Scope field evaluations on rokslide

[4th_point]

PRS is a brutal test of a shooter's equipment, nothing on earth not even military applications pushes the limits of reliability like the sport of PRS does. Those rifles are banged around from stag to stag every weekend for months and see thousands of rounds a year. Most hunting rifle never see a thousand rounds. A good measure of scope durability wound be to see which ones professional PRS shooters use. However, chances are you aren't going to like the weight of those scopes for a hunting rig anymore than the rifles. Lugging a fifteen to twenty pound rifle around the mountains is not fun for most people.

PRS cartridges are generally low recoil. High round counts sure, but low magnitude, on heavy rifles.

Also, many of the top shooters are sponsored by companies that sell scopes. There are a few obvious concerns regarding impartially there, in terms of following their choices.

 

[4th_point]

I think these photos show a shooter error more than a scope not holding zero. The photos show a measure of consistency and an identical pattern even though the scope was adjusted and re-zeroed. Not something you would necessarily see in a mechanical failure. It would be more random and inconsistent in nature. Just my thought and analysis. I could be completely wrong because I wasn't there but it is what I see in the groupings.

I think that you have made some great points about shooting form, but he posted a group with the new scope that looked good. We don't know if the shooting rests changed between new scope and old, or if he went from being a bad shooter to all of a sudden being good, but I think it is not unreasonable to believe the claim that the scope was bad.

I was helping a friend with a 3-9x that had performed as expected on a hunting rifle for several years, until it lost zero. Hunting rifle, not target rifle. Mounting was solid. Groups were similar to what was shown above. I hand delivered the scope to the manufacturer. The scope came back with a clean bill of health. Next outing, the groups were all over again. We bypassed standard customer service and went to someone I knew. We asked that the scope be tested on a rifle for zero retention. He reported back that the scope would not hold zero and provided a brand new scope. The new scope was sold before the wrapper was removed. And replaced with a different brand that has not failed with hundreds of rounds with pretty decent recoil. Both brands are ones that elicit strong emotions at various forums!

Without knowing the exact cause of the functional failure, we can't really predict the nature of the symptoms (patterns). Sometimes, but not always. Weird things can happen.

 

[4th_point]

That's basically the point of the drop evals. You can accelerate the failure so it doesn't happen the week before or during the hunt.

Not discounting your many years of experience whatsoever. The drop tests may be overkill for most uses. But they have been very valuable for myself and do have merit.

Sort of. You are not going to accelerate wear-out failures by dropping the scope, per se. There's minimal recoil involved, depending on exact procedure, and that is probably a bigger factor for most people. Not drops. But there is some anecdotal observations between scopes that last and those that handle impacts, so I get what you are stating!

The drops help check the rifle, mounts, and basic design of the scope though. And I definitely agree that there is value and merit. It just depends on the individual needs and expectations. And capability of the shooter to actually get meaningful information!

You also risk creating an undetected issue inside the scope during the drop eval. Or, something like the bedding. You can certainly inspect impending failure of the bedding (e.g. visible cracks) but inspecting the scope internally is unrealistic. Something to consider.

 

[Paladin300]

PRS cartridges are generally low recoil. High round counts sure, but low magnitude, on heavy rifles.

Also, many of the top shooters are sponsored by companies that sell scopes. There are a few obvious concerns regarding impartially there, in terms of following their choices.

It's not about the recoil of the rifle it is about the abuse the rifle takes during competition. My point was partially that those scopes are not practical for hunting applications. Only a handful of shooters are sponsored by companies most of them pay for there equipment. As a shooter you shoot what works for you. And you aren't going to shoot something you don't trust. These guys are winning week end and week out. As a former shooter I can tell you I am not changing my set up mid season unless it has a flaw.

