Beating a Scope in Submission

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charlesb
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Beating a Scope in Submission

Post by charlesb » Mon Oct 06, 2014 11:04 am

Recently I came into possession of a BSA 'Catseye" 4-16x40 scope that came attached to a rifle I was buying, a Savage 25T in .223 Winchester.

The scope gave me fits.

Even though it had 1/4" clicks at 100 yards, I could get it to shoot either 1/2" to the left of the bull, or 1/2" to the right - but not on the bull itself. I did get good groups, though.

Then I took the gun home and cleaned it... When I returned to the range, the elevation was OK, but now it was shooting 3" to the opposite side of the bull from where it had been!

Scope mounts and rings checked out OK... I got to thinking, waving away the wood smoke that this generated and finally thought about tapping the scope next to the adjustment barrels with the butt of a plastic-handled screwdriver.

Next time out, I would give the scope a few good taps with the butt of the screwdriver handle after every adjustment, and it started behaving itself. Now it shoots directly into the center of the bullseye, and stays put between shooting sessions.

It just needed a little judicious, gentle tapping to start working well enough to get me by for the time being. It gets all of the internal parts settled into place so that it holds its adjustments.

I thought I'd mention this technique in case somebody has a misbehaving scope that they can't replace right away.

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blue68f100
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Post by blue68f100 » Mon Oct 06, 2014 3:40 pm

I got a cheap Simmons that needs the love taps for fine adjustments. If the scope has any age to it the grease may have dried out causing things to stick. I would run the adj all the way in counting clicks so you can go back. The all the way out a couple of times and see if they start working right. It's also possible that the internals at that spot is damaged too. I've have shook the guts out of several Bushnell scopes on my Mag rifle before I moved up to a VXIII.
David

SS MKIII 6 7/8" Fluted Hunter. Mueller Quick Shot, Bushnell 2x Scope, Hogue Rubber Grips
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Post by charlesb » Sat Oct 11, 2014 11:14 pm

I finally had to give up on this BSA... It went back to not holding a zero from one range trip to the next. A couple of times I've thought I had it working better, then it would mess up again.

Since it's too messed up to sell to anybody, I thought my son and I would have some fun taking it apart.

One of the guys at the gun range suggested that I send it back to BSA for service, but I think I'll just dis-assemble it instead. We get a kick out of tearing stuff apart sometimes. - We got a lot of mileage out of tearing down a big-screen TV one time that probably just had a capacitor go in the power supply, and wouldn't have been all that hard to fix.

This leaves me with no scope for my best shooter, the Savage model 25T. Maybe I'll look for something with a bit more power to replace it. Swift makes a couple of varmint scopes that look pretty interesting.

I need a scope for my Winchester 1885 too, right now it has a Nikon Prostaff 3-9x40 on it that a keep around as an emergency spare. I have no idea what I would like to put on it, one suggestion I got was the Leupold VXII 2-7x33, but I've noticed that they no longer offer it in gloss. The 1885 has a high polish, and it has Conetrol Custum mounts and rings, I'd hate to put a matte scope on it, it just wouldn't be purdy enough.

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Post by charlesb » Sat Oct 18, 2014 9:29 pm

Since my last post, there has been a revolting development... I took the Nikon Prostaff 3-9x40 off of the 1885 in 270WSM, and put it on the Savage 25T.

Confident that now that the BSA CatsEye scope was gone, my problems would be over - but not so!

With the proven Nikon scope, I got the same behavior!

This is a real head-scratcher. All of the scope mounting screws were tight, the actions screws too.

Once it is sighted in, it shoots tiny little 5-shot groups, but next time out it will be shooting somewhere else.

I took the scope mounts off, examined them and put them all on again with the BSA scope. - But I won't be able to test fire the rifle until the middle of next week.

I have no clue as to what would make a rifle shoot reliably as far as elevation goes - but not windage. With two different scopes, one of which was doing just fine on a magnum rifle prior to testing on the .223.

Will report results next week, I'm hoping that somehow I was holding my mouth right when I put it all back together. Don't have a clue as to what is or was wrong.

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Post by blue68f100 » Sun Oct 19, 2014 9:38 am

Is the action bedded on this rifle. It may not be floating properly and while it's cold it's all over the place till it heats up. Pressure pad problem?
David

SS MKIII 6 7/8" Fluted Hunter. Mueller Quick Shot, Bushnell 2x Scope, Hogue Rubber Grips
Custom Built 1911

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Post by charlesb » Sun Oct 19, 2014 7:01 pm

The Action is not bedded. It's built a lot like a rimfire, with two 1/2" studs attached to the action that fit into two similar holes in the stock, and the action screws go into them. The wood where the action touches is shiny and looks semi-compressed, it seems to have a pretty good fit from one end to the other, on both sides.

The 25T has a three-lug bolt but otherwise is much like one of Savage's rimfire rifles, just beefed up a little.

The barrel is generously floated, no problem there.

I guess I'll epoxy bed it soon, as I have nothing better to do in any case. I use Devcon steel epoxy with Kiwi neutral shoe polish as the release agent.

Strangely enough, modeling clay is hard to find in this little desert town. Only one place is reliable about having it, and they charge triple. I use modeling clay to keep the epoxy from going where it shouldn't go.

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Post by charlesb » Wed Nov 12, 2014 11:54 pm

I have the Savage model 25T partially epoxy-bedded, but there's one spot that is going to need a second application.

I found out that the rear mounting pillar had quite a gap, so that when you tighten it up, it flexes the action. The second application of epoxy should fix that.

I also ordered a different scope today, a Nikon 4-12x40 that is optimized for .223 use.

http://www.nikonsportoptics.com/Nikon-P ... -----.html

Once it is sighted in, you are supposed to be able to "zero" the elevation adjustment, and then just dial in for various ranges thereafter, assuming you are shooting 55 grain bullets.

I won't be using that feature as it's just a range gun, always shot at 100 yard targets, and I intend to experiment with 68 grain bullets next in any case.

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