How Well Does Your Scope Track?

[AP2020]

Easy to get "lost" when dialing up/down /left/right!

 

[snert]

Well, my Vortex Viper tracked fine till today.

Input 4 up. Fine. Input 8 up. Fine. Input 8 down. 24 inch drop. One full revolution to bring back to zero! ya think maybe something went POING in there??

 

[Tim Singleton]

March 40x perfect every time

 

[ImBIllT]

Well either the guy in the video is shooting a 2” group, in which case who cares how his scope tracks, or his scope won’t track for crap. Then whenever a shot is off, he says get got lost and misdialed. Well how on earth do you figure out a scope tracks well if you can’t dial it right?

 

[ImBIllT]

I also think it’s funny that he took the time to point out that one minute of angle is 10.47” at 1000yds instead of 10.00”. Until we’re shooting .25” groups at 1000yds how would we even know if the error was actually showing up on target? If it was, how would you correct for a .047 minute dialing error with .125 minute clicks? YouTube heros. Lol.

 

[mikecr]

For group shooting actual dialing value doesn't matter.
For hunting it matters a lot, and so does tracking. At least for GH hunting it does.

Many scope makers merchandise their scopes as adjusting in increments of MOA, when in reality, few do.
If you're a hunter it's best to test your scopes for true IPHY in dialing. This, whether advertised as MIL, MOA, or IPHY.

 

[Bart B.]

I also think it’s funny that he took the time to point out that one minute of angle is 10.47” at 1000yds instead of 10.00”.

1 MOA in the USA shooting sports and sight makers was 1/3600th of target range (1.0000... inch per hundred yards) for decades. Rifle target's scoring rings are spec'd in even inch increments across 100 yard range steps. Target scope bases were spaced 7.2" apart, 4 clicks on the back ring moved it exactly .002" using 40 tpi screws pitch . Target aperture sight adjustment moved the aperture .008333" and that's 1.0000... inch on a target 3600 inches away with the standard 30 inch sight radius.

Then folks mentally wearing referee shirts in their minds buying scientific calculators in the early 1970's using trigonometric functions threw down penalty flags. They've never picked them up and there's thousands of them.

If you understand the tolerances in optical lens properties, you'll understand why few, if any, scope spec'd at trig MOA units of 1.047.... inch per hundred yards will do that to 3 decimal places. A couple percentage points error is normal.

 

[STOMP442]

Well, my Vortex Viper tracked fine till today.

Input 4 up. Fine. Input 8 up. Fine. Input 8 down. 24 inch drop. One full revolution to bring back to zero! ya think maybe something went POING in there??

Sounds like Every Vortex Viper I have ever used. At least they will fix it for you.

 

[ImBIllT]

.

Very interesting history! The part I quoted is exactly my point. EVEN IF scopes were made with clicks 1/4 of 1.047” per 100yds, AND if there was fine enough resolution optically and mechanically to be that precise, no one is shooting perfectly enough to prove that .047” of error on the target came from dialing the scope “incorrectly” or it was wind, ammo, a gun that won’t group consistently tighter .047”(almost all guns) etc., and even if you could do that, how would you correct it with a 1/4 or 1/8 MOA click? Not even 1/16 MOA allow for the correction. Anyone getting bogged down in 1” vs 1.047” when they dial their scope 1 MOA needs to spend less time thinking and more time shooting

 

[Ledd Slinger]

No way he dialed wrong on those couple of shots or it wouldn't have returned to zero with his final calculations of 4.3 down x 4.3 right. Something is off. Might be ammo, might be shooter, might be scope.

Using 2 optics in a scope checker device is the best way to test optical tracking.

 

[ratbuster]

I carefully checked three Nightforce SHV 5-20 scopes and one Sightron SIII 8-32 scope using a 4' ruler at EXACTLY 100 yards (measured with steel tape) per the article (link below). I was happy to find all three of my NF SHV scopes tracked spot on to a 36 MOA turret excursion. The Sightron was darned near perfect, ending up only 3/8" shy of the 37.7" excursion expected for 36 MOA at 100 yards.

http://www.arcanamavens.com/LBSFiles/Shooting/Downloads/ScopeChecking/