Shepherd Scope

[awclark79]

Prior to my last Afghanistan deployment, I was out shooting my Remington 700 TWS in .308, and a shooter there recommended a shepherd scope. It was variable power 6-18x, with a mil-reticule and a ranging reticule showing 18inch circles at 200 to 900 meters. The power, brisket circles, low price ($700) convinced me to give it a try.

My first shooting experience with it yielded a 1+ MOA grouping at 300 yds where as my leupold VX III was sub MOA at that range. I was willing to trade the accuracy for the power and reticule for hunting (sub 400 yds).

The second time shooting it was after my deployment, and it was un-zeroable. at 100 yds it was producing large multiple MOA groupings and from one group to the next, it would drift left and right of center. Suspecting it was my fault, I used a shooting sled, still no improvement. I then switched back to my Leupold VX III and was instantly back to a sub MOA grouping.

Could the scope have been damaged during my time away? Possible, but I have deployed multiple times and I have owned my Leupold since 2004. It survived and the shepherd didn't.

I know to be wary of unknown brands and knew I was taking a risk. I just want to put the information out there to warn others.

 

[Redmanss]

Hopefully you can get it repaired and sold on ebay or somewhere. This is not the first time I've heard of them failing.

 

[Icallem]

I bought one of these years ago. I never could make it work like it should. I ended up giving it to my neighbor, who had the same trouble I had. He called the company and talked with a guy that seemed to know what was going on. My neighbor was dogging the scope pretty bad to this guy when the guy gave him a cell number and told him to call him the next time he was out shooting and if they could not get it cleared up over the phone, it would only take him 2-3 hours to get to the shooting range where my neighbor was shooting. Long story short, they got it going and now is working out very well for my neighbor. Also, turns out that he was on the phone with Dan Shepherd.

The idea behind this scope is good, but my neighbor has to load stuff to a certain speed to make everything with the different circles work out correct. More going on than I needed. It does seem like the company will help you get it going.

I just remembered, seems they had sent the wrong owners book with this scope. That just added to the problems.

Give them a call, or give the scope to your neighbor and let him call!