What scope and what magnification??

[James19306]

I was out shooting yesterday with my sako 75 sporter in .222 shooting homeloads with schmidt 3-12x50 @200 yards, my groups are consistently 1.5" but now and again i get down as low as 1.1" mayb every third or fourth group. I thought i was doing pretty well with these results from a factory rifle, then i looked on here and im not sure where i found it but someone on here had a .20tac for sale and was showing sample targets at 100 and 300 yards which were tiny. Looked like an inch group at 300 yards. My question is what is limiting me from getting these tight groups at range? my scope, my rifle or the target im using? i use shoot n see 3" circles? any advice would be great

[andybrock]

My question is what is limiting me from getting these tight groups at range? my scope, my rifle or the target im using? i use shoot n see 3" circles? any advice would be great

 

Blimey James, thats a question we are all trying to answer

[James19306]

Blimey James, thats a question we are all trying to answer

 

I suppose you are right about that, i just wonder if a higher mag scope on my rifle would improve my chances of getting tighter groups? What are you guys on the forum using and what would you recommend if i were to change my schmidt

[jimmy milnes]

i too am serching for the holy grail james and im nowhere near it yet but the only advice i can give you is aim small hit "or miss in my case" small, so really what id say is have your POI as small as you can without straining to see it and have the best glass you can afford, this is just my opinion and there are far better shots on here than me so anyone else got any tips ??

all the best

jimmy

 

ps. just remember that more mag will also emphisize any shake etc.

[snc_2010]

Too much mag will cause you to outmanoeuvre yourself chasing infinitesimal wobble.

Aiming at tiny aiming marks will make your eyes tired.

I assume you're shooting from a bipod with a rear bag? Try bags front and back.

Post up your location and I'm sure some helpful soul from here will meet you for a shoot and share some advice.

[TonyH]

Too much mag will cause you to outmanoeuvre yourself chasing infinitesimal wobble.

Aiming at tiny aiming marks will make your eyes tired...

True. It's a fact that just as with binoculars, too many riflemen seem to think that the more magnification, the better. There's a law of diminishing returns.

 

I assume you're shooting from a bipod with a rear bag? Try bags front and back.

Why?

Tony

[James19306]

I've tried bag front an back and bipod and rear bag and to be honest I see no difference apart from the fact the bipod is a lot handier. I am not talking of really high mag like 30-40 night force territory. I'm just wondering If I would fare better with something like 4-16 or 3-18 with a good reticle? Also interested what other people are using?

[6.5shooter]

First off make sure youre technique is consistent for every shot.

Practice dry firing, breathing etc etc.

Unless you have dodgy eyes 12 mag will be plenty for 100 yards!

I use 5.5-22 mag nightforce or an 8-32 nightforce. High mag can hinder you at short ranges.

This is my findings but everyone is different.

 

Garry

[jimmy milnes]

hi james

on my 25/06 ive a swaro thats a max mag of 12 and on my 22/250 ive a hensoldt thats a max mag of 16x as i said before im by no means a pro at these things but i enjoy what i do and the practice, just getting into reloading so i can try to tighten things that way and also so i can afford to practice more too

all the best

jimmy

[andybrock]

James,

 

The set up you have got at the moment is plenty good enough to shoot foxes and other vermin, if you can shoot consistently into a 2 inch circle at 200 yards thats good enough, I wouldn't worry too much about shooting tiny groups, I'd concentrate on fine tuning your home loads and see what more you can squeeze out of your rig, not sure which SB you have but some of them have cross hairs like fencing posts and that could hinder you if you are trying to shoot a group.

[James19306]

I'm using a 3-12x50 with p3 mildot. I guess I'm just worrying that 1 1/2" groups @ 200 yards aren't tight enough for crows? I guess technique and ability to judge wind conditions would be more valuable to me than a higher mag scope!