I sold a guy a bow one time that was brand x the bow was identical to another bow made by brand y. He had read all the hype on brand y and was convinced it was better than brand x. They were literally the same bow. He complained and griped about that bow. He missed a half dozen deer with it. He didn't trust it! I traded him the bow for the one he wanted. He went out and killed two deer opening weekend. He was happy as a pig in slop. He would come to indoor shoots and shoot better than he ever had. Got so cocky he challenged me one day to a dot shoot to prove how much better brand x was than brand y. It didn't go well for him. I out shot him with his old bow by a long shot 30x. He had 10. To be fare at the time I was shooting about 5500 arrows a year and he was hunting deer. The week before I got my own butt handed to me by Jeff Hopkins. I think Jeff could beat you with a stick bow back then. I went on to kill five deer with the bow he sold. Shot one deer twice through the same hole. That bow might have been the quietest bow I have ever shot. He just didn't have confidence in it. It didn't work for him even though it was basically the same bow. Most of the parts, cams, limbs, and riser were built in the same factory. He needed the name recognition to give him confidence.

The take away from all of this is, at the end of the day if you don't have confidence in your equipment you want perform well. So shoot what you believe in however you come to that conclusion. Practice with it and learn it well.

 

[Paladin300]

I think that you have made some great points about shooting form, but he posted a group with the new scope that looked good. We don't know if the shooting rests changed between new scope and old, or if he went from being a bad shooter to all of a sudden being good, but I think it is not unreasonable to believe the claim that the scope was bad.

I was helping a friend with a 3-9x that had performed as expected on a hunting rifle for several years, until it lost zero. Hunting rifle, not target rifle. Mounting was solid. Groups were similar to what was shown above. I hand delivered the scope to the manufacturer. The scope came back with a clean bill of health. Next outing, the groups were all over again. We bypassed standard customer service and went to someone I knew. We asked that the scope be tested on a rifle for zero retention. He reported back that the scope would not hold zero and provided a brand new scope. The new scope was sold before the wrapper was removed. And replaced with a different brand that has not failed with hundreds of rounds with pretty decent recoil. Both brands are ones that elicit strong emotions at various forums!

Without knowing the exact cause of the functional failure, we can't really predict the nature of the symptoms (patterns). Sometimes, but not always. Weird things can happen.

I would agree with the bad scope analysis if the shot placement didn't show a pattern. The last group shows the same pattern. Center, three to the right back center left. I have good and bad days at the range. Not as extreme as the spreads shown in the pics but I can go from shooting 1/2 moa to sometimes 1.5 moa. When that happens even I sometimes have to just pack up go to the house recheck my junk take a deep breath and try it again another day. Frustration only breeds bad form and more frustration. The questions I need to ask myself are: What's on my mind? What is bothering me? Am I paying attention to what I am really doing? Is my form good? Am I doing something different? It sometimes helps to film yourself, especially on the bad days. You can usually see your mistakes. Practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect. I have shot enough in my life time that I hardly ever think about form, most of the time the shot just happens and I hit the mark. However, sometimes I just have bad days and I need to go back to the basics. For someone who doesn't shoot 3-5000 rounds a year that is even more true. I don't doubt that the scope change made a difference and the VX vary well could have been broken. But I think the last group is the result of confidence in his equipment. It is what he wanted to shoot so he shot it well.

 

[4th_point]

It's not about the recoil of the rifle it is about the abuse the rifle takes during competition. My point was partially that those scopes are not practical for hunting applications. Only a handful of shooters are sponsored by companies most of them pay for there equipment.

Recoil most definitely matters. And it happens every time it is fired (i.e. it cannot be avoided). Impacts depend on the operator (i.e. it can be eliminated, mostly).

I have not seen PRS shooters abuse their rifles, but maybe you have. What sort of abuse have you seen?

Looking briefly at the PRS standings, I see Matt Alwine and Nick Gadarzi in the top 10 and they shoot for Leupold. I was expecting Jon Pynch, another Leupold sponsored shooter, in the top 10 but I suppose he's too busy hunting these days (but still top 20).

And there's a handful of Tangent Theta shooters. Austin Orgain (top 10), Justin Watts, Tate Streater, and Clay Blackletter all shoot for Tangent Theta.

