Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Scope Power Setting & Group Size

dj.
To be honest 40x rifle scopes suck.I dont really care who makes um.They are only good for one thing and one thing only.A reticle matched up a decent aim point and power matters not as much.
dave

Complex question with no absolut answers except in a theoretical sense because hunting rifles are not BR rifles.I'm talking big game rifles here,not specialized target or varmint rigs.

More important than magnification to me is the right size target to make me hold steady,and tight. It makes sense that the rifle will shoot tighter groups at higher power than at a lower setting, but not necessarily;this assumes that the accuracy potential of your rifle is "infinite",ie capable of GIVING more accuracy at,say 10x than at 4 or 6X. Most are not.Neither are you,except in a theoretical sense. I've seen field position groups shrink considerablely when the operator turned the power ring down;higher magnification induced more wobble which he could not control,and the system and shooter relaxed,and squeezed them off easier.

So,especially under field conditions, you do no better at 300 yards with 10X than at 4 or 6,cause your rifle and you are both only capable of so much.

The best "group tightener" I've ever installed on a big game rifle is not an expensive, high magnification scope; it's a top quality barrel,like Kreiger or Lilja,etc. I've shot so many groups slightly over and under MOA at 300-400 yards with 4-6X scopes they seem pretty routine.

Yet there are times it seems the higher magnification helped,especially on tiny targets with quality barrels and rifles,and at longer distances from very steady rests.OTOH,On most big game animals,it is pretty easy for me to see them well enough to kill them at any distance out 500 yards with a 6X.

What a quality barrel does for the accuracy of a hunting rifle is pretty impressive.

I've seen sub-MOA groups shot at 600yds with Iron Sites before. It's certainly possible to shoot great groups with no magnification and you can shoot good groups with whatever magnification if you match the targets to the sites. The point is that it's "generally" easier to shoot better groups with more magnification. With higher magnification you can see your movements and try and control them off the bench.
I do think that some shooters shoot better with a little less magnification because they don't see their wobbles and squeeze off a good shot. With more magnification some shooters tend to pull off a shot when they think they are centered instead of making a good squeeze - I've done it myself.
I certainly don't have 40x scopes on my hunting rifles but that doesn't mean I couldn't shoot smaller groups if I temporarily mounted one to shoot groups off the bench with..............................DJ

I'll just call you Little Twig Jr.

Or azzhat.

Same thing.

At 100 yrds. I always shoot better on the lower power settings. Image shake that the higher magification gives plays with shooting!

Don't worry, I'm not the only one that realizes you are often wrong. It's almost to easy with you.......

It�s uncanny; you sound exactly like him.

Oh, yeah, I�m not wrong here. You purposefully interpreted something I said the way you wanted it to read.

Never realized you had heard his voice, much less mine.

Course you read like my ex-mother-in-law, bitch like her too....

I'd have bailed out too.

If I'm going for tightest groups, I'm typically shooting off of bags with the dial maxed out. Depending on what rifle I'm shooting that's 6X, 8X, 9X, or 10X. Without a doubt the higher the better for me in every case.

I agree; you don't have to be shooting a 150 lb rail gun (rail gun?? WTF, over?) off of a 2-ton concrete bench to get a benefit from properly mounting your rifle on a pack, or sand bags, or a rolled up bundle of clothes under the front and rear of the stock to get the benefit of more magnification when shooting for smaller groups.

So mirage ain't an issue after the first 100 rounds in 3 minutes?

Why?

Are you planning on shooting groups on full auto?

If you plan on firing that many rounds a simple piece of plastic/poster board stretching the length of the barrel forms a fine mirage shield. No need to be fancy like the benchrest crowd.

But then, you know as well as the next person on here that the likelihood of someone shooting enough rounds, fast enough, to cause a barrel-born mirage problem are slim to none. And if they were, they would more than likely know to use something as a mirage shield.

Try again.

I tell you what Steelhead.

You win.

You can have the last word; I'm done with the back and forth crap with you.

What you don't understand is amazing. I'm sure the way lots of folks do things ain't how it is done here. I do shoot LOTS of rounds and rather quickly. I do it at a whim whilst out doing other [bleep]. Of course I have the luxury of being able to shoot damn near out my door and anywhere else in a 200,000 acre point from where I am. We tend not to carry silly [bleep] in the bush. MPAJ and shooting quickly at 700 yards is a concept and a practice I doubt you fully grasp.

Here is my mirage shield.

DJ: Sure;absolutely.Agreed

I have proven that if you try really hard you can shoot just as crappy a groups at high setting as lower settings.However ,the higher magnifications let you see more and if you have an excellent rest and good trigger and technique then you should be able to achieve all the rifle is capable of. I like to use a bullet hole for a target and have enough magnification to quarter it steadily. Try dry firing on your target before you shoot your group to see what all moves as the trigger is pulled..If anything moves, you don't have a good enough rest.Works for me and saves some ammo.

WOW!!!!! I sure like to see that!!!!

Ain't magic.

Anything is possible on the net........