And now for some Optics...

I knew the topic of a range finder would have to come up.

What about those scopes that are both range finder and scope? Are they just a gimmic or are they worth looking at?
 
Since I hunt with, and spend a good portion of my day laser etching custom turrets, you can guess that I feel they are a great LRH tool.

That said, MontanaRifleman's point that a single turret can't match every situation is valid. Regardless of what system you use, you need to know what your bullet will be doing in the particular shot situation. If we find ourselves in a situation where an extreme elevation, temp, or angle means the turret won't be correct, we adjust accordingly. Adding a minute or taking a minute off with our turret is just as easy as it is with any turret.

The advantage is that for 80% - 90% of the shots we encounter, we can just dial and shoot if our turret is within about 3000' of where we are hunting. That window can be smaller or larger depending on your loads performance. With a few simple "rule of thumb" formulas we can cover the other shots very reliably.

With 2 turrets you can cover a lot of North American hunts and you can be sheep hunting at 10,000' in the morning and in less than a minute put your second turret on and be dead on for a 3000' antelope hunt. We hunt WY, CO, & NM for the bulk of our hunts which generally takes us from 4,000' to 11,000' and we use a 7,000' dial for about everything in the west..

Second turret is free for LRH members this month and you always get a click or MOA (special request) dial with the scope that works great for load developement.
 
Don,

Can you make turrets for a NF 5.5x22x50 the reason I ask is because I'm going to buy one very soon and sell my leupold I like the night force software but some custom turrets would be nice as well for back up of course.

PS I don't mean to hijack this thread:)

BIGBUCK
 
I knew the topic of a range finder would have to come up.

What about those scopes that are both range finder and scope? Are they just a gimmic or are they worth looking at?

I know nikon makes one, I'd get them separate however. Lots of recoil abuse and if it goes to heck in a hand basket... your out the whole works.
 
The advantage is that for 80% - 90% of the shots we encounter, we can just dial and shoot if our turret is within about 3000' of where we are hunting. That window can be smaller or larger depending on your loads performance. With a few simple "rule of thumb" formulas we can cover the other shots very reliably.

With 2 turrets you can cover a lot of North American hunts and you can be sheep hunting at 10,000' in the morning and in less than a minute put your second turret on and be dead on for a 3000' antelope hunt.

So what you are saying is if I had a turret set for X rifle with X load at 7,000 feet, it would be good from 4,000 feet to 10,000 feet due to the aforementioned 3000' range? Do I have that correct?

Sorry guys - totally new to all of this so I may be asking some rather simple questions that most of you understand already.
 
What about Clearidge Optics?

I just ordered one for my son. Got the 30mm tube version Ultra XP5 2.5-12.5x42 mil dot for under $600.

They have the Ultra XP version with 1 inch tube for about $370

Carn't tell you how good it is yet as it has not yet arrived but from all reports they sound quite good. If it turns out to be no good then you will hear about it!!!!!:D
Picked up the Clearidge scope from the mail yesterday. Came with a 3" sun shade.
Did a comparison with my 5.5-22x56 Nightforce scope in the afternoon with both scopes set at 12.5 power. It was very hard to tell the difference between them under overcast conditions.
Just on dark, still set on 12.5 power, the Nightforce was clearly better.
We then wound both scopes back to 6 power, both scopes then provided enough light to see stock in my house paddock with no problem at 100 yards at a time when they were hard to see with the naked eye.

The power adjustment ring was smooth to use.
The turrets were OK with just a bit more friction in some areas that others, the clicks were very quiet and I would have liked them to be a bit louder.
Another minor thing was that the elevation turret .25 MOA etchings did not line up with the marker on the scope. I might be able to fix this when I set the zero on the scope?
The bulk turn indicator was also a bit small and hard to read but is not a major issue.
Time will tell how accurate and reliable the Clearidge scope adjustments are. I will post the results after I have mounted the scope and tried it out.
 
Since I hunt with, and spend a good portion of my day laser etching custom turrets, you can guess that I feel they are a great LRH tool.

That said, MontanaRifleman's point that a single turret can't match every situation is valid. Regardless of what system you use, you need to know what your bullet will be doing in the particular shot situation. If we find ourselves in a situation where an extreme elevation, temp, or angle means the turret won't be correct, we adjust accordingly. Adding a minute or taking a minute off with our turret is just as easy as it is with any turret.

The advantage is that for 80% - 90% of the shots we encounter, we can just dial and shoot if our turret is within about 3000' of where we are hunting. That window can be smaller or larger depending on your loads performance. With a few simple "rule of thumb" formulas we can cover the other shots very reliably.

With 2 turrets you can cover a lot of North American hunts and you can be sheep hunting at 10,000' in the morning and in less than a minute put your second turret on and be dead on for a 3000' antelope hunt. We hunt WY, CO, & NM for the bulk of our hunts which generally takes us from 4,000' to 11,000' and we use a 7,000' dial for about everything in the west..

Second turret is free for LRH members this month and you always get a click or MOA (special request) dial with the scope that works great for load developement.

Answered your post in another thread to avoid hijacking this one :)

-MR
 
So what you are saying is if I had a turret set for X rifle with X load at 7,000 feet, it would be good from 4,000 feet to 10,000 feet due to the aforementioned 3000' range? Do I have that correct?

Sorry guys - totally new to all of this so I may be asking some rather simple questions that most of you understand already.

At 1000 yds your difference in drop from 7000' to 4000' would be about 12-20 inches depending on the ballitcs of your bullet. At 600 yd it would only be about 2-4 inches. This is due to the difference in air density and the resultant drag difference.

I have asked a similar question in the other thread I started before I saw you ask this one.
 
sdkidaho:

It's not that simplistic, but in general that is correct for a high performance load (high BC bullet going fast). If you throw multiple variables in like severe angle, big temp swing and extreme range, that window gets smaller. An individual load's specific performance has a huge effect on how far you can be from your dials specs before needing to manually adjust.

As stated earlier in this thread, anyone interested in hitting stuff way out there would be ahead by accessing a ballistic program and playing with all sorts of variables to get a feel for what changing the variables does to bullet flight.

We were hunting antelope at 4000' 80deg last week. Our 7000' 30 dial was 1 click (1/3 MOA) different at 1000 yards. If we would have had a cold snap and it was 4000' 0deg, we would be adding clicks at 1000 but would still dial directly to the yardage at 500.
 
I'm still trying to figure out how this is possible!

Super hot load I imagine, I guess you shoot virgin brass everytime, LOL!

-X3M

Nope, not hot at all as far as I could tell. :) At 1/2 grain higher I got a slight stiff bolt. Norma brass and they've been fired 1-4 times. Taht RL 17 seems to like 180 E-Tips in my rifle. The 168 TTSX's were a good bit slower.
 
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