 

[cajun]

I'm not going to drop my rifle, scope 3' just to see what happens. Because honestly if I fall or drop the rifle in the field I'm going to check the zero anyway. Just because you do it once and it's all good doesnt mean it wont the next time. And I would want to be sure. I mean if we apply statistics to it you would need at least 30 drop tests to get valuable data lol.

 

[WiscGunner]

It's not about the recoil of the rifle it is about the abuse the rifle takes during competition. My point was partially that those scopes are not practical for hunting applications. Only a handful of shooters are sponsored by companies most of them pay for there equipment. As a shooter you shoot what works for you. And you aren't going to shoot something you don't trust. These guys are winning week end and week out. As a former shooter I can tell you I am not changing my set up mid season unless it has a flaw.

I sold a guy a bow one time that was brand x the bow was identical to another bow made by brand y. He had read all the hype on brand y and was convinced it was better than brand x. They were literally the same bow. He complained and griped about that bow. He missed a half dozen deer with it. He didn't trust it! I traded him the bow for the one he wanted. He went out and killed two deer opening weekend. He was happy as a pig in slop. He would come to indoor shoots and shoot better than he ever had. Got so cocky he challenged me one day to a dot shoot to prove how much better brand x was than brand y. It didn't go well for him. I out shot him with his old bow by a long shot 30x. He had 10. To be fare at the time I was shooting about 5500 arrows a year and he was hunting deer. The week before I got my own butt handed to me by Jeff Hopkins. I think Jeff could beat you with a stick bow back then. I went on to kill five deer with the bow he sold. Shot one deer twice through the same hole. That bow might have been the quietest bow I have ever shot. He just didn't have confidence in it. It didn't work for him even though it was basically the same bow. Most of the parts, cams, limbs, and riser were built in the same factory. He needed the name recognition to give him confidence.

The take away from all of this is, at the end of the day if you don't have confidence in your equipment you want perform well. So shoot what you believe in however you come to that conclusion. Practice with it and learn it well.

I totally agree confidence in one's gear is key. Competition and hunting both have major mental factors.

However, I don't agree with your opinion that PRS is hard on gear. Guys at matches I have been too do not knock their scopes into barricades. Maybe a gentle touch when fishing through a hole a cattle gate, ladder, etc. but never anything like a hunting trip. My rifle gets more abuse carefully taking my hunting pack on and off than it ever sees at a match. Although I have seen guys kick rifles over on bipods but I don't consider that a PRS related issue as anyone can do it. Most guys baby their PRS gear, especially scopes for fear of losing zero. Plus most modern PRS rifles are build to avoid scope abuse. Stocks are wider and more square so the stock/chassis butts up against the barricade instead of scope. Add in the ever popular bags and now plates attached to the rifles, almost no one is shooting with a rifle actually up against a barricade. Always soft on hard contact. NO ONE just throws their rifle into a barricade. Everyone seats their rifle into a bag. Add in the utter lack of recoil and you see why it is called "barricade benchrest".

PRS is more of a "test"of scope tracking and scope reticle preference

 

[4th_point]

I'm not going to drop my rifle, scope 3' just to see what happens. Because honestly if I fall or drop the rifle in the field I'm going to check the zero anyway. Just because you do it once and it's all good doesnt mean it wont the next time. And I would want to be sure. I mean if we apply statistics to it you would need at least 30 drop tests to get valuable data lol.

I think that you have a good perspective for your situation.

And someone that does a quick impact check, that might be good for their situation.

I don't have a problem with the RS drop standard, as they call it, either.

The at-home drop experiment can lead to overconfidence though, as you pointed out.

 

[Paladin300]

Recoil most definitely matters. And it happens every time it is fired (i.e. it cannot be avoided). Impacts depend on the operator (i.e. it can be eliminated, mostly).

I have not seen PRS shooters abuse their rifles, but maybe you have. What sort of abuse have you seen?

Looking briefly at the PRS standings, I see Matt Alwine and Nick Gadarzi in the top 10 and they shoot for Leupold. I was expecting Jon Pynch, another Leupold sponsored shooter, in the top 10 but I suppose he's too busy hunting these days (but still top 20).