[Alan17hmr]

I used to have a similar problem,

 

If I used more magnification I noticed I was picking up on my breathing and seesawing up and down and had to modify my timing to counteract this

My home loads with 22.250 were the best I could get after a year of tuning at 100 yds at epperstone

I couldn't alter my position as you lay on a slope at the firing point

I started to put a hi vis 1 inch square on a pistol target I had been using with the white side facing me,

By shooting at a small hi vis colour aiming point and not a black one I had a better view of what I wanted to hit,

 

A black cross hair on a black aiming point doesn't give me the best contrast and I was starting to try quartering the black bull instead of aiming at the centre

 

When I missed I could easily see misses on the white card with 10 mag, but soon found a sweet spot in my home loads that put bullet upon bullet in the same hole,

 

I do not think shooting at a 100 yds is too hard on a regular basis, but attention to every detail will again only work so far, but stopping and looking at the problem in front of you sorted me out

 

Now starting again after a two year break, needing to tame a aics stocked semi custom 243 remy

 

Regards

 

Alan

[baldie]

"too much mag will make you miss due to increasing wobble"

 

Rubbish.

 

It will show the wobble that was always there, and causing you to miss, but you didn,t know why.

 

Embrace the wobble with a higher power scope, and do something about reducing it by better technique, correct use of bags, lowering pulse rate etc etc.

 

If you cant see it, you certainly cant hit it.

 

A good all round mag range is 6-24 minimum. Better an 8-32.

 

You can always wind it down a bit whilst you are learning how to use it.

[Barrelsniffer]

I use either 6-24 or 5-22 mag scopes but as baldie says the "wobble" is always there just on low mag you don't realise until you up the mag..but what you see there was there on the lower mag..all about practice and controlling your breathing..get that right..then you have all the other elements and variables.

[TonyH]

"too much mag will make you miss due to increasing wobble"

 

Rubbish.

 

It will show the wobble that was always there, and causing you to miss, but you didn,t know why...

 

Dave, surely not rubbish at all. The writer was referring surely to the psychological effect, the urge to over compensate when viewing a distant target at such high magnification that the slightest wobble seems unduly worrying. I'm not the only one to have found it easier to shoot in a relaxed fashion by reducing scope magnification at a given distance: I've discussed this often over the years.

 

Embrace the wobble with a higher power scope, and do something about reducing it by better technique, correct use of bags, lowering pulse rate etc etc.

 

"Embrace the wobble," must remember that one! Improving one's technique goes without saying, but anyone who's still alive wobbles a bit...

 

A good all round mag range is 6-24 minimum. Better an 8-32.

 

"Good all round" is fine but I'd regard 6-18, 6-20 or 6-24 as pretty much standard, not minimum: 32X mag is getting very specialised. My estimate would be that in N.America (varmint hunting HQ) and elsewhere, a 6-20 scope or very similar is probably the single most commonly fitted scope on a varmint rifle. A scope of this spec, if it's top glass, is plenty for varmint hunting out to several hundred yards and will suit the great majority of users, not least because it's more affordable: 32x scopes (or greater) using top glass are extremely expensive and unaffordable for average shooters. A crow at 400 yards seen through a 20x scope is like looking at a crow with the naked eye just across the garden; it's not an easy shot, and I freely confess my furthest crow is 340 yards (using a Leupold 6-20...) but a higher-mag scope wouldn't improve things. The higher a scope's magnification, the smaller the exit pupil, and bigger front glass is needed to avoid the sight picture becoming impossibly dim - especially at dawn and dusk. Really big front glass adds even more to the expense - and the weight + bulk. An 8-32x is only "better" if one's requirements are specialised or if one is the sort of person who thinks automatically that a 12x binocular is "better" than a 7x....

Tony

[baldie]

Tony,

People either want to improve their shooting...or they dont, simple as that.

"embracing the wobble" was meant to illustrate the fact that the gun appears to be moving more, when in reality, it isn,t. When a person can mentally get that fact into their head, they will become a better shot.I should have phrased it better, my "rubbish" comment wasn,t aimed at anyone on this thread, just an urban myth that is oft repeated.

