You can't hit what you can't see

[MLB]

Well, if you've read my Henry levergun thread in this section, you might remember that my pal of many years took me to task quite soundly at our last meeting. His Ruger 10/22 with the bull barrel and scope way outclassed my abilities with the open sighted Henry as you'd expect.

As a penance, I will be subject to at least a few months of gloating emails referencing my 19th century technology firearms, short range, and low rate of fire. (an amusing side note is that the Henry was once remarkable as "the gun you load on Sunday, and shoot all week".) However much has changed since the days of the Civil War.

I can see that for our next meeting, we will need to move those targets out a bit to provide some semblance of a challenge to my pal with the new found accuracy. This leaves me in quite a quandary. It would be unlike me to leave my pal without any competition after so many years of harassing him with my old bolt action rifles. Looks like I'll need to invest in some optics.

I briefly considered fitting a scope to the RMIICT, but competing with a 1" group at 35yd is asking a lot for a pistol, and going out from there seems unreasonable.

An autoloading rifle just isn't my thing (that, and it's probably not in the budget either.) So my rate of fire will just have to be very effective. The venerable J.C.Higgins is at least 45 years old I figure, and well used to boot. Even after fitting it with a scope, it's unlikely that it will be able to compete with the new bull barrel on the 10/22. I might be able to compensate with marksmanship at range, but why put yourself at a disadvantage to begin with? I'm already behind with rate of fire, and he just might get good you know.

This affords the perfect opportunity to call the neglected Marlin 883 back into service. The combination of the nearly new microgroove barrel and the flatter trajectory of the .22wmr should place me in contention if I provide the appropriate optics. Indeed, it's a bit wasteful to take tin cans with this round, but I don't fire nearly as many rounds through the bolt action as with an autoloader anyway. (I believe I can justify just about any urge ;D ) That, and I'll have an improved varmint gun. So there.

Now it just remains to educate a bolt-action, open-sights guy on the appropriate power and type of scope for this rifle at say, 100 yards or so. Any takers?

[TMan]

Afraid I can't help you much with that because I'm having scope purchasing problems myself. I want a Scope for my Ruger Mark 1A (is that right? it is the single shot rifle) It is complicated because the gun is stainless and I want a silver scope. There aren't that many to chose from. I'm thinking Nikon?

There is a link: www.opticsplanet.com/info/how_to_buy_riflescope.shtml where they give you information on how to buy a rifle scope. They seem to have fairly good prices too.

I have a BSA on the Savage 308 and Ruger 77/22. I've heard that they aren't very good, but I guess I'm not good enough shot to know any better.

I will pass on, and this is the reason I'm pending to a topic I know nothing about (of course that never stopped me in the past), that I saw a thing on TV on how to mount the scope. You set the scope on the rings, but don't secure it. You then raise the gun to your shoulder and with your eyes closed, position it where you would normally place your head. Next you open your eyes and move the scope forward or backward until the eye-relief is correct and you can see clearly. Needless to say, I need to do this on my three scoped rifles (the Henry Acu-Bolt came with one). Make that 4, I forgot about the SU-16.

I don't think for target shooting I should be concerned with things like the objective lens size or field of view. The thing that would really screw me is parallax.

I was thinking about a particular scope the other day, and it was around $300. Then I bought this Savage 10FP-LE2A with the Acu-trigger, and said that the scope could wait because I wanted the Mark I-FVT. I won't be mounting a scope on it.

I've also thought about getting the Remington 504T, but I'm not going to order it until I first figure out what scope to put on it - it isn't cheap. (Perhaps an Anshultz or Cooper would suit me better.) (I would like to get one really accurate rifle.

[MLB]

Thanks TMan. I'll take a look.

That Savage appears to have a peep sight of some sort. Almost looks as if it has an aperature in the front too. How does that work for you?

[TMan]

Sorry, I didn't make that clear. The picture is of the Mark I-FVT, I won't have it until next week. I talked to my dealer's wife and the distributor has it in stock.

