I’ve watched too many hunting shows and heard stories of people dropping their rifle and it messing up their zero and it has made me paranoid. Yesterday I was shooting prone and wearing my hat too low and definitely felt the bill of my hat hit the top of my scope. This question is not about my technique or lack thereof that leads to my hat (not my face!) getting bit by the scope, but I’m curious if others think that’s enough force to mess things up? Is it also a matter of direction - hitting the scope in-line is probably fine but dropping a rifle or carelessly hitting the scope perpendicular to the boreline would cause a problem with even less force? I haven’t had a chance to shoot on paper yet (was shooting steel at the time with no noticeable change in accuracy) so I will get the answer to my specific question soon. Until then, though, how much force is required and how paranoid should one be about drops or dings?
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How much force will mess up my scope/zero
- Thread starter Nmacgyver
- Start date
Depends on your setup. Good scope in good rings (ex: tangent in a sphur) is less likely to shift as much as a quigly ford in some toilet paper roll Walmart rings.
Fair enough. But let’s say a medium setup or at least what I would consider good enough - Leupold or vortex middle of the line scopes in Leupold or vortex rings. If I ding the gun getting it out of the safe? Or do you really need to drop it - free fall - from a couple feet? Or if the gun is leaned on the side of a truck and falls over?
Think you are worrying about a few different things. Mastery (or lack there of) of the fundamentals such as natural point of aim will affect your point of impact. Physical damage to a scope by dropping it will vary from scope to scope and how much it can withstand.
I remember being at a public range and guy at the table next to me was having difficulty zeroing his hunting rifle right before the season. He had the target at 100 yards and wasn't even on the backer. I suggested moving to 25 yards, it still wasn't on the backer, I noticed an impact splash on the mountain behind the backstop. I then looked closer at his rifle and saw the bell of the scope was clearly bent down and pointed out it looked like it had been dropped. What a particular scope can withstand impact wise will be variable. FWIW it was a Leupold and when they were 100% USA made,
I remember being at a public range and guy at the table next to me was having difficulty zeroing his hunting rifle right before the season. He had the target at 100 yards and wasn't even on the backer. I suggested moving to 25 yards, it still wasn't on the backer, I noticed an impact splash on the mountain behind the backstop. I then looked closer at his rifle and saw the bell of the scope was clearly bent down and pointed out it looked like it had been dropped. What a particular scope can withstand impact wise will be variable. FWIW it was a Leupold and when they were 100% USA made,
It is a crap shoot. I have seen a rifle get run over by a F-15, right on the scope and drop a deer at 300 yards 2 minutes later. Scope was a cheap Leo. There is no way to predict what will happen . I’ve also had higher end scopes fail with much less abuse. Everyone can have a good day or a bad day on any production line.
Unless your scope and rings are complete pieces of shit, they can stand a lot more abuse than you seem to think.
You are waaaaaaay overanalyzing this and worrying about things that hardly anyone else does.
You're concerned about the brim of your ballcap hitting the scope? Dude get some perspective. How many G forces do you think the scope is subjected to when the rifle fires?
Hi,
Please tell me you still have access to this F-15....
Can I borrow it to run over my rifles for some marketing videos?
Sincerely,
Theis
do the drop test and find out how many lick it does take to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop
So you're saying nobody did a FOD check prior to taxi or flight?
Or did auto-incorrect get you and you're talking about an F-150?
So you're saying nobody did a FOD check prior to taxi or flight?
Or did auto-incorrect get you and you're talking about an F-150?
220, 221 whatever it takes.
I'm not sure if you are trolling or actually legit, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
Unless you really did a garbage job of mounting your scope, that's not even a consideration.
Just to give you an example,
I had one of my rifles get blown off the shooting bench onto the concrete ground about 3 feet down, and did a bit of scraping as it went along.
Pulled it back up and the 100Y POI was exactly the same as before.
Depends on what rings, scope and rifle you are running. A heavier rifle dropped can possibly have a higher probability of causing the scope to shift in the rings. A cheaper scope has a higher probability of internally shifting. It also depends on how hard the impact is and where it is. I’ve dropped/banged rifles whiteout any shift in zero and then I’ve drop them at a shorter distance and had to rezero. Force and where it takes impact are huge contributors to this.
The bill of your hat hit it? Like hard or a glancing blow? Could be totally FUBAR. Best just give up and take up a sport better suited for such clumsiness like knitting.
Seriously though even free floating barrels have me wondering now. I shoot a gasser and I can only assume the gas tube has different forces on it every time the BCG comes forward, especially as it gets carbon build up, and I still shoot .7 average with it. A quality scope mount should have no issue. Heck US Optics or nightforce did a great video on scope abuse and zero, where they removed the scope and hucked it downrange remounted and maintained an MOA at like three hundred. I don’t think this should be an unreasonable expectation for a better than middle of the road optic. Think about recoil forces, should be significantly more significant than most drop tests.
Seriously though even free floating barrels have me wondering now. I shoot a gasser and I can only assume the gas tube has different forces on it every time the BCG comes forward, especially as it gets carbon build up, and I still shoot .7 average with it. A quality scope mount should have no issue. Heck US Optics or nightforce did a great video on scope abuse and zero, where they removed the scope and hucked it downrange remounted and maintained an MOA at like three hundred. I don’t think this should be an unreasonable expectation for a better than middle of the road optic. Think about recoil forces, should be significantly more significant than most drop tests.
Most of them.
Recently (happens a lot, this just the most recent), I was at a match, and as is typical all the rifles for our squad were lined up pointing down range on bipods.
Shooter A grabbed his rifle and accidentally tipped over the rifle next to his. A custom in a manners with an NF optic. Regular dirt, nothing special about the ground.
Shooter B (rifle that was knocked over) zeros stage. Starts complaining about shooter A must have fucked up his zero. Goes to zero range and comes back claiming his zero was knocked off. Complains about enough the squad mom lets him reshoot (club match, no big deal).
He whiffs the stage again with his supposedly re-zero’d rifle. By the next stage he figures out he had wrong dope on the gun. I’ve seen this situation play out many, many times. Small details change, but overall, it’s the same.
Unless shooting very small targets, animals and prs size targets are large enough that your zero would have to shift a very large amount. Mostly it’s just excuses for sucking.
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