Final Sight-In

Well I got the final sight-in done for the rifle finished with only a week to go until deer season. Afraid the Leapers scope just didn’t work out. But I am getting ahead of myself! I found a great free rifle range with both pistol and rifle (out to 85 yards) at Wilson Shoals WMA near Alto, Georgia. It is about an hour’s journey but it is free and has great hours. When I was up in Helen, Georgia about 2 weeks ago I actually began the sght-in process.

I took both of my 8 mm rifles, the original one that I had converted 29 years ago from a model 98 Mauser and my most recent Yugoslavian Mauser conversion, to the range in Alto, Georgia to check the sight-in on my original rifle and do the initial sigth-in on the new one. The original rifle has a Nikon Prostaff 3-9X40mm scope with bullet drop compensation (BDC). On the new rifle I decided to try a brand of scope I hadn’t used before, a Leapers 5th Generation 3-9X40 Full Size A.O. Range Estimating Mil-Dot Side Wheel Red/Green Illuminated Zero Locking/Resetting Scope SCP-394AOMDLTS. The first rifle only needed minor adjustments to throw 1 inch groups at 100 yards. The new rifle I could only get adjusted to paper at 4 inches to the right, but at that point it was giving a 1.5 inch group. I decided I would need to get a windage adjustable set of scope rings to get a full zero.

I ordered a set of windage adjustable scope rings and then had to leave for a business trip. When I got home a couple of days later, the new rings were waiting so I switched out the rings and after some tweaking was able to get a laser bore sight zero on the scope. I thought I was home free, little did I know the horror that awaited me!

This weekend Susan and I were helping watch Doc so Mary could get some time off (Doc is my Father-in-law and has Alzheimer’s) and that shortened the drive to the rifle range to only about 45 minutes. I decided to finish up the sight-in on Saturday. I got up nice and early and showed up at the range and was assigned a bench. I waited for the range master to give the all clear and set up a target at about 40 yards to do the initial shooting. After a few shots I tweaked in the laser bore sight to dead on, and during the next clear time, I ran a set of targets out to 85 yards, I couldn’t wait to try out the scope at full range.

I fired one shot and it was a bit high and to the right, so I tweaked the scope and fired a second round. When I checked my placement I wasn’t even on the paper! I looked again through the scope and noticed things looked a little blurry, rather like some of the times way back in the Navy when I had lifted a few too many at the Back Aft tavern… I tried one more shot and something really horrible happened.



As you can see, the main lens group came completely un-mounted and was now free floating in the barrel of the scope. Needless to say that ended my shooting with the new 8mm! I submerged my disappointment by shooting 100 rounds through my .40 SW pistol. On the way home I stopped by the Bass Proshop Warehouse store and picked up a second Nikon Prostaff 3-9 40mm BDC scope (they were on sale for $169.99 and had a $30 rebate! I guess it was meant to be!) When I got back to doc’s I removed the dead Leapers and installed the new Nikon. Needless to say on Monday the Leaper’s goes back for a full refund of its $69.99 price!

I used a rear fence to laser bore sight the rifle on Saturday night. On Sunday the range is open from 12-5pm so I headed over after lunch the next day. It was like night and day! At 50 yards I was off about 4 inches to the left and about 2 inches high, I did the needed adjustment and then moved the target out to 85 yards.



I use a bipod and rest my right elbow on a folded gun case which gives a very stable platform. At 85 yards what my first group looked like is shown below.



I tweaked the windage 4 clicks to the left and then shot the group shown below.



Since I am not trying to save hostages from kidnappers or shoot antelope at 300 yards and this was well within 1 degree of deer, I figured it was good enough. Yes, the top hole is from 2 shots. You can see some of my known outliers, there was a fellow next to me shooting off a .30-06 who had the habit of shooting just as I started to pull off a round.

So now I have two deer rifles that shoot consistent 1 inch groups at near 100 yards. What are the take-aways?

1. Don’t buy Leaper’s scopes for anything other than air or paintball rifles. The shock from high caliber rounds such as an 8mm completely debonded the main lens group in spite of its claim to be for high powered rifles. Stick to known performers such as Nikon, Leopold, Burris, BSA and of course the higher cost scopes.
2. Do a good laser sight-in first, then one at 50 yards and then at 100.