Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters SCOPE LEVELING QUESTION

Ah Oh........the assschewing you and EHG are gonna get from RC is gonna be serious.

I mount my scopes out of square to allow for spin drift, moon phase and daylight savings time

I've always struggled with the daylight savings time component in my trajectory calculations. If I had $3800, I just get the new Night Force with their daylight savings time compensation reticle. For now I'll just have to stick with this...

If a person takes his rifle/scope south of the Equator, is it necessary to adjust for the difference in the Coriolis Effect?

No, but you have to turn the windage and elevation dials the opposite way.

Accuracy also suffers if the barrel does not have the twist going in the opposite direction.

Yep. Fast twist becomes an extremely slow negative twist...

It warms my heart to see this subject getting the kind of attention that it deserves.

My $69 Tasco has that feature and its only $69.. not $3800...

of course it won't impress your buddies as much...

but then most guys on the campfire, think you're better off being blind than owning a rifle that sports a Tasco, and then also mount it using Weaver rings...

oh and my Tasco came with a digital stop watch... made in China of course...

I have a simple method of scope leveling. I place a parallel on the action raceway and set a small square on the parallel. Square the reticle to the action. To check the work or fine adjust I have the rifle in a vice, level it from the parallel and aim at a plumb object as big and far as possible. Back off the scope power and ensure too and bottom line up.....done. it's a 3 minute event.

I use a devise that was discovered at Stonehenge. It is a plumb line and a sundial. It's called a Syphilitic Druid. The only drawback is it only works at noon.

I've seen lots of pictures of the Alaskan Pygmy version, but it requires lots of silly gravel and stream christening rituals and all the instructions are written in an angsty hobbit pidgin.

High Country,

Your method is as good as most. I don't fault it. But it does raise the question: if it is not uncommon for factory rifles to have slightly misaligned chambers, and less than perfectly round chambers, should we assume that all action raceways are perfectly level?

Good enough for hunting rifles, but maybe not for the 1,000 yard line, I think.

I don't know how I missed this. Slick!

Thanks, I didn't know that. I showed your post to my Optics Sensei, Balthazar Nimblesnatch, and he is familiar with that method.

Now I want to try one of the Reticle-Tru levelers after reading this discussion.

Does anyone have one of the plastic one for sale?

Yeah. The guy that makes them. That's what he does. Makes them to sell them. Have you thought about going to the source? If, 'after reading this discussion', you still don't know who makes them, might I suggest remedial reading classes?

It's only as hard as you make it.

Jerry's only making the aluminum version right now...

I've had a number of emails from folks asking when the acetal model reticle-tru will be available again. rather than continue trying to answer these one at a time, i thought it might be easier to just make a post.

currently, i'm just making the aluminum model reticle-tru. in addition, as soon as testing on the aluminum reticle-tru AR model is complete--if testing results are good--i will be offering those as well in the near future.

regarding the acetal model--it has been a great item, and in all the sales made over the past 3 1/2 years, i've only received one back for a refund. meanwhile, as runs were machined, occasionally some would get a scratch or some such cosmetic defect. rather than destroy those, it was a logical solution to sell them as "blems", as they were mechanically/functionally the same as a zero defect part.

one thing that was happening from the get go was the occasional black speck in the material--like a speck of pepper down inside the stock. when the part was machined, these specks would show up near the surface on occasion, and subsequently, they too would be sold as a blem (along with any that had gotten a scratch, etc.). early on there were about 3 or 4 of these reticle-tru's with a black speck in a run of 100 machined. as time went on, this was showing up more often, even though we were purchasing certified material.

therefore, i decided to switch to aluminum--somewhat of a set back. during this time the AR model was also conceived. once this is complete, the idea is to once again look at addressing the acetal supply issue....

for what it's worth, from those guys that i've heard back from who have both the aluminum and the acetal model device, they do indeed prefer the aluminum part. it is heavier, "giving a sense of being more sustantial." however, with smaller oblective bells/ lenses, it will be more inclined to "scope tipping" in the mounting process, but this is easily overcome by following the suggested tip for this situation.

a potential negative of the aluminum part is that if accidentally dropped on a wood stock, it will likely cause a more significant dent than the lighter acetal model...

i really appreciate the many good words....