Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters What makes a scope hold zero and be robust/tough?

Bob, when you do please give us some feed back.

Dick,

When a European company decided to make an "American-style" hunting scope a number of years ago, they launched the PR campaign by sending samples of the 3-9x to about a dozen gun writers, with each writer's name engraved on their scope. I was one of the lucky recipients, and to test mine I mounted it on a .375 H&H, whereupon it fell apart in less than 20 rounds.

I informed the U.S. representative of the scope company, who said something like, "Yikes!" and asked me to send the scope back. It turned out they'd used a plastic part to save weight, because they knew Americans like lightweight scopes, and the plastic part had failed. They tried to recall the scopes they'd already shipped and replace the part with metal.

In a couple months they sent me one of the newer, slightly heavier scopes to test, and it worked fine (though it didn't have my name on it) but NONE of the other writers had any problems with the scopes when I reported my failure, I'd guess because they didn't put them on rifles that kicked much. A few of the faulty scopes had already been sold to customers and the company had to replace most over the next few years.

Dick,

While I have no knowledge of Valdada Benchrest scopes, I do have quite a bit on their "tactical" lines. In short- they break. A lot. The SH Edition scope (all 4 or 6 evolutions) is probably the biggest failure of any scope ever made.

A cursory Google search for "Valdada IOR and snipershide" will yield some interesting reading.

Nightforce and Schmidt & Bender....2 of the best built scopes, and both can take a beating!!

A heavier scope is harder on the totality of the system more so than the scope itself - IOW, the stuff that connects the scope with the 'rocket and rocket engine'.

Of course, principle of physics: momentum and leverage- also favor stuff that is not sticking out as far.

I may be going off half-cocked on the tactical Valdada scopes. The one I have belongs to a friend. It appears to be very well made and looks thru real well... but that's all I know for sure.

However, re: the benchrest scopes... small changes in P.O.I. (point-of-impact) have driven BR competitors nutz for years. The two fellows that know the most about the Valdadas are Bart Sauter (Bart's Bullets) and Billy Stevens (Steven's Gunsmithing). Both are retired colonels and former Army chopper pilots who are amongst the more serious and successful BR competitors in the world. They are both financially able to buy any scope they want and as many as they might want or need.

Bart told me a while back that they had tested the Valdada's both in their trench and in lots of competition. After using them for a while they now will shoot nothing but the Valdada's in competition. Bart told me he literally had 68 misc BR scopes for sale. He and Billy had tried everything (As I did.) to get other scopes to hold P.O.I. and been unsuccessful as I was. I literally took a $1000.00 Leupold Competition Series scope and spent another $500.00 to get the internals glued together and the adjustments removed. Dwight Scott and Gene Bukys had developed an ingenious mount that was adjustable and which locked up after you adjusted it. Bart and Billy are even selling those...

Leupold can sue me if they want but I have the targets, score sheets and a hundred witnesses that were watching me shoot that day. (Dick Wright leading the Super Shoot is the benchrest equivalent of 'ell freezing over.)

Sorry to vent but that was the only chance I will ever have to win the match that, once a year, competitors from all over the world come to. I'm getting too old to compete at that level now days.

Dick

we have been conditioned to accept mediocrity in hunting scopes. I almost bought a used conquest yesterday but had to stop myself.

Dick I know nothing about bench shooting, but an old friend (now deceased) was one of New England's top competitors.

Basically, he said exactly the same things that you have;scopes were the biggest problems BR shooters faced.He used to tell me that,for BR purposes, any Leupold BR scope needed to go back to the factory after about 800 rounds.

Of course BR demands are pretty exacting,more so than hunters, but I recall asking him what he thought about the variable powered hunting scopes,since he was a hunter as well. He chuckled and said I should know better than to ask.

Anybody shooting March and actually twisting the knobs?

I have two of the 4X fixed and they are excellent. One is on a 9.3 x 62 with a few haundred rounds through and a few hundred kilometers bouncing in the back of vehicle with me with no hiccups at all. They are good, very good for the money.

Most all of the BR shooters I see at the range I frequent shoot either NF or a high powered, fixed Leupy BR w/Tucker conversion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcmVKLoXKJU
I shoot once a month at the Ridgway Rifle Club the game is a combined Metallic Silhouette and 1000-yard Bench rest match.
Its a 40 round match.
10 at 850 crows.
10 at 900 woochucks.
10 at 950 bobcats.
10 at 100 coyotes.
Plus lots of sighters.
Figure, 22,24,26 and 28 inches for the four yardages roughly.
Lots of clicking.
I have a 10-60x52 March that I started with in the middle of last season.Im over 900 rounds and the thing is working just fine so far.
It repeats.
It moves straight up and down.
Its got a bomb proof zero stop.
Im liken it alot.
dave

hatari thanks for that info!

To be honest it's a scope make I never thought of and know nothing about.

I have four of these:

RicksTacRifle by Rick Mulhern, on Flickr

And two of these:

coydog by Rick Mulhern, on Flickr

Over the last 60 years of hunting and competitive NRA Rifle Competition I've used just about everything on the market starting out hunting with a Weaver K-3 model and I had no gripes using it to hunt deer in heavy timber. For my 'earlier' NRA matches, classified as Any Any Matches I used the Unertl type scope which also gave outstanding performance. The NF scopes I have are mounted on calibers from 6.5x47 Lapua to 30/06. The two Leupold scopes I have are mounted on an '06 and a 22/250. When one takes a gander through the NF scopes in comparison to the Leupold...the NF wins 'hands down'....no contest! I don't intend to drive any nails with the NF scopes but me thinks that they're tuff enough that it could be done without harm. I've found that NF holds zero's and is totally dependable when changing to varying distances being fired. Time after time when shooting whatever distance...I refer to my data book and depending upon the temperature, and taking into consideration a needed elevation requirement...the POI is usually right on! The photo of the dead yote shows one of the Leupolds and it too is highly consistent when changing MOA. Leupold could improve their product by doing away with the three small Alan screws which are mounted into their adjustable turrents by using the same method seen on the NF product!!

Echols just did a post on this topic on his blog if you'll excuse the link:

http://echolsrifles.blogspot.com/2015/10/broken-glass.html?m=1

Woodhits,


That can't be. Echols must be incorrect as the posters on the campfire assure that scopes are "good" and they never have problems....


Echols says-

Lots of scopes fail straight out of the box.
Lots of scopes fail with very few rounds fired.
People (gunsmiths) who don't see failures don't shoot.
Busted scope gets replaced with Nightforce and works perfectly.


Hmmmm....... Almost like it's been said before.

There are so many ways a scope can fail...

I bet that >1/2 of scope shooters have a scope that is a POS in one way or another and don't even realize it.

Remember when Bushnell/Simmons came out with that "revolutionary" adjustment method for their scopes? Whatever happened to that? You don't hear a peep about it anymore and you don't hear anyone brag how great they are.

I'd also bet that a bunch of people blame the scope for crappy marksmanship or mounting issues

Crazy, right?