Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire what scope do you use for load developement???

do you use whatever scope you plan on having on your rifle? or do you use a certain "fool proof" scope? also fixed or variable?

lesson learned (finally) : use the known scope first.

I use the one that will stay on the rifle.

I've wasted some dollars with NIB Leupys that way, testing a new unit with a virgin scope. I'm coming around to using the known scope first, establishing a baseline with the rifle, then mounting the intended scope.

Go the direct route and work backwards if necessary. It'll save you a lot of scope changing in the long run.

If the initial combination doesn't work properly change the scope and/or mount. If neither helps, throw the dmned gun away.

if your looking for group size what power level would you use at 100 yds? seems bigger would be better in that situation. im not a fan of magnum glass but off a bench it would seem to work better.

I use the one I am going to leave on it. I do most of my initial development from a 100 yard bench. I do more shooting at different ranges with my main rifles. I usually use 2.5-8, 2-7, or 3-9 power scopes.

I do have some higher powered scopes like 6-18x for varmints but they don't get used much.

I believe I can shoot well enough at 100 yards to get representative groups with a 4 power.

Actually with something like a Leupold or Redfield sight in target I can make 2.5 X work pretty well.

If I have consistent accuracy issues I check the bedding, the bases and then change out the glass. My LW .338 knocked the crosshairs out of a couple of cheap scopes while I was trying to save up for a Leupold 2.5-8x36.

I try not to buy much in the way of scopes except for Leupolds lately. K-4 Weavers, Bushnell 3200's with Rain Guard [for special applications] and Redfields do still get some attention.

I have an 8x32x44 target scope that gets put on every new gun I get to see what it will do,then after load development i switch to what I will keep on.

I use S&B scopes to test any new gun that I am serious about.
If I am having trouble with a gun shooting properly, I will then bed the bases, this has solved the problem of bad grouping for me more than once

I always use the scope that will be on the rifle when I hunt with it.

8x32x44=11264 ????

Proven 24X leupold

I used to just through a scope on and run it but after a few situations where I was pulling my hair out trying to get things to work properly I came to the conclusion that the NIB scopes were defective.

Now I have a couple scopes that I have absolute faith it and use those for load development.

The one I'm gonna hunt with.