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Custom Turret Question

parshal

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 29, 2002
Messages
1,412
Location
Colorado
I just bought a Leupold VX-6 3-18.50mm. I spent quite a bit of time looking for people's experience with it before I bought and wouldn't you know the next two posts in this forum are about this scope. Why wasn't this here before I bought it? LOL

I put this scope on my blueprinted .264 win mag with a Brown's Precision stock. I'm settled on a 130 Scirocco II at 3250 fps. I called Leupold about the CDS and will be ordering one since I get one free with the scope purchase. I've read a lot about the custom turrets and the topic certainly creates strong opinions on both sides. I've got a custom 6mm Creedmoor with a Vortex HS/T so I'm familiar with dialing DOPE on longer shots. The .264 is my hunting rifle and I like to keep things simple. It's got quite a PBR so I've always zeroed it for MPBR and just held where I wanted to hit and squeezed the trigger. The idea of the custom turret interests me due to the simplicity. My plan would be to zero the rifle at 200 and leave the turret at 290 which is about MPBR (293 actually on the calculators). If I need to shoot beyond 350 I'd laser the target, move the turret and shoot. I have access to a 600 yard range which is about the farthest I'd shoot an animal and I just can't count those clicks fast enough to where I'd be comfortable with my animal of a lifetime out there. Most times I can get closer but that's not always the case. I've yet to shoot an animal farther than 300 yards, though.

I use Strelok Pro on my iPhone and it has the ability to put in the various temperatures at which you measure velocities and it will calculate the temperature sensitivity of your load. So, I could have measured velocity at 55 degrees but when I change the current temp in the app to 25 it will adjust using the corrected velocity. Even though Leupold can set your turrent for a specific temperature it does not take into account the temperature at which you measured your velocity.

Running various scenarios through JBM shows no more than a 2" difference in impact at 600 yards which is better than I can shoot especially from a hunting position. So, my question is this. Do I go shoot the load at the various distances in order to give them real world results or go with the calculated values? Even though I can hit reliably hit a 12" target at 600 yards with the 6mm it's still a huge group. I think my margin of error might be larger than the calculated values. I really don't plan on shooting animals beyond 600 so is any of this going to matter significantly at that distance?

For the record, I will be hitting the range for a lot of practice at 600 so range time is a certainty.

Suggestions and thoughts?
 
At least give them your actual muzzel volociocity along with temp, elevation, etc. The farther your zero range the more range your turret will allow. The betterm the data they the ...the better the turret

jjw
ND
 
I just bought a Leupold VX-6 3-18.50mm. I spent quite a bit of time looking for people's experience with it before I bought and wouldn't you know the next two posts in this forum are about this scope. Why wasn't this here before I bought it? LOL...

Running various scenarios through JBM shows no more than a 2" difference in impact at 600 yards which is better than I can shoot especially from a hunting position. So, my question is this. Do I go shoot the load at the various distances in order to give them real world results or go with the calculated values? Even though I can hit reliably hit a 12" target at 600 yards with the 6mm it's still a huge group. I think my margin of error might be larger than the calculated values. I really don't plan on shooting animals beyond 600 so is any of this going to matter significantly at that distance?

For the record, I will be hitting the range for a lot of practice at 600 so range time is a certainty.

Suggestions and thoughts?

Parshal,

HERE is what I did for my VX-6 CDS dial...Works great! Of course, my custom dial is set with my worked up hunting load (Lapua brass, Barnes 168gr TSX-BT, Hodgdon 4350 56.5g powder). I set a 100yd Zero (.242 MOA 5-shot group), then got my EXACT elevation dopes from 200 to 600yds so that the Leupold Custom Shop could Exactly match the CDS to My real world results. Although my settings were captured on a balmy 86deg day, BAE states an additional MOA adjustment of just .5 MOA at 55deg, or 1 MOA at 10 degrees, a quick and easy change to my custom readings for cooler\cold weather!

Actually, if I hunted in 10 degree weather with an elevation of 5000ft, I would not need to modify Any of my custom dial dopes...just read the range, set the dial and pull the trigger (cold denser air offset by thinner higher altitude air)! I'd still need to call and adjust for windage, but now I can set up for a long range shot very quickly.

If you have "settled on" an all around hunting load (repeatable accuracy + knock down effectiveness), then gathering your exact dope settings makes the most sense for a custom dial!

Ted
 
Thanks Ted. I think I'd read your post when I looking for info on the scope.

My first time shooting at 600 yards gave me just under a 9" group for seven shots in gusty winds. However, that was with the Creedmoor Berger Hybrids which will shoot better than the .264 and Sciroccos. I don't know that that is accurate enough to give a good enough figure to Leupold. Until I get to be a better shot maybe I'll run the ballistics and see how close they match my shooting. From what I read it looks like a few people had their turret shooting way high at longer distances. I might be able to tell if I'd be way off even with 1.5 MOA.
 
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