Single Shot Rimfire Series
Model MARK I-FVT with Peep Sights -- now with AccuTrigger
Caliber .22 S, L, LR
Overall Length 39.50"
Barrel Length 20.75"
Weight 5.25 lbs
Magazine Capacity Single shot
Stock Black synthetic with molded checkering
Sights Peep sights
Rifling Rate of Twist 1 in 16"
Features New AccuTrigger, blued steel bolt action, heavy target barrel, button-rifled, with peep sights, swivel studs
Suggested Retail $316.00


It just dawned on me that I'm a sexist. I always deal with her, and she really is the one that runs the business. She is really my dealer.

Since my last post, I called her to see how she was feeling (she had been sick). She looked up the price of the Remington 504-T. You don't need Paul Harvey to tell you the rest of the story.

I'm in a good mood, Ernest & Young just finished my income taxes. It was really hairy because of my wife working overseas. Turns out that we are getting $25k back. Wonder if I should trade the Element? No Way - I love that vehicle. ;D It is a real relief because using Turbo-Tax I owed the IRS $11K. I think what they did was to give her tax relief for the extra money they gave her for the international assignment. Think TMan is going on a fishing trip (with my little brother of course - I don't put anything on a hook - I don't take anything off a hook. He doesn't mind - big brother always picks up the check.)

[5ontarget]

I don't know much about the Marlin 883, but I'm guessing it has the traditional grooves in the receiver for a .22 scope mount, or it is drilled and tapped for a scope mount and rings??

Everyone has a favorite power and opinion. I've seen some benchrest guns that will have 30x, 36x, and 40x scopes on them.
I find that for varminting (is that a word?) I like a 4Xscope. If I get much more than that the field of view starts dropping off too much for me to follow the targets effectively. Of course the solution to that is to buy a bigger scope that has larger/better lenses to allow a larger FOV. For targets that don't move, I'll go up to 9x. At that power I don't need a spotting scope to see the holes at 50yds. If I had a dedicated target .22, I'd probably put a single power high power scope on it (30x)on it, but I like to take them out in the field and woods occasionally too.
My answer is the inexpensive 3-9x Bushnell .22 scope, it runs about $35-40. I know there are much better scopes out there. I've been told that I'd shoot better if I put better optics on my gun. The dead groundhog, and possum I killed last week at 50, and 90yds didn't seem to notice my cheap scope being inaccurate though. I keep thinking of upgrading, but then I buy more guns, so the accessories just have to wait.

For ~$400 you could buy a Anschutz 54, and slowly start customizing it...

I think Tman added a rifle basix trigger to one of his guns, and they are available for the marlins too.

www.eabco.com/marlin-triggers.html

www.riflebasix.com/marlin.html

A lot of your choices are going to be limited by your budget, how much are you looking to spend on a scope?

[MLB]

Thanks for the head stard guys. The Marlin has the simple grooves in the reciever. I'd imagine that the more expensive ones would require the reciever to be drilled and tapped for real scope rings. I was thinking something on the order of a 5x32. I don't see myself putting a $400 scope on a $300 gun though. I'm hoping to keep it under $100 or so.

It's been so long since I fired it, I can't remember how the trigger is. I'll reaquaint myself with it soon, and perhaps a new trigger will make it into the plans as well.

I'll be taking off for my annual week long fishing trip myself shortly TMan. The best fishing advice I ever recieved I got from my grandfather when I was about 5, "Keep your line in the water. When the fish pulls down, you pull up." Everything since then has been more or less BS. ;D

Looking forward to hearing about the new target rifle.

[TMan]

In addition to the trigger, I also put in the Volquartsen sear. This was on my Ruger 77/22, which has an inexpensive BSA scope. There is one guy at the range that has a ton of 22's. He has been responsible for several of my 22 purchases because of bringing guns in for me to shoot. When he shot my Ruger, he drooled.

I've gotten to the point that I don't want anymore semi-auto 22's. I just find the bolt action to be much more accurate. In fact one of the two that I have on order is another single-shot. Also, some of the match ammo is standard vs. high velocity, which can be a little problematic in semi-autos.

