work for me. He said sure..you gotta ask right. I focused the ocular lens and then adjusted the parallax. He asked why I was going through that process and I told him that I thought his scope wasn't adjusted correctly for him and I wanted to prove it. I proceeded to shoot the smallest 308 5 shot group of my life at 300(3/4). A little education and I never beat him again. If you know this good for you it has no value. Most long range shooters perform this with every new scope. So for the benefit of the people who are new or don't know.....here we go. Aim the scope reticle at something with no features ie... the sky, broad side of a barn, something that will not distract the eye. Focus the ocular lens until the reticle has the sharpest lines, and any dots are perfectly symmetrical etc... If your eyes get tired, take a break then go back and do it again. This is critical. You will never need to adjust this again with the exception of your eyes change Get a known target distance(exact distance is optimal). A white target with 1 inch squares or small dot works well. Dial that distance in on the knob. Now look at the target. Without influencing your rifle/scope(you need a sturdy bench and keep your body parts from touching anything), move your head up and down, left to right. Does the reticle move on the target? Is the target clear? Probably no to both questions. Reticle stability is the most critical and what we are going for if small groups are the goal. Now adjust the parallax knob until the reticle does not move any amount on the target. the scope should be clear. Anytime you change distance, it is all about getting clarity with the p. knob, then fine tuning it until until the cross-hairs don't move. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ......................... For some reason it clumped several paragraphs together. Don't know why.

[geneackley]

I used to compete in FTR. There was this engineer guy, he had a nice custom rifle and a NF ATCR sitting on top. Me, a Savage 16 action with a criterion 308 and a Choate stock.(don't laugh, it got me high master at 300 and 600 and master at 1000). I am stomping this guy at every match. Afterwards a bunch of us would go and get a burger or something and do a little bonding. One time I ask him to meet me at the range on a Saturday. I loaded up some 175 FGMM loads and we got together. After a round of shooting at 300 I asked to shoot his rifle. The focus was off and the parallax wasn't close. I asked him If I could adjust it to work for me. He said sure..you gotta ask right. I focused the ocular lens and then adjusted the parallax. He asked why I was going through that process and I told him that I thought his scope wasn't adjusted correctly for him and I wanted to prove it. I proceeded to shoot the smallest 308 5 shot group of my life at 300(3/4). A little education and I never beat him again. If you know this good for you it has no value. Most long range shooters perform this with every new scope. So for the benefit of the people who are new or don't know.....here we go. Aim the scope reticle at something with no features ie... the sky, broad side of a barn, something that will not distract the eye. Focus the ocular lens until the reticle has the sharpest lines, and any dots are perfectly symmetrical etc... If your eyes get tired, take a break then go back and do it again. This is critical. You will never need to adjust this again with the exception of your eyes change Get a known target distance(exact distance is optimal). A white target with 1 inch squares or small dot works well. Dial that distance in on the knob. Now look at the target. Without influencing your rifle/scope(you need a sturdy bench and keep your body parts from touching anything), move your head up and down, left to right. Does the reticle move on the target? Is the target clear? Probably no to both questions. Reticle stability is the most critical and what we are going for if small groups are the goal. Now adjust the parallax knob until the reticle does not move any amount on the target. the scope should be clear. Anytime you change distance, it is all about getting clarity with the p. knob, then fine tuning it until until the cross-hairs don't move. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ......................... For some reason it clumped several paragraphs together. Don't know why.

Thank You Robinhood. Very educational. I will use what you have taught me next time I go shoot to verify my scopes!!!

[geneackley]

ok, I finally took out my new gun and new Bushnell Elite DMR II out to the pasture this afternoon.

Upon employing the highest magnification, I was not able to get the scope to focus at 25 yards or quite completely focus at 50 yards... I then realized that the Parallax Knob only went down to 75 yards... duh!

So that is one thing to consider if you buy this scope.

But at the lowest magnifications, everything was clear; Turning the parallax knob there in fact showed no discernible effect at all.

The eyepiece turns a little too easily to adjust the focus at the eye... but once I know exactly where it needs to stay, I will make a little verification mark. But the scope cap moves it as I open and close it... that's a negative on this scope. I may have to turn back to the factory bikini style scope caps it came with to solve this!

In the end my shooting was lousy tonight: After I got on paper, I continued to zero things out, but never really got dialed in perfectly at 50 yards...

Not sure what to blame... probably me... but I did have some issues:

I am not very comfortable with the stock yet. The KRG Bravo has a piece that comes off under the buttstock that provides a good place to grab to push the rifle into my shoulder... But I did not want to use that yet till I get the cover that closes up the hole you get when you remove that cover... So that didn't help. Furthermore, I had 37 rounds loaded with some unknown bullets with a very sharp ogive that I am sure were not seated to the optimal depth... how could they be? But I only shot 8 of those rounds.

Bottom line: New Scope, new gun, funky ammo, a mediocre shooter... and last but not least, MY FIRST SINGLE STAGE TRIGGER!!!

I will change out the firing pin spring from a 25 to a 16 pounder tonight and adjust the trigger: its still as it came out of the box. And I will try again tomorrow.

BUT THE SCOPE did its part -even if I had no parallax under 75 yards-... I am very happy with it despite its few quirks... Its like a woman... none of them are perfect... you just find one you can live with and call it good!!! ha ha ha !!!

[Robinhood]

A couple of questions. What made you think a 16 lb spring would de an improvement and what are the expected changes you want to see? Where did you acquire this 16lb spring? Also, can you wrap electrical tape around your scope to make the caps fit tighter.

