Can a scope cause issues with only vertical stringing?

How many groups did you shoot to know the rifle truly shoots .6" at 100? Without seeing your target I dont know for sure, but often times a single group will fool you. Especially if the surrounding groups were not looking good too. A decent rifle will do better than .6 moa, so I would say you may need to try another powder or bullet. A rifles tune is always changing, thats why we like to be in the middle of a node for forgiveness. If you were on the edge and the weather or temp changed at all it could put you out of tune pretty easy. If you can go out on multiple trips and average .6 moa at 100 then Id stay looking at other problems like parallax.
Shot 3 groups of this at 100 and all were around the .6in group size.
 
Powder charge is vertical. An extremely wide swing in velocity will do this.
If it was horizontal, then powder charge is good but seating depth is bad.
Did you run it over a chrony?
This will answer your query.

Cheers.
This is my findings also. I've saw brass inconsistency issues cause horizontal sometimes but this may be a rare finding.
 
So I have a new to me rifle. It had 50 rounds down tube from previous owner. I've been trying to work up a load and thought I found a decent load at 100 yards. I did a satterlee load test and found two nodes. I did a little testing on both and found
A decent load which had tighter group (.6inches at 100 yards). The others were around .8inches. So I loaded up some more of that group and took it out to 400 yards. The horizontal spread of the 3 shot group was less than 3 inches but the vertical spread was like 8 or so inches. Either I have some serious issues with extreme spread in the 3 shots or something else is going on. I know this is not a lot of info but it just really surprised me that the 3 shots were so close to each other horizontally but not vertically. Can a damaged scope do this? I'd think if the scope was damaged, it would shot gun pattern and not vertical string. I'm confident in my loading (use two scales, make sure brass is prepped etc). I was using hammer bullets with h1000 powder. Can a brake cause this? Thoughts?
Did you adjust for drop with your turret? I just sent a brand new scope back because when I would dial dope at distance, it would gradually walk its way up shot by shot. However, it's more likely to be ES or neck tension
 
Last time I had vertical stringing I had a loose front scope base screw. It had bottomed out giving me the illusion it was tight. But in reality it was hitting the barrel threads and not very tight at all.
 
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If you don't have your parallax set right and you come off the gun every time you cycle the action, yeah but that's more of f PEBCAS issue than a scope issue. Vertical stringing can also come if you keep aiming at your last bullet hole or keep trying to correct for the last shot being lower than expected while shooting a group. Basically, all PEBCAS issues. Other stuff, thin light barrels, bedding issues, scope mounting bits problems, plain old sucking at shooting. I suspect you have 2 or more things going on if the string is 8" tall at 100yrds.
I'm acronym challenged. What is PEBCAS?
 
Over the years, the most frequent cause of vertical stringing at the longer distances that I have observed with shooters has been due to inconsistency in rifle hold. In particular, excessive and/or inconsistent cheek weld pressure. The lighter the rifle/barrel the greater the difficulty. Keep in mind that the barrel can rise as much as 1/4" before the bullet exits.
Not saying this is the reason for the stringing, but it's something I'd check given all mechanical aspects of the rifle are sound, and load rework is being contemplated as a next step.
Just a thought.
 
So I have a new to me rifle. It had 50 rounds down tube from previous owner. I've been trying to work up a load and thought I found a decent load at 100 yards. I did a satterlee load test and found two nodes. I did a little testing on both and found
A decent load which had tighter group (.6inches at 100 yards). The others were around .8inches. So I loaded up some more of that group and took it out to 400 yards. The horizontal spread of the 3 shot group was less than 3 inches but the vertical spread was like 8 or so inches. Either I have some serious issues with extreme spread in the 3 shots or something else is going on. I know this is not a lot of info but it just really surprised me that the 3 shots were so close to each other horizontally but not vertically. Can a damaged scope do this? I'd think if the scope was damaged, it would shot gun pattern and not vertical string. I'm confident in my loading (use two scales, make sure brass is prepped etc). I was using hammer bullets with h1000 powder. Can a brake cause this? Thoughts?
Is there any chance your ammo was sitting in the sun causing powder temperature variation? Were you single feeding from ammo on the bench/mat in the?
 
So I have a new to me rifle. It had 50 rounds down tube from previous owner. I've been trying to work up a load and thought I found a decent load at 100 yards. I did a satterlee load test and found two nodes. I did a little testing on both and found
A decent load which had tighter group (.6inches at 100 yards). The others were around .8inches. So I loaded up some more of that group and took it out to 400 yards. The horizontal spread of the 3 shot group was less than 3 inches but the vertical spread was like 8 or so inches. Either I have some serious issues with extreme spread in the 3 shots or something else is going on. I know this is not a lot of info but it just really surprised me that the 3 shots were so close to each other horizontally but not vertically. Can a damaged scope do this? I'd think if the scope was damaged, it would shot gun pattern and not vertical string. I'm confident in my loading (use two scales, make sure brass is prepped etc). I was using hammer bullets with h1000 powder. Can a brake cause this? Thoughts?
I bought an Athlon Midas Tac that I found for $500. Thought it was worth going for a not so proven scope at a great price. The first couple trips to the range were suprising excellent. The I put the gun on a plane. Even in a Pelican case the scope somehow got damaged. Significant vertical stringing when I tried to sight it in. I packed the gun up and used another to finish the hunting trip. When I flew home the scope was even worse. It was hitting as high as 10" above POA at 100 yards. I adjusted down 10 MOA and the rounds strung again. This time only reaching about 8" high. I sent the scope to Athlon and they determined it to be faulty. So, long story short... Yes.
 
So you found a velocity node but it's not accurate? According to many on here that is unpossible. 😂

It certainly could be your scope, or the load or maybe both. Eight inches is huge at 400yrds.


Yes a scope can fail in only one direction, vertical or horizontal. Es wont show up at 400 yards. Even at 1000 Es has to get pretty bad to hurt your groups. Under 30 fps, and its not holding you back even at 1000 yards. To be honest if all you were after was sub moa at 1000 yards you could get away with 50 fps of es, maybe more. Es is very misunderstood in the long range shooting world. Its way down the list. Your just out of tune. Adjust powder, seating depth and neck tension. If you still have poor grouping start over with a different powder.


Listen to Alex about E.S. its way overated target tells the story period.
 
Scopes I have had problems with either it wouldn't move when trying to adjusted or moved very quickly after setting zero, or slowly over a period when shooting groups, or move off the target completely in round or two. The one that really through me was it didn't move much but some all the time. The one scope moved a little to the right and up when shooting that group. Letting the barrel cool down before starting the next group. Noting that the next group started off about where the group left off. Moving to the right, and up, by the end of the day it would be about 1 1/2 over and up by that amount. I was working on loads and grouping. For sometime I was thinking it was the change in the load. Finally got max load, and settled on, bullets, grains of powder, primers, and COAL. Then it all came together that my scope was changing with the 5 shot groups. The rifle still shots great groups, but I put one hell of a lot of rounds down the tube. Live and learn.
SSS
Mike
 
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