Author Topic: Scope Issues  (Read 450 times)

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Offline Sourdough

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Scope Issues
« on: August 15, 2011, 07:26:53 AM »
My partner has a Weatherby Accumark in 30/378.  He put a real nice military style scope on it.  Large easily adjusted turrets on it.  Went to the range yesterday, first eight shots were good.  Scope dialed in good, and he was satisfied since his last three holes at 300 yards were within an inch of each other.  On a whim I set a target out at 400 yards.  Three shots and he completely missed the target, no right.  I looked his rig over and noticed his scope had moved.  Recoil was too much for the rings he had used.  Good thing I set out that target at 400, otherwise he would have taken that gun in on a Caribou hunt in a week and a half.

Now he has a week to find a way to stop the scope from moving in the rings.  I had the same issues, I ended up locktiting the scope in. 
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Offline Slowpoke Slim

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Re: Scope Issues
« Reply #1 on: August 15, 2011, 06:21:36 PM »
You don't state what mount/ring setup is in use,

If it's a heavy scope, which it sounds like from your description, that only makes the issue worse. A lighter scope will not have as much mass to resist the rearward movement during recoil, and will move easier with the receiver. That being said, I have the standard Leupold 2 pc bases and rings on both my 375 H&H and my 338 Win mag. I have never had either mount/ring combo give me any trouble either from recoil or being knocked off zero. My 375 has a small scope, a Viper 2-7x32 that is fairly light in weight. My 338 has a 3.5-10x50 Nikon that is much larger and heavier. With the standard mounts/rings, all the holding power is in the front ring, so it has to be pretty tight, as the rear mount with just the windage screws has no holding strength during recoil.

If you have this mount/ring combo and it's getting loose, even with the front ring tight, you may want to switch mounting systems to a picatinny style with a heavier duty set of rings. I use the Warne tactical setup on 2 of my target rifles that each wear large, heavy target scopes. The rings are wider, with multiple clamping screws and more clamping area to better grab the scope tube.

I don't have a good pic of the Leupold mount/ring setup, but here's a good pic of the Warne setup on my long range rig. Note the 3 clamping screws across each ring: