Scope question

[Snappo]

Oh!... but how much cant can a base have? More than 20moa would be rare and it actually should work for You adding to the elevation range of the scope by borrowing from the cant.
So I dont get why you are not able to zero and have plenty of adjustment left.
Nikkon are nice but the bdc have coarse reticle.

It's gotta be a 20 MOA base. I don't think I have ever bought anything but flat's and 20 MOAs. My crosshair was 1.5" above the bullet impact at 100 yards when I ran out of dope. So that mean's the scope must be 40 MOA's. I tried to google how many MOA's were on the scope, but apparently there is no such thing as a Pentax LightSeeker 30 8-32 anymore.

I had another of the Pentax LightSeeker 30's do that same thing, but with windage. I ran out of dope about 2" from zero on windage. I took the Pentax off and put on a Leupold, and the rifle zeroed for windage just perfectly. So I have 2 in boxes now; and I think the third might be sitting on a 22 Marlin bolt action (though I am operating from memory - I have a bunch of rifles).

I don't much like that Nikon recticle but here is what I do: I go out to my range and shoot at 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500. I have shot-record books, and I figure out what my dope is on every rifle/scope/bullet combination and when I get back to the house I poke my data into a spreadsheet I keep. Then I push my spreadsheet to my Samsung Tablet-4; which is 8" and somewhat readable down back. For hunting I really just use one rifle, and that's my Remington 700 Police with the 20" bull barrel and a Springfield Government on top. That zeroes at 200, and each mark is a 100 yard increment. Really easy to do, and I only hunt my property so I have distances very memorized. Hunting truly is a time where you don't want to have to mess with a home made ballistic chart. You just want to know your distances and take a good shot without a lot of thinking.

 

[Snappo]

I would still think that the Pentax is still usable even with the 20 MOA cant - how does it dope when you use the top post of the reticle as the zero rather than the center of the crosshair? How does that relate to a 200 zero rather than 100 zero? I guess what I'm saying is that for the ultimate paper punch it might not be very good, but the deer won't know the difference between 2" high or low POI at 200 to 300 yards.

I didn't take it back out to grab a 200 zero because Midway USA already shipped the Nikon and I assume it gets here tomorrow or Monday. But I did shoot like 30+ rounds with it being exactly 1.5" low of my crosshair and doing 1" groups with no issues. Gotta be 40 MOA. Are scopes more MOA range when they are lower power scopes? These Pentax's are 8-32's.

 

[Snappo]

I think you also have the leupold VX6 now on sale at midway. The price is hard to beat. These scopes have been abused by professionals and safari hunters with the largest magnums and they are perfect for close

I have a Leupold LR/T and honestly my only beef is that even if you have the illumination dial at 0 for some reason the battery goes dead after a month or two of sitting in the safe. Seems to me that a battery should never go dead; but apparently the circuit design was such that a small trickle of electrons must be flowing 24x7 even when in the 0 position.

 

[meketrefe]

I have a Leupold LR/T and honestly my only beef is that even if you have the illumination dial at 0 for some reason the battery goes dead after a month or two of sitting in the safe. Seems to me that a battery should never go dead; but apparently the circuit design was such that a small trickle of electrons must be flowing 24x7 even when in the 0 position.

Is the leupold a Mark 4 LRT? The battery should stay put and leupold will take care of it no questions asked.

Is the pentax this one? http://www.adorama.com/pxg8x32x50ms.html?discontinued=t

 

[Snappo]

Is the leupold a Mark 4 LRT? The battery should stay put and leupold will take care of it no questions asked.

Is the pentax this one? http://www.adorama.com/pxg8x32x50ms.html?discontinued=t

No that's their GAME seeker line, mine is LIGHT seeker. I am not even 100% sure what the difference was in those 2 lines but the GameSeeker was the entry level and the LightSeeker was their high line. Also, once I lost a part and they sent me a replacement part but it was Burris and not Pentax. So I bet you $1 it's one product with 2 names - like GM/Pointiac/Buick/Olds used to do all the time. This website says the scope can do 74 MOA's; but obviously my math says that didn't occur on my rifle.
PENTAX Lightseeker 30 6-24x50 Rifle Scope, Ballistic Plex Reticle (89610)

 

[Snappo]

Is the leupold a Mark 4 LRT? The battery should stay put and leupold will take care of it no questions asked.

Is the pentax this one? Pentax 8.5-32x50

Yeah its the Mark 4 version of the Long Range Tactical. I have two things that literally bleed battery juice. I have this LR/T that can hold a battery for maybe 2-3 months; and I have a pair of EOTech 552's with the N size battery that actually drain in a month. So what I do with the EOTech's is I open it up and pull out the batteries but leave them in that plastic nose portion. So I just have to snap it in if I want to actually use it. The Leupold I just shrugged and said "no illumination for Snappo". I'm not even positive which battery it takes; but I bet its that generic CR2032 that everything always seems to take.

 

[Snappo]

Oh!... but how much cant can a base have? More than 20moa would be rare and it actually should work for You adding to the elevation range of the scope by borrowing from the cant.
So I dont get why you are not able to zero and have plenty of adjustment left.
Nikkon are nice but the bdc have coarse reticle.