And there's a handful of Tangent Theta shooters. Austin Orgain (top 10), Justin Watts, Tate Streater, and Clay Blackletter all shoot for Tangent Theta.

Depending on the stages and barriers, cars or whatever they are crawling in an out of these days those rifles get banged around a lot more than most hunting set ups will ever see. Stages are 1-2 minute stages shot from five different positions two shots each. Nice of you to check the standings. I haven't looked at them in a few years. Leupold has not been in the thick of things in a few years maybe they are now. The Scopes that find themselves most in the top 100 are really limited to a few companies and models. NF, Vortex, Kahles, Schmidt Bender with Vortex, NF and S&B trading places in the rankings a lot. Tangent Theta and ZCO are the new kids on the block. I think they have a larger following now but the majority of those scopes are purchased out right by the shooters themselves. NF, Kahles and Leupold have shooter programs I would assume Vortex does as well as Athlon but I am not aware of a shooter program for Tangent or S&B. If they have them they are very limited in scope. Most of the shooter programs are through dealers and are a discount program. They don't give you a scope and say go shoot. There are only a handful of shooters who are completely sponsored. To shoot in that group you are in the elite of the elite shooters and those guys could take Tasco and out shoot most. Not really! All the above mentioned scopes are limited to a few models that as I said previously are not really practical for most hunting set ups, though they are certainly used. I run a PM2 on my 300. I am not sure what point you are trying to make other than you don't trust the professional shooters because you think they are all sponsored and therefore invalid. It is true I shot what I was sponsored by but I got to choose the model and specifics. I also got to choose what company I wanted to represent. I got a discount and often passed it own to my buddies when I finished the season. Unless you are shooting in the upper echelons you are buying your equipment, with that said it would behoove you to look in the middle brackets. Interestingly enough you will find the same scopes being used there as by the sponsored shooters with few exceptions. This is the same thing you find with PHs they all shoot just a few makes and models with few exceptions. Why? Because they work when they are supposed to and do what they say they will do.

 

[willfrye027]

After looking closely at your photos, I had not paid attention to the shot number placement when I responded earlier. If you will notice the shots are grouped well enough. Once everything was tightened the group did shrink but I don't think that is the issue. I think this rifle was being canted left to right trying to get it to group in the center. The shot was being forced and the trigger slapped in frustration. Shot 1&4 are in the same hole as in the last photo. Shots 2,3,5 are right of center. The remaining shot are left but still a group. I think he was picking his head up and readjusting every two or three shots. The last photo give us no order of shots fired nor the conditions under which they were fired. The first and second photo show us identical results. It would be uncanny for a scope to start center move all the way to the right and then go back to the left and stay. If it were moving on every shot and not staying zeroed because of a scope issue or a mounting issue the shots would be inconsistent without showing a measure of grouping. The same would be true if he were gripping the forend in the first two photos and shooting freebore in the last. If it were a contact issue it would be random as well. I think these photos show a shooter error more than a scope not holding zero. The photos show a measure of consistency and an identical pattern even though the scope was adjusted and re-zeroed. Not something you would necessarily see in a mechanical failure. It would be more random and inconsistent in nature. Just my thought and analysis. I could be completely wrong because I wasn't there but it is what I see in the

I would agree with the bad scope analysis if the shot placement didn't show a pattern. The last group shows the same pattern. Center, three to the right back center left. I have good and bad days at the range. Not as extreme as the spreads shown in the pics but I can go from shooting 1/2 moa to sometimes 1.5 moa. When that happens even I sometimes have to just pack up go to the house recheck my junk take a deep breath and try it again another day. Frustration only breeds bad form and more frustration. The questions I need to ask myself are: What's on my mind? What is bothering me? Am I paying attention to what I am really doing? Is my form good? Am I doing something different? It sometimes helps to film yourself, especially on the bad days. You can usually see your mistakes. Practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect. I have shot enough in my life time that I hardly ever think about form, most of the time the shot just happens and I hit the mark. However, sometimes I just have bad days and I need to go back to the basics. For someone who doesn't shoot 3-5000 rounds a year that is even more true. I don't doubt that the scope change made a difference and the VX vary well could have been broken. But I think the last group is the result of confidence in his equipment. It is what he wanted to shoot so he shot it well.

