Swapping scopes back and forth????

[bluedog69]

So I have never really swapped scopes back and forth. Usually gets mounted and stays on the gun.
We swapped Tacketts thermal off his 308 for deer season and put a glass scope on it. Yesterday he remounted the thermal and fired 3 shots. 1 milk jug at 100, a 2" bottle at 100, then a 2" bottle at 200. We fill them with hot water to get a good target to aim at. So I guess it is still dead on at 200.
We left the scope in the rings so all we had to do was slip it back onto the pic rail in the same spot.

My question.... Did we just get super lucky or is this somewhat normal if you leave the scope in the rings?

 

[Jon Bischof]

You got lucky! Usually some rezeroing is required.

 

[YZ-80]

Yes indeed, you got lucky! I swap optics rather frequently and am always surprised
(probably should not be) at how much I have to spin the turrets to get them back on paper. Thankfully, in all these years I have only once run out of elevation/windage adjustment.

The other day I was at the range and a nice elderly fella was there with a Howa chassis rifle he had gotten for Christmas. He had gone through a box of ammo, trying to get it on paper at 25 yards, and very frustrated. I slapped my bipod on it for him, pulled the bolt and boresighted for him at 50 yards (he was off 3 feet to the left). He said, " I thought it was boresighted at the factory" . After that, he was on paper at 50 in one shot and managed a 1.25 MOA group at 100 yards before he left. He was tickled pink and handed me a box of his once fired brass!

 

[Rosebud]

If its dead on,yes you got lucky. But it should not be to far off. Especially if you left the rings on it. Only variation is attachment to the bases.

 

[6fatrat]

I must disagree, the quality of the scope is answer.
I have a March 2 1/2 to 25 power i use in competition.
I use this scope on 2 AR platform 6 fatrat uppers and a 5.56 practice upper.
I also use it on my #2 1000 yd prone rifle, in the winter i put it on a dedicated 22 rimfire upper for indoor gallery training.
I use Leupold QD rings all on pic. rails and keep a book for all rifles, never more than 1 click change.
Yes the march scopes are that good.
Steve Bair

 

[Reelamin]

Depends on what rings and bases you use. Perfectly on is rare.

 

[bluedog69]

I must disagree, the quality of the scope is answer.
I have a March 2 1/2 to 25 power i use in competition.
I use this scope on 2 AR platform 6 fatrat uppers and a 5.56 practice upper.
I also use it on my #2 1000 yd prone rifle, in the winter i put it on a dedicated 22 rimfire upper for indoor gallery training.
I use Leupold QD rings all on pic. rails and keep a book for all rifles, never more than 1 click change.
Yes the march scopes are that good.
Steve Bair

I was wondering if the pic rail was very "true", and couple that with the fact that we meticulously mounted the rings by sliding them back and forth as I tightened them down to hopefully remove any torque in the base to pic rail, and then we mounted the scope in the rings very slowly with just a shade more torque on each screw criss cross back and forth to try to not torque the scope in the rings... so maybe we got lucky everything is very straight and true.

I did slowly tighten the base screws again and slid the entire scope back and forth as I tightened them to try to make sure the base gripped the rail without torque.
Either way we were happy to be lucky!!! Builds confidence in your set up.

 

[bluedog69]

Depends on what rings and bases you use. Perfectly on is rare.

To be fair "perfectly on" is hard to determine with a thermal. He hit pretty close to the center of the 2" bottle at 200. He wants to check it at 300 later, and maybe 400 also. Mainly so he will know a rough DOPE chart to 400 with it.
Why is it so addictive? Squeeze that trigger.....hit that tiny target.

 

[Baker Alvin]

I have had he same happen.

 

[FireFlyFishing]

I think if you put it on paper you'd find it being slightly off. But, good news that it's hitting minute of milk jug post swap!

 

[memtb]

So I have never really swapped scopes back and forth. Usually gets mounted and stays on the gun.
We swapped Tacketts thermal off his 308 for deer season and put a glass scope on it. Yesterday he remounted the thermal and fired 3 shots. 1 milk jug at 100, a 2" bottle at 100, then a 2" bottle at 200. We fill them with hot water to get a good target to aim at. So I guess it is still dead on at 200.
We left the scope in the rings so all we had to do was slip it back onto the pic rail in the same spot.

My question.... Did we just get super lucky or is this somewhat normal if you leave the scope in the rings?

bluedog, we (wife and ) set up our hunting rifles with Leupold QD base/rings. We zero'd our back-up scopes the same as our primary scope…..the back-ups go wherever we go.

When starting this, we swapped back and forth several times to verify the zero's would be maintained…..pretty darn happy with the results! memtb

 

[FireFlyFishing]

bluedog, we (wife and ) set up our hunting rifles with Leupold QD base/rings. We zero'd our back-up scopes the same as our primary scope…..the back-ups go wherever we go.

When starting this, we swapped back and forth several times to verify the zero's would be maintained…..pretty darn happy with the results! memtb

Back up scopes? Here I am try to pay for primary scopes…

 

[memtb]

Back up scopes? Here I am try to pay for primary scopes…
View attachment 536901

The price of ours combined, don't even come close to what many here are paying for one scope.

Our back-ups are Leupold 2.5-8 Vari- X's bought in the late '80's, and our primaries are 10+ year old Leupold 3.5-10 CDS's. So, we really haven't invested a lot of cash in our optical equipment! Like the old Bill Anderson song says "We ain't nothing but po-folks"! memtb

 

[xsn10s]

Lucky.