Centring the Reticle and Dialing

[LC Tikka]

Before dialing type scopes, best practice was to have the reticle very close to centre for optimum optical performance.
Now when dialing for long range, optical centre of the turrets is no longer possible or relevant, what has changed in scopes to no longer need the reticle in the centre of the turret adjustment range.
LC

 

[msinc]

Before dialing type scopes, best practice was to have the reticle very close to centre for optimum optical performance.
Now when dialing for long range, optical centre of the turrets is no longer possible or relevant, what has changed in scopes to no longer need the reticle in the centre of the turret adjustment range.
LC

I don't know that I would go so far as to say, "no longer possible or relevant"....I still optically center my scopes and shim/adjust so I have bullet impact as close to optical center as possible. It is a fair and accurate statement to say that today's scopes have way better ground lenses that are much more "optically corrected" then they ever were. Couple that with better erector tubes and overall design features and I believe the average human eye is unable, in most cases, to tell any difference between a modern scope that is optically centered and one that is not.
As far as I am concerned, "best practice" to me is still to have the erector tube "very close to center for optimum optical performance"......but again, with today's lenses, most shooters cant see the difference with their naked eye and so they either don't realize there is a difference or they don't care.
I also have noticed that all defects aside, given today's modern machining practices, things like rifle receivers {scope base mounting holes in relation to bore center line}, scope bases and rings and barrels are manufactured on the average much more accurately. This can and in most cases does translate into a much better, "closer to optical center" mounted scope right out of the box, so to speak. Of course, this is not always the case....I have seen plenty that were not close and a few that could not even be zeroed.

Edit: Maybe a simpler way of saying all this is that back when many shooters were just getting used to hunting and shooting with a scoped rifle they didn't have a lot of choice but to get used to and/or accept things like chromatic aberration or having way less than today's stellar light transmission. Scopes were very expensive. You did what ever you could to make it work better. Today, my kid has a better quality scope on his BB gun than those guys had back in the day. Pick up a scope today and it better be sharp and in focus all the way to the edge. Imagine one scope company telling people that they are going to have to shim and adjust their new scope to optical zero......aint happening. They wouldn't be in business long.

 

[dkhunt14]

I don't know that I would go so far as to say, "no longer possible or relevant"....I still optically center my scopes and shim/adjust so I have bullet impact as close to optical center as possible. It is a fair and accurate statement to say that today's scopes have way better ground lenses that are much more "optically corrected" then they ever were. Couple that with better erector tubes and overall design features and I believe the average human eye is unable, in most cases, to tell any difference between a modern scope that is optically centered and one that is not.
As far as I am concerned, "best practice" to me is still to have the erector tube "very close to center for optimum optical performance"......but again, with today's lenses, most shooters cant see the difference with their naked eye and so they either don't realize there is a difference or they don't care.
I also have noticed that all defects aside, given today's modern machining practices, things like rifle receivers {scope base mounting holes in relation to bore center line}, scope bases and rings and barrels are manufactured on the average much more accurately. This can and in most cases does translate into a much better, "closer to optical center" mounted scope right out of the box, so to speak. Of course, this is not always the case....I have seen plenty that were not close and a few that could not even be zeroed.

Edit: Maybe a simpler way of saying all this is that back when many shooters were just getting used to hunting and shooting with a scoped rifle they didn't have a lot of choice but to get used to and/or accept things like chromatic aberration or having way less than today's stellar light transmission. Scopes were very expensive. You did what ever you could to make it work better. Today, my kid has a better quality scope on his BB gun that those guys had back in the day. Pick up a scope today and it better be sharp and in focus all the way to the edge. Imagine one scope company telling people that they are going to have to shim and adjust their new scope to optical zero......aint happening. They wouldn't be in business long.

This is a good post. I also believe scopes and lenses got better. Also I think available MOA got larger. Now we have scopes with 100 MOA and that means more room in between the bad. Now more and more guys are using 20, 30 or 40 MOA bases, thus raising the optical center. Matt

 

[JohnKielly]

I try to have my scopes close to optical centre for the distances I most shoot. For example, my 1000-1200 yard gun has a 40 MOA rail on it because, by trial & error, that was the lean I needed to have the crosshairs centred at darn close to 1100 yards, depending on my load & bullet.

Guys, don't fuss those maths, this is how it happened empirically.