Scope question to those that rely on holdover and not dialing turrets

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Bigragu

Bigragu

Member
Jul 8, 2018
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CA, United States
so, finally, after all these years I’m going out of my comfort zone of using strictly the middle of the crosshairs, which meant for years air rifle shooting my shots were limited to around 40 yards max, and that was pushing it. Now that I’m retired I have time to experiment, so I have questions. 

First off, I want to make it clear I’m going for old school for now, meaning no ChairGun or that Strelok app. I’m going for school of hard knocks practice and memorization. With powder burners in an MOA scope it was easy to learn. With pellets using scopes with mildots made for powder burners, well, I need to learn how these dots will work in distances for a given pellet.

so, my first couple of questions:

1. I’m sighted in at exactly 35 yards. Did a re test today, and my Hercules Bully is stacking pellets into the bulls eye. I moved the target out to 50 yards. I aimed exactly at the midpoint of the crosshairs, to find out how much it’ll be off. Also, no wind today whatsoever.

i end up 1 1/4” low in elevation, and 1 1/2” to the left on windage. I expected the drop on a 44 .75 grain pellet. My question: Is it normal to also see drift, with no wind? Is that just the nature of the beast with pellets? Stabilizing in flight?

2. To cut to the chase, my scope cross hairs outside of midpoint all start off with a small hash, then a dot. Small hash, then a dot. Each segment line has a total of four dots, and six hash marks. I ended up hitting the bulls eye repeatedly at the midpoint going in between the first hash Mark and the first dot after it, both on elevation and windage.(so, I went up, and moved to the right)

Question: is it safe to assume that at a 100 yards it would be double that distance on the cross hair graduation marks that I moved to? Or not so, due to more drop of the pellet at further distance(I know at this point you’re thinking aww man, this is truly a newb, lol). Well, if you tell me yes, Augie, it won’t work doubleing up the grad mark distances due to pellet drop, well what about windage(remember, this is with no wind)

Thanks, all. This is scope learning 101 for me!
 
Oh, man, Motorhead! I don’t see you on here much. Thanks for piping in! I’ll have to recheck my wheeler scope mounted anti can’t level then. I re set that at 30 yards using a plumbbob and string. Now I need to check the vertical cross hair if it falls at center of bore, as was suggested by another member on here, using the mirror method. Now I’ve got something to focus on(pun intended)

Tell me, is it best to set an anti can’t level using the plumbbob and string at further distance, like more than 25 yards? 
 
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As long as you have a plumb line or any horizontal or vertical line that you are sure is level, you can use it to adjust your scope bubble level. Distance does not matter.

But you should insure that the reticle intersects the bore before worrying about the bubble level. That you can do with a mirror, or shooting at close distances.

Inches of drop at 100 yards will be much more the 2x the drop at 50 yards. At 2x the distance, if you had only 4x the drop in inches, you will have 2x the drop in cross hair graduations. But when shooting low BC, sub-sonic projectiles, you will have a lot more drop than that when going from 50yds to 100yds.
 
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Thank you, Scotchmo. I bookmarked my tread on anti can’t levels, and see you piped in there also with valuable info. It all makes sense to me, now. This whole thing of assuming the dovetails and pic rails are perfectly in line with the bore, but more than likely not. Not in mass production guns, anyway.



what I’m confused about, this mirror method. So, say I rotate the scope looking thru the scope at a mirror, and when the vertical cross hair falls at dead center of the bore(I’ll call it the muzzle cause that what I’ll be looking directly at, I’m supposedly good, right? 

But then that tread of mine goes on to explain from there, use a plumb bob line or a know plumb line to adjust for cant. So say I slightly rotate the scope for can’t, won’t that move the setting I had when perfectly over the middle of the bore/muzzle? Confusing to me for sure. 

Lastly, and I think in the explanations describing this mirror method, is important and probably missed? Say I use a Best Gun Vise to secure the rifle while using the mirror method. Prior to the mirror procedure, is it best that the rifle be set and locked down level in length and in width prior to the rotation of the scope while looking in the mirror? 

So these two questions here are the missing pieces in the puzzle for me.

Thank you!!
 
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I find a bullpup harder to hold level then a regular rifle. Just a touch of cant can make a big difference. Just for reference I’m sighted at 50 pushing 34grn jsb mk2 at 840 75yrds is 1.8 mil. 100yards is 4 mil but from there it falls out much faster. I’m wanting a gun installed level to help with the cant since I shoot out too 100 fairly often. 
 
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No wind ... pellet should fall vertically with gravity having no left / right drift. If it is shifting to one side then it is telling your NOT holding rifle level and some degree of cant is present.
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Yep. What he said. And that's a real bi*ch to contend with.
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It brings on a challenge, though, doesn’t it? And taking the challenge head on and winning, is all about self achievement and at 56 with a cane, might make me do the moon walk, lol! I like challenges. The way I look at stuff like that, is what my old journeyman told me years ago in lessons on mitering ogee type of gutters- “ if it was easy, then anyone could do it”. I didn’t buy into that comment at the time, as I was all cut up and bleeding and the gutters looked like chit, but I finally mastered it, years later. 

