Need help with new scope

[Persuader12]

After asking advice here about what scope I should get after having nothing but problems with scopes in the past for my .22 rifle (a Ruger 10/22), I finally got a Vortex Crossfire 2 2-7x32mm. I've been having some issues that I hope can get resolved.

Mounting it was the first problem. After being installed, it was obviously not straight. Looking at it from overhead, it was clearly crooked. I figured out that one of the clamps was backwards and got it flipped around and now it seems much straighter.

Now for shooting.
I couldn't hit anything with it further out and moved in to 20 yards to get results. The instructions say to turn the dials (windage/elevation) 1 click for every 1/4" I want to adjust at 100 yards. But even at 20 yards, I was about 8 inches off both left and too far low, which means having to do a lot of adjusting which I've heard shouldn't be done because it could break the scope adjusting it too far. If one click shifts 1/4" at 100 yards, and I'm off by 8 inches at 1/5 that distance, then I'd be off 40" at 100 yards, which explains why I couldn't hit anything. I ended up having to do well over 100 clicks with each knob, and I felt like I was going to be doing some damage as a result. I tried doing it just 20 clicks at a time, with some of those times not resulting in any shift in bullet impact at all. It sure was getting frustrating!

Well, right now, it appears to be lined in. But time will tell if it holds, or if the zero will wander like I've had happen with other scopes where I got lined in, and then suddenly the aim point is nearly a foot off again in one direction or another even at 20 yards.

That's what I've experienced so far. Right now, I'm concerned that I had to adjust the knobs way too far. I only expected to have to do maybe 10 or 15 clicks--not close to 150. Do you think I may have caused damage? How many clicks to adjust is typically needed on a scope?

 

[jmorris]

Can you post photos of the mount, rings and optic on the rifle?

 

[Persuader12]

Can you post photos of the mount, rings and optic on the rifle?

Not right now. I can tell you that the mounting rings were also Vortex brand and were $25 and are aluminum. The mount itself is the one that came with the rifle.

 

[NIGHTLORD40K]

Sounds like something aint right.....

 

[skeeterfogger]

"Seems much straighter". Think that's key. When I mount a scope I center the settings. Use a bore laser to check how close it lines up. As long as the windage adjustment is within reason and the elevation will meet bore center to scope center within reason I move on to shooting.
If mounting on gun is off drilled you may need to try rings with windage adjustment to achieve alignment to minimal needed scope adjustment.
Then to get scope level to bore you probably need to shim the mount.

 

[Skylerbone]

Diagnosing scope issues online can be a real craps shoot.

If I’m understanding you correctly, one of the clamping V-blocks was twisted 180 degrees and is not symmetrical. That lead to one of your rings being canted.

If at that time you mounted the scope and torqued it to spec there could very well be damage but it would likely show as a crease or heavy ring mark on the scope’s tube. Whether that would be enough to affect it mechanically is doubtful.

This may not be the advice you want but it works; consider Burris Signature rings. If you’re sticking with what you have, consider trying a few more ammo types because sometimes, for no earthly reason, some ammo seems to hit much differently than others.

 

[Odd Job]

I also think photos will be useful here.

 

[jmorris]

Not right now.

Without one it’s hard to quantify what you mean here.

After being installed, it was obviously not straight. Looking at it from overhead, it was clearly crooked. I figured out that one of the clamps was backwards and got it flipped around and now it seems much straighter.

“much straighter” being the key, if it’s not straight or visually crooked, something is wrong.

If you look at it from this angle can you “see” that the scope is not straight with the barrel? If the answer is yes, your problem isn’t that the scope doesn’t have enough adjustment.

 

[skeeterfogger]

Have you checked the scope body for indications of binding. With ring loops removed does the scope lay in base evenly?
Pressing at each base does the scope lift off other base or try to move sideways?
Just as an experiment have you turned the other base 180?
Have you put a straight edge across barrel and receiver to try to determine that the mount holes are centered and straight?
Looks like worse case would be to put base with windage adjust set to scope windage centered.

 

[jmr40]

After you verify that the scope is mounted correctly:

Get the reticle centered and start over. Move the dials as far as they will go to either right or left, doesn't matter. Then count the number of clicks as you move it all the way in the other direction. If you need 150 clicks then you move it back in the other direction 75 clicks to get it centered left to right.

Repeat with the up/down dials. Your crosshairs should be centered now.