You won't be hearing about my 504-T for awhile because I'm not going to order a scope for it until I figure out exactly which one that I want. Here is the link for it in case you are interested.

www.remington.com/products/firearms/rimfire_rifles/model_504/model_504-T.asp

The Savage comes with peep-sights and I don't have any plans to put a scope on it.

Concerning price of a scope: I've heard said that you should spend the same amount of money on a scope that you spend on the rifle. That might be true if you are going to use the rifle for hunting, but I'm not too wild about scopes for hunting. If I set the scope up for the squirrel on my fence, it isn't going to be right for the squirrel on my neighbor's roof. However, for a sniper a scope certainly has merit.

[MLB]

Remind me not to move close to TMan. My roof might leak due to squirrels. ;D

I agree with you about scopes on hunting rifles. I prefer the open sights, and since I hunt at short ranges, it works fine.

This is to be primarily a target gun, with only the occasional non-steel squirrel target.

[MLB]

Well, I looked over quite a few scopes, and in the end took 5OT's advice. The Bushnell 3-9x32 will work just fine for as often as I'll get it out. The model I picked out has a wider than normal ocular lens. You'd think that it would appear less bright, but I couldn't see the difference next to a couple of others I was looking at. Just a bit better (apparent) FOV.

I almost bought a BSA that looked just as nice, but couldn't get over the memory of the old junk one I had years ago.

So now I can use this rifle as my spotting scope while I'm sighting in the Henry as well. That's the plan anyway. We'll see how that goes, now if the rain will just stop...

[5ontarget]

interesting theory on 1 shot sighting in... shoot one round with the gun on a rest/vise, hold it there and have a friend adjust the scope while you are looking through the scope until the crosshairs line up with the bullet hole. In theory, if you were able to keep the gun steady, this would site your scope in for that distance, right?

Or just shoot it a bunch and sight it in. (one of my favorite methods)

Or the old timers bore sighting, remove the bolt, rest the gun, look down the bore at a spot on the wall, then look through the scope and adjust the scope until it is centered on the spot on the wall. crude, but pretty effective at getting things close. (obviously only works with bolt actions)

[TMan]

So, you just named 3 different ways. However, I'll discount the second way because you will end up using it after you use either the first or last method. Even the laser bore-sighters state that they will only get you on the paper.

Your 3rd method would not be as accurate as your first method because it uses a straight line from the chamber to the target. As we all know, the bullet doesn't travel that way, but travels in a trajectory.

I like your first method, but you would probably use it after you used the 3rd method or a bore-sighter to get you on the paper i.e. if there wasn't any hole, you couldn't adjust the sights to see it.

[MLB]

I took both rifles (the Henry with the peep and the Marlin with scope) out for a quick sighting in session last evening. I was going to start with the scope, but was hitting about a foot to the left at 50 yards (fortunately, I had another target posted to the left ;D ). I had forgotten that the Millet scope mounts I used are windage adjustable. I had apparently not lined them up very well and didn't bring the allen wrench with me. No sense torquing the hell out of the fine adjustments to compensate so it was just a spotting scope for the evening.

I roughly adjusted the peep sights based on where the rear sight would have been and brought my grouping down to 3.5" over 30 rounds, surprisingly without a flyer. I'm going to try the smaller aperture that Marble's provided to see if that helps further, but the front bead has an apparent diameter of about 3" at that distance anyway so I'm not expecting too much of an improvement. We'll see.

I may go out and buy (or make) a shooting vise of some sort to try to take my sighting ability out of the equation. The lever action may make a prefabricated one less useful if I have to unclamp it to cycle the action. It would be interesting to see what the rifle can do as compared to what I can do with the rifle.

[TMan]

mlb said:

... It would be interesting to see what the rifle can do as compared to what I can do with the rifle.

I know what I can do, or make that can't do, which is why I always shoot off sandbags. These are small bags that the club has. I usually stack 4 high for the front and then slide another one under part of the rear stock so I can slide it forward/backward to adjust elevation. Still, in spite of this, other people have gotten tighter groups than I have shooting my guns.