Once I swap out the Pentax when MidwayUSA gets here this afternoon; I will try all 3 Pentax scopes. The one I think the elevation is messed up on, and the one I think the windage is messed up on. I checked - I have the 3rd one dialed in on top of the Marlin 22LR (yeah I know - $200 gun and $800 glass = LOL). But the glass is owned and paid in full so why not, right? So on the other 2 if I find windage and elevation is correct using your mirror approach; should I just keep them? Here is my beef and likes on scopes nowadays after years of different scopes:
1) I like having that focus dial on the left for distance - it makes your view sharper since I never wear my glasses.
2) I like those no-allen-wrench turrets that the major companies do nowadays.
3) I shoot at 3-9 power but I like scopes that go to 20-30 so you can look at what the wind is doing to grass and trees 500 yards away. It's like a scope and spotting scope all in 1 unit.
4) I like it to be really bright and also like an eye relief zone that isn't too small. Some scopes you have to be within like a quarter of an inch of where they say your eye relief needs to be.

The Pentax fails on point #2 because I guess scope manufacturers just didnt do that stuff 10 years ago. But it never hurts to have extra scopes on your shelf, right?

 

[Snappo]

I would still think that the Pentax is still usable even with the 20 MOA cant - how does it dope when you use the top post of the reticle as the zero rather than the center of the crosshair? How does that relate to a 200 zero rather than 100 zero? I guess what I'm saying is that for the ultimate paper punch it might not be very good, but the deer won't know the difference between 2" high or low POI at 200 to 300 yards.

I know I'm not supposed to use a scope to troubleshoot a rifle, but the P308 came yesterday afternoon and I shot today. It's that Pentax scope. The Nikon dialed in quickly, stayed dead accurate, and I was under an MOA at 100, 200 and 300 with no issues. Friggin Pentax.......

 

[ProgSpear]

The bullets don't lie.

Just wondering Federals or Black Hills?

 

[Snappo]

The bullets don't lie.

Just wondering Federals or Black Hills?

I zeroed with Greek 1980 milsurp from CMP. Then I shot Remington Accutip 150 gr BT. Its all I had outside Milsurp. I gotta get down to Granger. The local gunstore doesn't sell Black Hills.

 

[meketrefe]

tell us about the other scopes when you get a chance. just to know what you find.

 

[Snappo]

tell us about the other scopes when you get a chance. just to know what you find.

I'm going to try that mirror test and see where those scopes are at. I'll post the results.

 

[Tinman]

You don't want a rifle to verify the scope. I suggest the following:

A) Take out the scope and align the mechanical center in line with the optical center and reticle. You can do this by putting the scope against a mirror with a glass in between and make sure you have some light coming back.
You will see the reticle twice, one is the reticle in the 2nd focal plane and the other the reflection of the reticle in the mirror. Make them match overlaping perfectly and you
will have an optical center. It is not 100% precise but it should be very close. Take note of the turret values and now lets find out the actual adjustment. if the scope is in the center and
you have lets say 60 moa of elevation the elevation adjustment should go 30 moa up and another 30 down from that position. So start counting the clicks and then multiply
by the advertised click value. So 1/4 MOA adjustment should result in 30x4 that is 120 small clicks. Come back to your center 120 clicks and then verify you are now in the center again.
If you are not then you either made a mistake counting or your erector tube has some serious reliability issues. Do the same on the other direction. Might want to do the same with the windage.
This will verify the travel "mechanically" and I will verify that there is potential for the scope to adjust to whatever values they advertise. Lets say if you don't get to 120 but 100 clicks it should be
fine as soon as it is consistent on the other direction. +/- one or two clicks could be fine too as optical center and mechanical center might not be 100% correct. The key here is to know the range of movement and to make sure that if you didn't make a mistake counting the clicks and taking note the crosshairs should be in the precise spot you started. Return to optical center.

B) Now we want to verify that the mechanical movement in fact corresponds with a real MOA value corresponding from the movement. For this you will need to secure the scope so
it doesn't move. like clamped to a piece of wood to a rigid bench and setup a target to a predefined known distance. Set your scope in the optical center, set a target and focus on the
target. set a mark on the target dead center on the cross hairs. It might be wise to use a target with a grid with known squares we can measure like one of those in inches for example.

Now lets say do an adjustment with the elevation to elevate the erector tube lets say 10 MOA. If you do this at 25 yards this will translate in 2.61 Inches.

Distance Rough MOA True MOA Equivalence
25 yards .25 inches 0.2618 inches
50 yards .5 inches 0.5236 inches
100 yards 1 inch 1.0472 inches
200 yards 2 inches 2.0944 inches

Go to the target and measure the distance between the reference mark and the new position on the target. If you are not anywhere close come back to the center and do
the same with lets say 20 moa. The key here is to make sure that neither the scope nor the target move at all. You might be able to do this in your yard whatever the distance
and using math to calculate the mean value and actual value.

Here also when coming back to the starting point in click value the cross hairs should be in the precise spot you started in the target. Return to mechanical zero.

If the scope doesn't respond to the advertised calibration system then you might want to find one that does.

Also if you want to do the above with the rifle vs. a bench you might alternatively use the rifle but you have to make sure the scope is properly mounted and you use a quality
boresighter to verify the movement of the corrected values vs. the bore. I don't think that you might have mismatched rings because that would be obvious and might even
break the scope as you torque it down. Of course make sure nothing is loose that would not be the first time someone overlooked this during installation.

Makes sense?

Good luck

Wow. I am impressed. That was a great write up. I learned one hell of a lot. Thank you very much.