I shoot 2-3k rounds a year, occasionally more occasionally less. I have a pretty good idea of when something is mechanical vs me making a bad shot. I think if there is a "pattern" in those groups that may have been an erector bouncing back and forth. Doing load development for that rifle there were some bizarre POI changes and "flyers" that just didn't seem right. Eventually the scope fully crapped the bed. Leupold will probably say "torqued too tight and broken erector". Vortex seems to use that excuse as well.

With regards to group size. Do you know what your rifles true cone of fire is? Ie 30 round group? If not, or if you think that is pointless, we don't speak the same language and probably do not need to keep discussing this.

 

[Paladin300]

I shoot 2-3k rounds a year, occasionally more occasionally less. I have a pretty good idea of when something is mechanical vs me making a bad shot. I think if there is a "pattern" in those groups that may have been an erector bouncing back and forth. Doing load development for that rifle there were some bizarre POI changes and "flyers" that just didn't seem right. Eventually the scope fully crapped the bed. Leupold will probably say "torqued too tight and broken erector". Vortex seems to use that excuse as well.

With regards to group size. Do you know what your rifles true cone of fire is? Ie 30 round group? If not, or if you think that is pointless, we don't speak the same language and probably do not need to keep discussing this.

I don't do thirty shot groups but multiple five shot groups and figure the aggregate. Shooting a 30 round group fails to take into account the fliers and also limits the rifle to a single event. I prefer to track group size over time. I record and note every group and round a rifle shoots. First for load development and then for precision and accuracy. I use five shot groups because it will be more accurate as there is no need to account for shooter fatigue. There are multiple ways to do it. I don't necessarily think any way is more beneficial than another as long as you are keep a record of your shots over time. You could shoot one shot at thirty dots and calculate the aggregate and get the same results. I don't shoot that much anymore but use to shoot a lot more. I don't doubt the scope could have malfunctioned. However, a loose erector assembly should show some measure of inconsistency and to have groups clump and bounce back and forth the way those did is intriguing. It shows a pattern of consistency which bares the question why? When I have seen a busted erector system it looks like what you have but shots are inconsistent and always moving left, right, up etc. I think you like Trijicon great! You will shoot it well because you believe in it.
I did not mean to single you out. The groups just lended themselves to use to illustrate how shooter error could account for a shifting zero, not that this is what happened in your case. I have seen so many shooters who blame their issues on equipment failures which in my experience only accounts for a small percentage of issues. Scopes are really personal preference. And their are a lot of factors that come into play when choosing the right scope for the task at hand. I want particularly new shooters to get involved without thinking their equipment is inadequate. The scope test are valuable but not definitive nor without issue. Multiple manufacturers build quality products that are task specific. Below are a few examples of what I consider rock solid setups that are task specific, no two are a like. Three are hunting set ups and two are competitive and tactical set ups. Non of them has ever lost zero. The Sako 270 is in the back seat of my truck where it stays throughout hunting season, uncased, lying on top of my go bag.

 

[L2land]

After a few full circles is it fair that we say 90% operator 10% equipment? I bet there's less than a handful of people reading this that can be counted on to say a .5 MOA shift is because of their scope. Who actually has a setup to dial indicate their scope tube for runout after it's set? Practice more.

 

[orkan]

View attachment 522483

Man, why you gotta go and post a TRG? I have been continually successful at NOT buying another one for like a really really long time, but you and others like you don't make it easy. Show some respect for a man in turmoil for the last 20 years, would you?

I HATE factory rifles, but TRG's are so smooth. I don't think most people that have never had one can ever realize. (and that trigger... boyooo)

I'm just saying... mind yourself, would you?




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