On my Savage, I have the round site in the front and the peep sight in the rear. So what I do is fit the entire Shoot-N-C target inside that front circle so there is equal white all around the target. I then see it is perfect, get excited, and jerk the trigger.

The problem with my shooting position is that the butt of the stock is not on my shoulder, but it is over the muscle on my arm. My wife is going to come home, see the bruise and wonder what I was up to while she was gone. Speaking of the wife, she is coming home next week so I had better get busy.

[MLB]

I certainly won't have any bruising problems with either of these rifles. A year or so ago trying to sight in the Rem870 was a different story. 20 rounds of 3" magnum in relatively quick succession left it's mark.

I've been thinking about 5OT's sighting post. It seems to me that since the ballistics of the .22 are pretty well known, specifically the drop vs. distance, that you could indeed boresight or laser sight a spot on the wall (with your bolt action) and sight in the scope for a point some distance below it based on the distances of the wall and the intended range.

** edit: Now that I think about it a bit more, the distance to the wall is largely irrelevant.

[TMan]

mlb said:

I Now that I think about it a bit more, the distance to the wall is largely irrelevant.

I'm not sure about that: the instructions for the SL-100 are very clear that the boresighter should be 25' from the target. They mention this in several places. Then at the range that state:

It is important to take your first shots at 25 yds because of many factors affecting boresighting accuracy such as parallax, bullet spin, variable ballistics, etc

If I get my yard work done today, I'll mount the scope on the XR-100 and take it to the range tomorrow.

When I boresight it, I'll try the look down the barrel approach, set the scope that way, and then use the SL-100 to see the difference. I expect the laser will be better because it is more narrow and in the dead-center of the barrel.

With the SL-100, they supply a target with a spot to hit with the laser. They then have a grid with cross-hairs marked 1-1/2" above the dot. This corresponds to a center to center of scope to bore of 1-1/2", which is most common. If your center to center is different, they tell you to make additional marks at that distance. (I've mentioned this before with my SU-16 scope and the high rings.)

Some scopes have parallax adjustments for distance from the target, but others don't. So, if you have a scope that has zero parallax at 100 yds, and you are boresighting it at 25 ft. you may find that moving your eye around on the target moves the POA around on the target - not good. I think that parallax is the reason that some of my cheaper scopes don't give me pleasing results on the range (hey, you didn't think I was going to blame me for my poor marksmanship did you?)

[MLB]

I always look forward to TMan's replys to my posts since he usually takes me to task for some technical element that I've neglected. You've not dissapointed this time either, though I needed to draw it out to understand it.



Looking at the sketch, it's clear that you'd need to reduce the drop by the ratio of the wall/range distance. Funny, my first impression was right after all. Darn edits. I'm still not clear what the spin has to do with it though.

In doing a bit of researching on the topic, I reread some of Chuck Hawks info. He really has a teriffic site. If you look at his rifle trajectory table (www.chuckhawks.com/rifle_trajectory_table.htm), he takes a different approach.

More suited for hunting as opposed to target shooting, the idea is to sight the rifle such that the trajectory of the bullet doesn't stray more than some distance from the line of sight. The distance for which this can be accomplished is the MPBR, or the maximum point blank range. Knowing this and the MRT (mid range trajectory), you'd have an excellent idea where you should be hitting at various distances.

His tables use a "stray" distance of 1.5" for smallbore and 3" for larger cartridges. There is of course some "0" point (2 of them actually), but it varies on the cartridge. To sight in a rifle in this manner, you would set it to hit "high" or "low" per the table at 100 yards.

Knowing that the MPBR for a .22lr is only 90yds, and the drop at 200 yds is about 40", you can see why the Henry will likely remain my short range plinker. The Marlin (.22WMR) is much better suited to bullseye, and something in .17HMR even better.

[TMan]

Wow, I'm impressed. I read, but not completely digested, Chuck's work.

