Zero Stop question(s)

[OneLunG]

I took all of mine out after reports surfaced about damaged internals.

They are easy to make.

To make them just take slightly udersized PVC pipe and a radial arm saw and cut slices off. Open up the slices to just fit the scope. With gloves on use a upside down belt sander to thin the slices down to the needed thickness. Wear glasses as the PVC pipe will sometimes shatter and the saw blade will sling pieces at very high speed.

That sounds like somthing you learned from expierence.....

 

[royinidaho]

Lack of a zero stop has messed me over a couple of times. Just enough to get serious about doing something about it.

I tried fabricating the spacer as described earlier. Wasn't successful. Not tooled sufficiently to use any kind of tubing or solid rod. Tried several of the plastics. No go on anything.

On my Zeiss mounted scope with 20 MOA cant, as chance would have it, naturally bottomed out 4 licks below the 200 yard zero. Very simple to remember. Crank it all the way down then up 4 clicks. Its been repeatable.

The NXS is a different story. With a 200 yard zero it bottoms out 27 MOA below zero. This has proven too much to keep track of. Two full turns plus 7 MOA is simply too much for my ol' noggin' to remember.

Fairly simple. Bottom the turret and go up to the first 0.

Base of elevation turret is 1.125" or 1 1/8th inches.

Gap at bottom of knob is a bit more than 0.05"

Snap ring thickness is about 0.050"

Guess what? A snap ring with an inside diameter of 1.125" should slide easily over the turret base. Trip to Lowe's resulted in coming close to the desired snap ring size. A little small @ 1.09xx" with the holes for the snap ring pliers on the inside vs outside.

Dremeled the snap ring plier holes off.

Removed the turret cap.

Carefully spread the snap ring with thumb nails. It was easy to slide the snap ring to the top of the base. Didn't come close to marring anything. Very unusual for me.

Replaced the turret cap at the zero setting.

Cranked'er down till it stopped. Used no more force than used to make a click.

She stopped 7 MOA below zero. Good enough for this ol' fella.

Cost was $1.27 plus tax and 5 minutes time.

I"m a happy camper!!

Money saved will be applied to a McMillan A5 Edge tech.

 

[Mikecr]

You are going to destroy your scopes..

Look at a REAL zero stop.
It stops the turret from further turning -without exerting tension on connected internals.

 

[royinidaho]

You are going to destroy your scopes..

Look at a REAL zero stop.
It stops the turret from further turning -without exerting tension on connected internals.

I got the idea from watching Vortex's video. They simply shim and the turret stops a bit below the zero setting.

When the NXS bottoms out it bottoms out the same as it does with the spacer.

Also one is not cranking the turret with a pipe wrench.

We'll see how many years it takes to damage the scope. Then report...

 

[MontanaRifleman]

Think I might try rubber "o" rings on my NXS's

 

[mtnwrunner]

duplicate

 

[mtnwrunner]

I've made some a couple of ways---one is made of leather and I just sew it together where the ends meet and the easiest way is to go to an electrical place or automotive store and just use the appropriate size zip tie. They work great. You'll always go a little past your zero but it's not much.

Randy

 

[Mikecr]

When the NXS bottoms out it bottoms out the same as it does with the spacer.

While anyone could expect as much from a startup like Vortex, You are flat out wrong about the workings of NF zero stops.
NF does not use a spacer to stop turret turn.
They use shoulders in radial contact, so that no tension is developed in the stopping action.


When the elevation threads are very fine(they are) you don't need a pipe wrench to screw up your scope. Any common bolt of such fine & clean/lubed threading, and a head the diameter of a scope turret, will stretch/preload with mere hand tightening. Granted it's a relatively small amount, but very bad for scope internals(which are not as strong as common bolts).

Trust me, you're not gonna find out anything good about sticking spacers under your turrets to 'stop' them.

 

[Broz]

Trust me, you're not gonna find out anything good about sticking spacers under your turrets to 'stop' them.

I agree, putting mechanically applied up force on the turret is bad ju ju... Not me baby, no way.

Jeff

 

[royinidaho]

Jeff,

"First, I am sure they offer a zero stop with 1/4 moa turrets. My two are not zero stops. One has a custom milled base that when sighted in is 3 moa off bottom. The other we used a 40 moa base and it is 10 moa or one turn off bottom. The zero stop is a great option, but not always necessary."

What's the diff between this and what I'm doing?

My intended use is to not crank it down to the stop then back it up to zero. The intention is to no have to remember which of those even numbered lines at the bottom are to be showing. I've been 10 MOA one time and 20 MOA another from looking at it wrong.

It is easy to see the turret knob approaching the clip ring. With 7 MOA to touch it, I should never go that far. Except by mistake of course.


Side note:

Back in 1966 Cecil Dodge (Pocatello gun smith) was slow in getting the barrel fitted to my 270. He loaned me his personal rifle for the season. It was a Win 70 rechambered to 300 Wby. I was intrigued to notice it had no dials on the scope and no adjustments on the base. There was some kind of 6X or so scope on it. He gave me the hold overs. My doe was shot at 75 yds. While field dressing it my buddy shot a doe at 400+ yards. I asked Cecil if I could shoot jackrabbits with it. He said sure. I shot runnin' jacks till I ran out of those old Nosler partitions. Loved that rifle. Cecil is one of the best men I've ever had anything to do with.

PS:

A study of the above video clearly, to me, shows that NF zero stop does not provide any upward force to the adjustment. Pretty nifty arrangement.