I,ve shot for 40 years. This has been a slow learning curve to get away from low power scopes to higher powered ones. It doesn,t happen overnight, and its hard work.

What it does bring is several British records, and a pile of gold medals.....i,m not talking out of my arse.

Look how many 12 power scopes are in use on a typical target field at , say the short 4/5/600 yard targets.......none.The F class v-bull is half MOA....about the width of a crow. If you cant see it, you certainly cant hit it.

Wobble can be almost eliminated by the use of a good bipod and rear bean bag, its not hard. Stay off the fags and coffee, and your pulse wont give you problems either.A higher magnification scope and correctly applied techniques WILL make anyone a better shooter, and more able to engage longer targets than before, simply because they can see what they are shooting at.

Exit pupil,s ....hmmmmn.

A much vaunted topic, when in reality it doesn,t apply to the majority of shooters, because they dont have eyes that can accomodate the maximum 7mm, because they have eyesight problems, too old etc. Nothing wrong with hedging your bets, but i would take top quality lenses of a smaller size, than say a cheap 8x56 because it "supposedly" gives an exit pupil of 7mm, when in fact, due to poor tolerances in manufacture, coatings etc....dont.

[TonyH]

Dave, we could go on all night but that's not a good idea. Couple of comments. One, I agree re good glass and exit pupils: a really good scope of modest front glass size is always preferable to something cheaper that supposedly has a much bigger objective and (in theory) a better exit pupil. But the latter factor still counts, and it's one of the fundamental measures of light gathering power + useability for optics. The fact is that high-mag scopes, to optimise their performance and offer a useful comparison with normal/average mag scopes, need to have unusually large front glass that maintains similar exit pupil size. This might be an additional factor in what I've observed already: the great majority of keen varmint hunters don't use super-power scopes, but nearly always something with a max mag of (say) 18 to 24x.

You've been shooting longer than me, but I've still put in a lot of years, and while you're a target/tactical/practical shooter, my chief centrefire interest has always been varminting. I've been varmint hunting in this country and N.America, read an awful lot about it, met varminters both sides of the Atlantic, contributed feature articles on varminting to UK magazines and (once!) to Handloader's Digest, subject to the intense editorial scrutiny of Bob Bell. So when i talk about what scopes people use, I know a bit about it.

Shooting at long range is not all the same! Varmint hunting is a different game from targets. For example - and I won't go on about this - when scopes get up to 24x and especially above, they become increasingly tricky to use in the field against small live targets that hop about, particularly as the light fades...

Regards, Tony

[brown dog]

"embracing the wobble"

 

A lost Macc lads hit record?

[baldie]

I would certainly agree regarding scope powers on small targets like the ones you mention Tony, but would say, that we are talking about UK critters here, not the vastly different USA animals, the likes of which we dont have here, eg prairie poodles and groundhogs. I suppose the nearest is the rabbit.

 

I dunno. Each to his own. I would rather varmint at 6-800 yards with a high mag scope. I can shoot better with one personally, through practise, and would forgo the "fidgety " targets for ones that sat still long enough for a telling shot. Everyone has to do what is best for them i suppose.

 

Again, we agree on exit pupil in theory...the trouble is, most of the manufacturers are telling porkies about what theirs will do unfortunatly. A good guide is a friends recommendation for me. I,ll give you a good example, and i,m not disputing the manufacturers figures for the said scope, because i haven,t read them, but....

A friend bought a march a while ago. Unbelievable optics in daylight....blew a schmidt into the weeds....i kid you not.Another look at dusk, and it was a completely different story. I dont know why. It had HD lenses of the very best jap quality, but it didn,t cut it when it got dim.

 

Peoples eyes also work better with certain brands i,ve found personally.

I wish Swarovski would build a decent target scope with all the bells and whistles on, because my eyes like their lenses best. I cant get on with the big Schmidt's personally. I,ve had two and didn,t like them.I,m willing to bet that Swarovski's exit pupil data is correct too. The low light performance confirms it.