I just "finished" boresighting the XR-100, and it wasn't a good experience. My scope is a Bushnell Elite 3200, and I'm using a Leupold base and rings. I like their rings because I move the rear ring to set the azimuth while boresighting.

Anyhow, the parallax on this scope at 25 feet is horrible. Maybe I should bite the bullet and buy Leupold scopes. Buy a scope or buy a scope and a new gun for the same money

Well, it may hit the target at 25 feet. It just doesn't give me a lot of confidence when the cross hairs move all over the target when I move my head. Speaking of moving my head:

As I mentioned before, the target has a bullseye that you hit with the laser and then crossed lines 1-1/2" above that where you are supposed to set the crosshairs on the scope.

When I looked though the barrel after removing the bolt, no matter how I moved my head, I could not see the target. Then I removed the SL-100 from the barrel.

By moving my head around I could see the crossed lines on the target, or the bullseye. That is basically the same problem as parallax. So between the eye error looking though the barrel, and the parallax where are you? Hopefully, some where on the paper at 25 yards.

So at 25 yards, the bullet is still rising. That makes sense because when I had set the Ruger 77/22 for 50 yards, and then let my dealer shoot it at a target at 25 yards, she was hitting low. She is actually a better shot with a rifle than I am too, I knew it had to be the scope.

Let me tell you about my day: I've always been a live and let live sort of a guy. I understand there is a place for all of Mother Nature's creatures. However, I've used Bayer's Grub killer for several years to kill the grubs in the grass and it also kills the fire ants. However, since I put in the swimming pool, I created a berm behind it with the soil from the pool. I did a lot of work on the plants on the berm today. The berm is also known as the fire ant farm.

These bites are really nasty. Initially, they hurt. Now they have blisters. I'm declaring war on the fire ants.

[5ontarget]

tman said:

Anyhow, the parallax on this scope at 25 feet is horrible. Maybe I should bite the bullet and buy Leupold scopes. Buy a scope or buy a scope and a new gun for the same money

The sky is the limit on optics. If you really wanted to spend some $$$ look at Zeiss, Redfield, Swarovski, Kahles, or Schmidt & Bender.

I'm sure they are all great scopes. I've never looked through one. I don't think I could even afford to look

I could get a small arsenal of MN's, and mausers for the cost of one of those scopes.

[MLB]

TMan, I understand that the "parallax" for a particular scope is set for some distance, typically 50 yards. This leads me to believe that at distances closer or farther, it probably won't be as good. 25 feet is a long way from 50 yards...

Take a look at this snippet (about half way down the page) from Bushnell:
www.bushnell.com/products/tech_talk/riflescopes.cfm

[TMan]

MLB, thanks, that was a good reference. According to them:

Bushnell center fire riflescopes under 11x are factory-set parallax-free at 100 yards;

I was shooting today at 50 yards (I was Range Officer again), and didn't notice any parallax.

One of the senior members was helping me adjust the scope at 25 yards then I moved the target to 50 yards and re-adjusted. Next I put up a new target, shot, and then shot a second time. Where did the bullet go? Now I nervous. I pull out the bolt and look down the barrel - daylight - that's good. Then the sound of laughter behind me, and the words "same thing has happened to me with my 17 HMR, and I did the same thing - pulled out the bolt and looked." The bullet was going through the same hole.

5OT, that is my point exactly - spend all that money on a scope or buy another gun and ammo. I was talking to our #1 hunter today and he told me that he had two rifles out in the field, and one of them had an expensive, large, objective lens, and the other was a var less expensive scope. He had both of them out in the field under low light conditions, and the expensive scope was only marginally better. He normally buys Leupold scopes, but it is because they hold up better under the heavy recoil of what he shoots.

He likes the lower power scopes that have variable power down to 2, which is where he sets it when he is out hunting. He kept telling me what was good for shooting prairie dogs. Then it dawned on me that I hadn't a clue what a prairie dog looks like. I guess it must be something like a coyote or wolf. I probably wouldn't shoot one for fear I was shooting someones pet. Not wanting to show my ignorance, I just pretended I knew what he was talking about.