Can a scope cause issues with only vertical stringing?

[Bigeclipse]

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?

 

[MagnumManiac]

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.

 

[Bigeclipse]

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.

So you think unlikely a scope issue? How much of a powder charge swing would cause this because I'm using two scales. A chargemaster to throw charge and a gempro250 to verify. Charges will be .02 grains within each other. So like anywhere from 73.98 to 74.02 grains.

 

[Tidus56]

Vertical stringing is typically from a high ES, so it could be the powder charge or your neck tension on the bullet. I am not sure I have ever seen vertical stringing from the scope, but I assume its possible. Verify your ES with a chronograph and that should help you know.

 

[MagnumManiac]

Whether or not your charges are within .2gr does not make it a shooter. If the ES is high, it will show vertical at 400yrds.
As I asked, have you run the load over the chrony? A good group at 100yrds is not always a good group at 400yrds or beyond.
I doubt what you're seeing has anything to do with a faulty scope, if the erector is faulty, POI will move if the erector assembly is moving within scope.

Cheers.

 

[Bigeclipse]

Whether or not your charges are within .2gr does not make it a shooter. If the ES is high, it will show vertical at 400yrds.
As I asked, have you run the load over the chrony? A good group at 100yrds is not always a good group at 400yrds or beyond.
I doubt what you're seeing has anything to do with a faulty scope, if the erector is faulty, POI will move if the erector assembly is moving within scope.

Cheers.

I'll load some more and check with chrono

 

[Alex Wheeler]

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.

 

[Bigeclipse]

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.

If out of tune then how could the group be .6in at 100 and almost 8inch in vertical at 400 but only 3inch in horizontal?

 

[Quintus]

It could be a parallax issue or a shooter mechanics issue.

 

[L.Sherm]

This is exactly what your describing at 100.
This group sucked at 500, seating depth has just about got it were it needs to be.
I wanted to shoot this at 500 just to see confirmed what I thought.
Listen to Alex about E.S. its way overated target tells the story period.

 

[BallisticsGuy]

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.

 

[Bigeclipse]

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.

The problem is my other rifles all shoot wonderful out to 600 Which is the furthest I can shoot so I really don't think it's my parallax or shooting skills.

 

[L.Sherm]

I suspect you have 2 or more things going on if the string is 8" tall at 100yrds.

O.P state 8" group was at 400

 

[Alex Wheeler]

If out of tune then how could the group be .6in at 100 and almost 8inch in vertical at 400 but only 3inch in horizontal?

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.