Others How do you mount your Scopes and keep things level while shooting!?

[pan60]

on a note I will add those leveling tools can be great but they can also bed a scope I witness a but bend his scope ever so slight it made the side focus very difficult to move and the he started it was slicy Smooth.
so if you use those be very very carful.

 

[Danman]

3 different bubble levels cant all be lying can they?! Not a pic from today but last weekend getting the gen2 Helix mounted....table is level, gun is level, scope is level, plumb line set out 30Y away. Doped it from 10 to 50Y with 20 being my "accidental" zero and 50 being my actual zero, never went out farther as it got dark out. I use my bipod Cant lever a ton and to me a bubble level afixed to you rig is a must.
Close to far shooting: Holdover, Zero, Holdunder, Zero, and then holdover to infinity... Biggest challenge for pesting with this rifle for me is the close up shots.

 

[Solo1]

3 different bubble levels cant all be lying can they?! Not a pic from today but last weekend getting the gen2 Helix mounted....table is level, gun is level, scope is level, plumb line set out 30Y away. Doped it from 10 to 50Y with 20 being my "accidental" zero and 50 being my actual zero, never went out farther as it got dark out. I use my bipod Cant lever a ton and to me a bubble level afixed to you rig is a must.
Close to far shooting: Holdover, Zero, Holdunder, Zero, and then holdover to infinity... Biggest challenge for pesting with this rifle for me is the close up shots.

If you want to shoot under 20 yds on a regular basis get a scope wheel like we use in hunter ft. Then you just mark it in 1 yd increments from 10 to 20 while focusing at those yardages

 

[bchannell]

I understand what people are saying about eyeing it, and that's good, but I like to align the vertical crosshair with the bore and then learn to hold the rifle level by feel. I feel that this get me as close as I'm going to get without mounting a scope level and fussing over it for every shot, which I just don't want to do.

 

[Madhatter]

I understand what people are saying about eyeing it, and that's good, but I like to align the vertical crosshair with the bore and then learn to hold the rifle level by feel. I feel that this get me as close as I'm going to get without mounting a scope level and fussing over it for every shot, which I just don't want to do.

That's what I've been doing for years but just ordered a scope leveling wedge. I'm going to test it out for Parallelism with my calipers. It'll make it easier to mount scopes for me and I can just use a plumb line to check it.

 

[Hector J Medina G]

We all have our methods and quirks.
If it works for YOU, then it is perfect for you.

I ship between 2-3 guns per week. Most of them require scopes.

To ME, the "easy" way to make everything shoot as it should (notice I have not said anything about "level" yet), needs to start with an optically centered scope.
Not all scopes are perfectly coaxial between their mechanical center and the optical center. And the important one is the optical center.
To find the optical center I use two steel V Blocks that hold all scopes (except one) that I have thrown on them.
I then orient the scope to a distant object, as punctual as I can. It may be the knot in a tree 100 yards away, or a door knob. Whatever is nicely visible and distinctitively prominent will do, if it is not too large an object.
I then rotate the scope. IF the cross of the hairs moves, then I adjust and repeat till the crosshair point moves WITH all the rest of the image. Meaning that the scope is now optically centered to the sight picture.
Then I mount the scope on the gun, and look at my image aiming at the center of the muzzle in the reflection.
I make sure that the gun is reasonably vertical, and rotate the scope in the mounts, so that the extension of the crosshairs bisects the scope's objective lens. This ensures that what is "Vertical" for the scope is also the point where the muzzle is directly UNDER the center of the crosshairs. Sometimes it takes a re-mount or a change of mounts, but this is the most important step. IF the action is not square to the stock, or if the scope rail has been installed or cut slightly offset or any other defect, now is the time to correct it. By ensuring that the bore "sits"directly in line with the muzzle, it will mean that when the turrets are moved, they will move in the plane defined by the scope and the bore.
There have been exceptions, but these are far from numerous.
Once the bore and the scope's crosshairs "agree" on what is vertical and what is horizontal, I put a level on the scope to "TELL THE SHOOTER'' what the system is aligned for.
I then ensure that the barrel "regulates" to the same POA/POI.
If not, then the barrel gets regulated to shoot to POA at a user specified distance. For FT, it is not uncommon to make that distance 25 yards. The other distance that is common is 40 yards.
Whenever the barrel needs regulation, the "aiming at the man in the mirror" procedure needs to be repeated.

Once I know that everything is tight and aligned, I can release the gun to the wild, knowing that FOR THE FRAME OF REFERENCE of the SCOPE, the BORE will be in line, and that is up to the shooter, to ensure that the system is vertical/horizontal when it counts.

The levels I set are viewable from the shooting position, and it takes less than 1 sec to check before taking the shot.

I've seen more than a fair share of stocks that cannot hold the action "level". Or mounts that cannot either.
OR rails, or dovetails, all of them can make the system "crooked", and in that case, even if everything is level, level is what you do NOT want.

HTH, keep well and shoot straight!






HM