Leupold scopes love or hate em?

[MtsPSU]

There is an old, mid 90’s vintage 3-9 on my featherweight model 70 270 win. I use this rifle to mostly hunt <150 yard type of stuff. On June 28th a 12 shot load development group showed 2.5” at 100 yards. Not great, but acceptable for my shooting abilities with a light, hard to shoot rifle and intent with this rifle. After testing that load, the scope was moved to the right, verified, and the rifle put in the safe.

View attachment 396573

A zero check on 9/28 showed impact slightly to the right, but still within the cone of fire. On 11/26, after 4 days of hunting in bear season, a zero check showed basically the same as the 9/28 zero check, though one of the shots was pretty far right.

View attachment 396574

A zero check on 12/14, after 5 full days and several partial days of deer hunting showed impact to be 3” left of the last 2 zero checks. Again probably sufficient for hunting here, but that shift should not happen.
View attachment 396563
The rifle was always cased in a hard case whenever traveling in a vehicle. While hunting, surprisingly, my clumsy ass took no falls. The rifle was handled with care at all times, and never dropped or bumped while hunting.

This rifle was my first rifle. It is a classic looking rifle with the gloss 3-9 on it. I would love nothing more than to keep the rifle intact the way it is. At this point point though I would like to figure out whether the rifle, the scope, or my shooting abilities caused the shift. I have my suspicions.

By chance is this rifle glass bedded? If not, you might want to do so and my guess is accuracy issues will diminish.

Mark

 

[slatebuilder]

By chance is this rifle glass bedded? If not, you might want to do so and my guess is accuracy issues will diminish.

Mark

It is not, and I will probably do that to this piece. Since zero checking before, during, and after the season we started looking at the rifle a bit more. In looking into the issue we took the rifle apart, cleaned everything and retorqued the action screws. We also removed the scope, bases and rings. We cleaned, reinstalled, and torqued correctly. During that we noticed that the rifles barrel is free floated, but barely, .005-.007ish of space between barrel and stock. Personally I would like to see more, and have the action bedded.

After reassembly the rifle shot 5 shots into a nickel sized group at 100. It was an inch low and an inch to the right though. The scope has .5 MOA/“click” adjustments. I moved it 2 “clicks” left and 2 “clicks” up. After adjusting, the group was centered about 2”left, 2” high, and was roughly 2.75”. After adjusting it some more I was able to get it centered left and right, but it is still about 2” high and what looks to be a 3” group at 100.

I have another rifle and ammunition that have been tested thoroughly and shoot well enough to confidently test a scope. As soon as I get a chance I am going to put this scope on that rifle and shoot it a bunch. If there is a scope issue it should show up.

 

[MtsPSU]

It is not, and I will probably do that to this piece. Since zero checking before, during, and after the season we started looking at the rifle a bit more. In looking into the issue we took the rifle apart, cleaned everything and retorqued the action screws. We also removed the scope, bases and rings. We cleaned, reinstalled, and torqued correctly. During that we noticed that the rifles barrel is free floated, but barely, .005-.007ish of space between barrel and stock. Personally I would like to see more, and have the action bedded.

After reassembly the rifle shot 5 shots into a nickel sized group at 100. It was an inch low and an inch to the right though. The scope has .5 MOA/“click” adjustments. I moved it 2 “clicks” left and 2 “clicks” up. After adjusting, the group was centered about 2”left, 2” high, and was roughly 2.75”. After adjusting it some more I was able to get it centered left and right, but it is still about 2” high and what looks to be a 3” group at 100.

I have another rifle and ammunition that have been tested thoroughly and shoot well enough to confidently test a scope. As soon as I get a chance I am going to put this scope on that rifle and shoot it a bunch. If there is a scope issue it should show up.

Sounds good. Highly recommend getting it glass bedded.

I have a Remington 700 CDL .300WM that is super picky about what I shoot through it. That said, I had it glass bedded and kept working on handloads until I found the recipe it liked. Now it is consistent year round and fun to shoot. BTW, it wears a Leupold VX II 4x12x40 fine duplex.

Mark