Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics New Scope Setting

Hey guys I had a 39 dollar scope on my TC Omega Z5 muzzleloader. It was mounted in steel Millet rings. I got it sighted in and came home to clean it up. As I wiping it down one of the steel lips broke off of the bottom of scope ring that clamps to the rail. Kind of shocked me because I've used steel millet rings many times before without issue.
I knew I had to pull the scope back off and remount it. I put my arbor style bore sighter on the rifle to see where zero was located. It was 1square low and 2 squares to the right. I pulled out a set of burris signature rings and bought a Bushnell Banner and mounted it. I then placed the bore sight back on and adjusted this newly mounted scope to bee same as gun was zeroes before which was 1 square low and 2 squares right. Would it be safe to assume that it should hit pretty close to zero as I imagine the bore of rifle going be same place in relation to the scope..
Kind of crazy. I bought this muzzleloader around 2010 or 2011. At that time I put the 39 dollar scope on cause thats all I could afford. I never shot the rifle until a couple days ago when I sighted it in. Now I have redo it again.

I rarely buy chit 'cause that's all I could afford'. Instead of chit, I'll save up for something at least halfway decent.....

Instead of not shooting a $39 dollar piecer (pos) for 9 or 10 years you could have added $2 a year and had a real $59 dollar prize.....

In short....NO it’s not safe to assume that you’ll be close, at least not “close enough” to hunt animals with any confidence that you could make a humane shot. You can use that as your starting point for sighting in at the range but I’d not hunt it that way.

Good luck and let us know how close it was. 👍

I can’t tell you how many high dollar Weatherby rifles I’ve mounted $59 Tasco’s to. I tried talking every guy out of putting so much into a rifle but so little into its sight system. I’d rather have a $1000 scope on a $100 rifle than I would a $100 scope on a $1000 rifle.

Circa late 90's I sold a doggone trainload of Simmons Whitetail Classic 3.5-10x40's @ $99.99 because they "weren't a Bushnell" and the guy "Didn't need a Leupold".

I remember those. We ordered way too many, I didn’t ever suggest them except for .22’s and the like so I wasn’t much help getting rid of them. 😁

No I was not going to hunt with it that way at all. The point of my post was mostly just our of curiosity at if using the bore sighter the way I did would return it to zero. If I had truly zeroes it I would have moved crosshairs till they were centered. Instead I moved them till they were 1 square low and 2 squares right because thats were it showed on the bore sighted with the rifle being truly zeroes st the range.
I will definately shoot it to make sure its right. The reason for the 39 dollar scope back then was I originally planned to just use open sights but thought I need go ahead put scope on. However I hardly ever muzzle load hunt( in being 11 years and never shot the gun) so I wasn't interested in putting something more substantial and at the time I couldn't afford anything more anyway. Thanks

I think for the reason you stated that your guess is as good as any and I’d likely figure it the same. 👍

I shot a 303 with open sights for years because that is all I could afford. Actually, it was what was handed down to me. It served me well and I shot quite a few white tail and a moose.

After high school and working on my own for a couple years I had saved up enough money to buy my first rifle. ( m77 mark2 7mm rem mag ) I also bought enough reloading equipment dies and bullets that I could practise cheaply and get the best accuracy out of it. I slapped a Tasco world class 3x9 on it and went shooting. It wasn’t until quite a few years later that I was able to replace with something better. It served me well until then. Sometimes you get lucky with the less spendy optics....... but sometimes you don’t.