And he was right. Not everyone can do it.
 
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Thank you, Scotchmo. I bookmarked my tread on anti can’t levels, and see you piped in there also with valuable info. It all makes sense to me, now. This whole thing of assuming the dovetails and pic rails are perfectly in line with the bore, but more than likely not. Not in mass production guns, anyway.



what I’m confused about, this mirror method. So, say I rotate the scope looking thru the scope at a mirror, and when the vertical cross hair falls at dead center of the bore(I’ll call it the muzzle cause that what I’ll be looking directly at, I’m supposedly good, right? 

But then that tread of mine goes on to explain from there, use a plumb bob line or a know plumb line to adjust for cant. So say I slightly rotate the scope for can’t, won’t that move the setting I had when perfectly over the middle of the bore/muzzle? Confusing to me for sure. 

Lastly, and I think in the explanations describing this mirror method, is important and probably missed? Say I use a Best Gun Vise to secure the rifle while using the mirror method. Prior to the mirror procedure, is it best that the rifle be set and locked down level in length and in width prior to the rotation of the scope while looking in the mirror? 

So these two questions here are the missing pieces in the puzzle for me.

Thank you!!
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Best to differentiate between "scope-cant" and "gun-cant". The mirror method can get you close to eliminating scope-cant. Rotate scope in rings as needed and then lock down. Verify by zeroing at 25yds, and then shoot a target at 10yds. The POI should lie on the vertical reticle.

You can then mount the bubble level. The bubble will be mounted so it indicates when the reticle is vertical/level. The scope is already mounted correctly, so don't change it. You DO NOT rotate the scope to adjust the level. You adjust the level (rotate it on the scope tube). When you shoot, hold the bubble so that it is level to eliminate gun-cant.



Answers to your specific questions:

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"...So, say I rotate the scope looking thru the scope at a mirror, and when the vertical cross hair falls at dead center of the bore(I’ll call it the muzzle cause that what I’ll be looking directly at, I’m supposedly good, right?..."

Yes. Center the reticle in the objective reflection, and rotate the scope in the rings until the verticle reticle intersects the center of the bore reflection.

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"...plumb line to adjust for cant. So say I slightly rotate the scope for can’t, won’t that move the setting I had when perfectly over the middle of the bore/muzzle?..."

You must not do that. When you used the mirror, you already rotated the scope to eliminate scope-cant . Once you have done that, you don't rotate the scope to eliminate gun-cant, you rotate the whole gun.

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"...Prior to the mirror procedure, is it best that the rifle be set and locked down level in length and in width prior to the rotation of the scope while looking in the mirror?..."

No, the level doesn't matter when you are setting/adjusting the scope rotation in the mirror. Level DOES matter when you are mounting/adjusting the bubble level. When you shoot, hold the gun level according to the bubble - the scope/reticle will also be level.
 
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I have mounted many scopes and here is my simple method to perfectly level your crosshairs, all you need is a sturdy gunvise and a magnetic dial type angle finder (available in any decent hardware center). Mount the rifle in the vise and install the lower portion of your scope mounts, place the angle finder across the tops of one of the mounts and adjust rifle until the dial touches zero or straight up and carefully tighten the vice, recheck the zero. Place the scope in the mounts and lightly tighten the mount caps. Now place the magnetic angle finder on the turret block of the scope or the upper turret itself (you may have to remove your upper cap for a flat surface), now rotate the scope and find zero on the needle again, carefully torque down your mount caps and recheck the final zero. As long as the rifle was not jarred in the vice your alignment should be spot on. 
 
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I have mounted many scopes and here is my simple method to perfectly level your crosshairs, all you need is a sturdy gunvise and a magnetic dial type angle finder (available in any decent hardware center). Mount the rifle in the vise and install the lower portion of your scope mounts, place the angle finder across the tops of one of the mounts and adjust rifle until the dial touches zero or straight up and carefully tighten the vice, recheck the zero. Place the scope in the mounts and lightly tighten the mount caps. Now place the magnetic angle finder on the turret block of the scope or the upper turret itself (you may have to remove your upper cap for a flat surface), now rotate the scope and find zero on the needle again, carefully torque down your mount caps and recheck the final zero. As long as the rifle was not jarred in the vice your alignment should be spot on.
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That might work good enough for you, but:

It is prudent that you first insure that your crosshair is centered on (intersects) the bore BEFORE you try to level it.

Leveling should be done AFTER the scope has been tightened down.


 
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Looks like a lot of excellent advise sense last visiting thread ....

A TRICK used when setting up reticals alignment to barrel bore is to look threw the scope backed away and higher that your normal head / eye position.

With a bit for trial & error of position you will see that your able to get a small window of "view point" that is JUST THAT OF RETICALS LOWER LEG. When your able to get this view you now will find it very easy to see angularity errors of the retical relative to guns receiver. Knowing where the barrels center is as viewed from back of the receiver allows you to orient the vertical retical alignment when viewed as described above.



Scott S


 
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