[James19306]

Thanks for the advice guys, but seriously after reading all this I'm starting to think I would rather have open sights. I think I might end all questions on here now with yes or no answers only please.

[brown dog]

Thanks for the advice guys, but seriously after reading all this I'm starting to think I would rather have open sights. I think I might end all questions on here now with yes or no answers only please.

 

James,

 

I think the consensus would be:

 

-yes get more magnification;

-yes get a finer ret;

 

once you have that you should be able to concentrate on improving hold and timing (you're probably not seeing your 'errors' at 12 power with a fat P3 ret).

 

There was a good point earlier (sorry forget who) about choosing an aiming mark that suits your reticle too (ie that you can see, and that enables 'aim small, miss small' )

 

Simple answer judging from your 'more mag -but not too much' comments: S&B 4-16 PM2 P4F

 

(although I suspect you'll spend a year with that and then decide to get something with a bit more mag - so my real recommendation would be a 5-25; in terms of 'too much' mag; look at the low figures - how often do you zoom your 3-12 below 6 ? I'd guess at 'never' - so a 5-25 actually covers all bases with additional mag stretch potential)

 

[TonyH]

I would certainly agree regarding scope powers on small targets like the ones you mention Tony, but would say, that we are talking about UK critters here, not the vastly different USA animals, the likes of which we dont have here, eg prairie poodles and groundhogs. I suppose the nearest is the rabbit.

 

Dave, I wasn't thinking of particular species, just "small varmints", the traditional quarry - the ones you mention. I've shot around 100 groundhogs/woodchucks, better targets than rabbits...

 

A friend bought a march a while ago. Unbelievable optics in daylight....blew a schmidt into the weeds....i kid you not.Another look at dusk, and it was a completely different story. I dont know why. It had HD lenses of the very best jap quality, but it didn,t cut it when it got dim.

 

I suspect some of the differences you mention between scope brands are to do with something not often mentioned but crucial, coatings. Coating technology is so advanced now we take it for granted, but anyone who's used very old cameras (like a 1940s Exakta I once owned) is aware of the extent to which modern coating makes an enormous difference. That old Exakta had what was an extremely fast lens for its time - from memory, f1.9 - but its almost non-existent coating dropped the performance by a couple of stops or so. Manufacturers' coatings are proprietary, and can make a big difference: the type, and number of coatings applied, plus the precision with which it's done, are one of the reasons top glass is so much more expensive than cheap stuff. The differences might even account for what you describe, a strong personal preference for one brand over another - a certain coating might suit your eyesight better than another.

Tony

[ds1]

I belive the OP's question was on the lines of does magnification help reduce group size - all other things being equal - too right it does - the more the better going from a few millon groups shot by F Class and benchrest shooters around the world.

 

Not sure where varminting came in but it a fair example of how a particulr discipline refines scope choice and requires a particular "feature set".Eg. Varminters like to see the kill (impact) through the scope - not a concern shooting paper. Seeing the shot impact means a scope with an adequate field of view to re-gain the sight picture before the shot lands. You get a larger field view with moderate magnification. Rifles also tend to be heavish with moderate recoiling calibres to achieve this.

 

So it is not surprising that US varminters like scopes around 20x. The S&B 5-25x56PMII is the benchmark for tactical scopes, the Nightforce 12-42x56BR the benchmark for F Class etc. Each form of shooting has its own requirements - magnification simply becomes part of the feature set that is traded off against other features.

 

David.

[TonyH]

...Not sure where varminting came in but it a fair example of how a particulr discipline refines scope choice and requires a particular "feature set"....

 

Well, the OP talked about being "out shooting" which implied he wasn't punching paper at the range, the rifle he mentioned was a sporting rifle, and a bit later he talked about shooting crows at maybe 200 yards. I read that as varminting. Your points are well made, to do with suitable scopes for different disciplines.

Tony