[yobuck]

I used to compete in FTR. There was this engineer guy, he had a nice custom rifle and a NF ATCR sitting on top. Me, a Savage 16 action with a criterion 308 and a Choate stock.(don't laugh, it got me high master at 300 and 600 and master at 1000). I am stomping this guy at every match. Afterwards a bunch of us would go and get a burger or something and do a little bonding. One time I ask him to meet me at the range on a Saturday. I loaded up some 175 FGMM loads and we got together. After a round of shooting at 300 I asked to shoot his rifle. The focus was off and the parallax wasn't close. I asked him If I could adjust it to work for me. He said sure..you gotta ask right. I focused the ocular lens and then adjusted the parallax. He asked why I was going through that process and I told him that I thought his scope wasn't adjusted correctly for him and I wanted to prove it. I proceeded to shoot the smallest 308 5 shot group of my life at 300(3/4). A little education and I never beat him again. If you know this good for you it has no value. Most long range shooters perform this with every new scope. So for the benefit of the people who are new or don't know.....here we go. Aim the scope reticle at something with no features ie... the sky, broad side of a barn, something that will not distract the eye. Focus the ocular lens until the reticle has the sharpest lines, and any dots are perfectly symmetrical etc... If your eyes get tired, take a break then go back and do it again. This is critical. You will never need to adjust this again with the exception of your eyes change Get a known target distance(exact distance is optimal). A white target with 1 inch squares or small dot works well. Dial that distance in on the knob. Now look at the target. Without influencing your rifle/scope(you need a sturdy bench and keep your body parts from touching anything), move your head up and down, left to right. Does the reticle move on the target? Is the target clear? Probably no to both questions. Reticle stability is the most critical and what we are going for if small groups are the goal. Now adjust the parallax knob until the reticle does not move any amount on the target. the scope should be clear. Anytime you change distance, it is all about getting clarity with the p. knob, then fine tuning it until until the cross-hairs don't move. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ......................... For some reason it clumped several paragraphs together. Don't know why.
Because you were looking out the windows during english class.
Probably thinking about adjusting parralex.

[geneackley]

A couple of questions. What made you think a 16 lb spring would de an improvement and what are the expected changes you want to see? Where did you acquire this 16lb spring? Also, can you wrap electrical tape around your scope to make the caps fit tighter.

Robinhood:

The scope caps themselves fit great... but the EYEPIECE moves too easily ( rotates out of focus ) when I open that rear lens cap!!!

But great minds do think alike and the electrical tape fix is on the menu, but its for the eyepiece rotation issue, not the scope cap itself!!!

As for the main bolt springs:

AS I UNDERSTAND IT, the Nucleus Action originally came with a 16 lb firing pin spring. But some people ( including I believe our very own Admin J Baker here ), had issues with light primer strikes. So they now sell that action from the factory with a 25 lb spring installed instead of the original 16 pounder.

But I wanted the lightest bolt lift and trigger possible so I bought the 16, 19 and 22 lb springs so that I could experiment and have the lightest spring that will work.

I figure I will install the 16 pounder today and if I start having issues, I will go to the 19, and then the 22... and eventually back to 25 if need be... but hopefully not.

Our resident "Fine German Scope Glass SCHNOB" Mr. Txhillbilly himself uses a 16 lb spring in his Nucleus action without a single issue... He hasn't steered me wrong yet!

[Downwindtracker2]

Not scope related, but English class related. During English 11, rather than listen to the Mr. Keller, I was looking out the window. When he asked me what I was doing, I replied " I'm contemplating the blue of the sky." It left him speechless. It got a laugh, too. I wisely didn't take Lit 12, Drafting 12 was more useful.

[Txhillbilly]

Not scope related, but English class related. During English 11, rather than listen to the Mr. Keller, I was looking out the window. When he asked me what I was doing, I replied " I'm contemplating the blue of the sky." It left him speechless. It got a laugh, too. I wisely didn't take Lit 12, Drafting 12 was more useful.

So, Just what are we supposed to get out of that reply? All I got was you didn't care for English class, who did?

[Downwindtracker2]

A small chuckle. Though I will admit some have little humour in their souls. As for scopes I've used a Sightron SIII and Bushnell 4200 in FTR competition. Both worked as expected.

[Robinhood]

I've always found it funny that Hornady claimed the polymer tips on the Amax bullets were melting. I shoot those bullets out of many guns in .224 -.264 -.284 - and .308 calibers for many years and never had any issues with them.
I personally think it was just a marketing ploy for them to make / sell the new ELD series bullets at a higher retail price.


I have always thought the same thing. If they were melting, why did they do so well at long range.

[geneackley]

I "fixed" my "easily rotating eyepiece" with electrical tape just as it was suggested. I ordered the next size up Butler Creek cap to allow it to slide on snugly but not too tightly. So perfect there.

I carefully adjusted my focus knob against a blue sky to find the perfect setting half way between the points where the reticle started to come into sharp focus and where the reticle started to come out of focus...

I also ordered lower rings and got my scope bell to clear the barrel by just 1/8th of an inch. Perfect.

All is great!!! Spring is here in Texas. As soon as I get some chores done I am going to get in some serious shooting.

Take care and THANKS for all the input. It was fun and educationals too... and cheap!!! ha ha ha !!!

[Robinhood]

Awesome, good luck. Your demeanor and gratitude is enjoyed.