Scope looks canted

[Don Fischer]

Thing I find amazing about a lot of things, most of us have done certain things the same way for years and all of a sudden have a problem with it!

 

[Fire_9]

Did you verify the accuracy of the level your using? Either against a known good level (Stabila) or by putting it on a perfectly flat surface, not necessarily level, reading the bubble, you then flip it 180 degrees. An accurate level will read exactly the same both ways. This is how you check levels in a store before buying one. After going through 5-10+ where at least 1 vial is inaccurate and sometimes leaving a store without one, you get tired of going through moderately priced levels and buy a stabila. Plumb bobs don't lie! But again, if your levels not level it won't be square to the plumb line.

I find setting my crosshairs most accurate by clamping a block on my barrel, leveling the action and block to match. Then put scope on to match block. If it looks off to your eyes, it's most likely off. Everytime I level a scope, I can't eyeball it perfectly to get it level, but once it's there it never looks crooked to me.

Verifying the level in this case means nothing. Bubble showed level and crosshairs were set to a plumb line. Done and done. That’s it. People make this way harder than it needs to be

 

[elevatorman]

Verifying the level in this case means nothing. Bubble showed level and crosshairs were set to a plumb line. Done and done. That’s it. People make this way harder than it needs to be

Your missing it, if bubble shows level but it's not actually level, then it's not level. Right?

 

[Fire_9]

Your missing it, if bubble shows level but it's not actually level, then it's not level. Right?

Wrong. This isn't same as buying 4' level to use around the house or jobsite like you're thinking. The critical aspect in this equation is that the reticle is plumb when the bubble is in between the lines. That allows your reticle to travel in line with gravity which is the most important part. An action that is not perfectly level will induce a small of error but it is negligible. This subject has been beaten to death on the interwebs and continues to be beaten to death every single year.

 

[hank4elk]

I've looked down some really off scopes folks hunt with. One guys was 45 degrees off.

Grew up building and lining and leveling walls. I can see plumb and level just looking.

But would have never made Gunners Mate without the chief saying get that ring right. On the 50. A duece.
So a rifle scope,it makes a difference, to me.
I'm a level on a level sort of guy...Stabila.

 

[Encore]

 

[Tymebandit951]

I swear my head is lop sided.. Ive had a Zeiss scope on my rifle for a year and used their rings that also have a bubble level on them. Every time I shouldered the rifle and held it comfortably, the bubble was out of the center. I checked and checked the level and all my instruments showed level. I just swapped it for a Leupold scope and bam, same thing. All the fancy levels I have show that the reticle is level, and what's extra weird is if I hold the rifle as if I were a lefty, it looks perfect. Then I hold it as a righty, looks slightly off. idk, Im just gonna run it on a tall target test and see what's up.

 

[Wind Gypsy]

Yes, that’s why they exist. Because our eyeballs aren’t great at knowing what is plumb.

 

[Don Fischer]

Maybe let someone else look through it? Also, it wouldn't be the first time I heard about the reticle assembly rotating in the tube. Not likely with a Nightforce, but possible.

Not so sure the retical rotates inside. I used to have that happen now and then and cleared it up by not tightening either ring before snugging up the other. I'm thinking the rings with screws on one side were the problem. Tighten down to much to start one and it goes roll the scope enough to see it when looking through it.

 

[Laelkhunter]

Not so sure the retical rotates inside. I used to have that happen now and then and cleared it up by not tightening either ring before snugging up the other. I'm thinking the rings with screws on one side were the problem. Tighten down to much to start one and it goes roll the scope enough to see it when looking through it.

I'm referring to the actual erector assembly inside the scope somehow coming loose and rotating inside the scope while the tube was rigidly mounted in the rings. Everything on the outside was properly aligned but was quite apparent when looking through the scope. Can't remember where I read about it, but it happened more than once when there were other replies in the forum. I think it was isolated to one brand, and I'm sure it wasn't Nightforce.

 

[ImBillT]

Shoot a group at 100 yards, dial up 10 moa or so. The shots in the 10 moa group should 10” up and straight up from the first group.

If it’s not, your scope is canted. Neil

That assumes that you have a scope with better than average internals.

When you dial a scope, you push a tube up/down, or left/right with one adjuster, but that tube is in contact with another adjuster. Tubes are round. When you push the tube left or right with the windage adjustment, it can move up or down as well, depending on which side of center the tube was on. The same is true for dialing up or down. You can move left or right depending on which side of center the tube was one. The simply solution for this was to use very wide adjusters so that the tube remained on a flat surface no matter how far you dialed. Micro-Trac, and Exac-Trac are more complicated ways of doing it that involve less friction. There are other ways I’m sure. There was a time, that isn’t that far back, that only Target scopes, and not all of them, incorporated adjustments that only resulted in up/down movements when dialing/down. Even today most scopes are not manufactured to dial only in the direction dialed.

If you want to check, you can mount your rifle in some sort of machine rest, or stack bags on it, anything to make sure that it is very steady. Put it on the target and start dialing. If you dial all the way left, and all the way right, and the reticle never rises or falls, then your scope was designed to dial properly. If not, the reticle will drop as you dial to the left. When dialing right from all the way left, the reticle will rise as it approaches center, then fall again as you dial all the way to the right. I may have those directions inverted. I always get turned around backward thinking about image moving vs reticles. Modern scopes move the image not the reticle. As you dial left or right from center, the tube rises, so I think that means the image rises, which makes the reticle appear to drop. So dialing left or right of center makes the reticle drop if I’m not backward.

Whatever the case, not all of the scopes out there are designed in a way that makes them capable of moving only in the direction dialed, even if you mount it correctly. A lot more do today than 30-40 years ago, but there are still plenty that don’t.