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Sunday, September 16, 2012

Gun ramblin's

As I get older I begin to appreciate rifle scopes more and more. When I was a youngster I never scoped anything - iron sights all the way. They may not be factory sights, but they were open and quicker for me. But now I'm getting older and so are my eyes.
My first scoped rifle was a 700 BDL in 30.06 and I just couldn't get used to it no matter how hard I tried. I shot it with open sights for a few years and then got rid of it when times were tight a few years back.
My 22-250 has a simple Bushnell 3x9 on it and I've never taken it off 3 power. I know what a coyote looks like at 100, 200, and 300 yards in the scope, I know where to aim and I see no reason to fuck with success.
I've got a rail and 2.5 fixed power, long eye relief for my Mini-14 but I just can't decide if I like it or not. I've put it on and taken it off a couple of times now. I've got no expectations of shooting anything beyond 100 yards with the weapon, so a 2.5x would be there for quick target acquisition only, maybe a little light amplification in a low light situation.
I've also got an Aimpoint for it but I'm really distrustful of anything electronic - batteries may go dead, something gets bumped too hard, etc.
My biggest problem with a scope on the Mini-14 is my cheek weld, or lack of. That extra two inches higher that I have to hold my head fucks me up on that rifle for some reason.
So now I'm wondering why am I even bothering? I like the rifle fine with the stock sights, I know the rifle's limitations (and a scope really wouldn't improve on that) and I can hit with it.

Man, that's one of the best things I love about being a gun owner. You can usually find your drop-in parts pretty reasonably or take pieces laying around and figure out what works best for you. 'Hmmm, I wonder if this will fit that'..... you know what I mean. And about 3/4 of the time you decide it wasn't right for you and you strip it off and add to your junk closet collection.
I swear, you should see my closet, especially the miraculous milk crate. Anytime I really need a part or tool and can't find it anywhere else, I'll have one in my milk crate. But the miraculous part is that while I take shit out of there constantly, I haven't added to it in years and it's still producing.

One of these days I'm going to hold an ebay clearance sale and sell off all the spare parts for guns I've never owned or parts I'll never use. I could probably get enough for a new rifle.

Yeah, so I started this post about scoped rifles and forgot where I was going with it.
Oh yeah. One thing I hate doing with a rifle is mounting a scope. It takes me at least twice every time I do it, mostly because of the eye relief. I'm picky about that - I want it perfect - I hate moving my head when I'm getting on target. So I'll put the rifle in the cradle, check the eye relief, make sure the crosshairs are level, carefully tightening the rings, check the eye relief again, check all the screws to make sure they're tight and then laser boresight it. Everything's good, right? I took my time, no rush, triple checked the fucking eye relief, and didn't throw anything through a window.
The next day I throw the rifle to my shoulder and the fucking eye relief is wrong. Every fucking time.

4 comments:

  1. Why in hell would anyone scope a Mini-14 anyway? It's not like it's anywhere close to accurate, such that it would benefit from a scope.

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  2. Like I said, for quicker target acquistion at closer ranges. It's not the magnification I'm wanting, it's those easy to find crosshairs. That's why it's a 2.5x scope. If I could've found a 1x or 1.5x I would've used that.

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  3. I have some variable scopes on some of my rifles, but like you, they pretty much constantly stay on one power setting. My deer rifle is left on 5x 99% of the time, dialed down to lowest 2.5x only when I'm walking to and from my blind. Most of my rimfires have fixed 4x or 2 1/2x, I don't see the need for high power on a .22.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I have a Leupold 2.5 IER on QD rings for my Guide Gun and I really like it. It basically gives you a big circle with a cross in it for a sight picture. Also having it forward like that means it ain't gonna smack you in the eye, something you have to think about with a GG and hot loads.

    (I'm a "If you want tight groups, shoot b1g boolits" kind of guy.)

    Maybe this is what you're after. Probably a little pricey, but you can't argue with the quality.

    http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2011/04/chris-dumm/gear-review-leupold-vx-ii-variable-scout-scope-review-first-impressions/

    ReplyDelete

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