Use a LARGE backer behind the target, a sheet of poster board at Walmart is less than $1 if you don't have anything else. Set the target at exactly 25 yards. By starting out with the reticle centered, AND with a large backer board your bullet will hit something with the 1st shot and leave a hole. It may be several inches, maybe more than a foot from where you aim but that is OK.

MOST scopes move POI 1/4" at 100 yards for each click, but some are 1/2" at 100 yards. Verify this with your scopes instruction manual. Looking online it appears your scope is 1/4" at 100.

At 25 yards you will need 16 clicks to move impact 1". Fire at least one round and see how far from zero you are. Actually measure with a ruler if you have to then move the appropriate number of clicks in the proper direction. Once you get zeroed at 25 yards go to 50 and repeat. I like to zero 22's at 50 yards.

 

[JJFitch]

Manufacturers seem to bore sight their products for quality control. In the last few years I've mounted at least a dozen scopes and Red Dots. The most correction I've had to make was around 6 clicks at 25 yards. That says a lot for the general industry. Two scopes were mounted on R-10/22's neither required more than a few clicks either way!

As in the above posts center the reticle before proceeding. If you kept track with where you are now return to original settings. The problem with the 10/22 is the difficulty of "bore sighting"! The next step is the most important, the mechanical "zero" with the bore, mounts and rings!

Google is your friend: "Mounting a rifle scope the right way" There are videos that can guide you through the process. https://thebiggamehuntingblog.com/how-to-mount-a-scope-on-a-rifle/

If you suspect this is the problem and you don't have certain specific tools and skills STOP! Take the firearm and scope/rings to a reputable gunsmith.

 

[Skylerbone]

OP, was it something like this? What I wrote earlier was based on the below example pictures. What happens when tightening on a rail is the ring body can leave a gap between itself and the rail, meaning it is askew. That will bind the tube, leave it pointing at an angle both horizontally and vertically, and probably damage (at least cosmetically) the scope body.

 

[Persuader12]

Without one it’s hard to quantify what you mean here.



“much straighter” being the key, if it’s not straight or visually crooked, something is wrong.

If you look at it from this angle can you “see” that the scope is not straight with the barrel? If the answer is yes, your problem isn’t that the scope doesn’t have enough adjustment.

View attachment 934343

View attachment 934344

That was the original problem, but I was able to correct it.

 

[Persuader12]

OP, was it something like this? What I wrote earlier was based on the below example pictures. What happens when tightening on a rail is the ring body can leave a gap between itself and the rail, meaning it is askew. That will bind the tube, leave it pointing at an angle both horizontally and vertically, and probably damage (at least cosmetically) the scope body.



View attachment 934367


View attachment 934368

I can't remember how it looked. What I do know is that I ended up removing it and then putting in back on and saw the scope pointed straighter until I tightened the front screw against the base. That's when the scope began to cant to the left. Then I got the idea to loosen it and flip that block around and try tightening it again and then it stayed straight.

The problem I had later and was most concerned about was how many clicks it was taking to adjust the scope to make it accurate with bullet impact points. It was around 100 clicks or more for both windage and elevation. I was just wondering if that was too many and could cause damage to the scope to go that far. Currently, I have the adjustments where I want them and my rifle shoots right where I want it to. I'm just concerned about whether it will stay that way if I turned the dials too far. I just don't know how many clicks it normally takes to true a scope.

 

[skeeterfogger]

Misunderstood the flip thing. Thought it meant turning the entire base.
Without knowing how far off from bore sight it's hard to tell if the number off clicks is too much. I guess the question is how close to end of travel is it?
I've always centered scopes then bore sight. Never had but one that took a lot of clicks to get windage lined up. It was my dad's gun and turned out it had a windage adjustable mount. It was not centered. So my experience is with everything centered it generally doesn't take that much upon bore sight. Windage 4-8 clicks. Elevation will depend on bore to scope center distance just to achieve parallel line of sight to bore and that will decrease to get desired trajectory to range.
With a gun I can't view down bore or get bore sight for I would center the scope and shoot at 15-20 ft. Once on then move out to yards. If it hits at feet but goes wacky at yards on windage I would suspect a parallex issue.

 

[12Pump]

Misunderstood the flip thing. Thought it meant turning the entire base.
Without knowing how far off from bore sight it's hard to tell if the number off clicks is too much. I guess the question is how close to end of travel is it?
I've always centered scopes then bore sight. Never had but one that took a lot of clicks to get windage lined up. It was my dad's gun and turned out it had a windage adjustable mount. It was not centered. So my experience is with everything centered it generally doesn't take that much upon bore sight. Windage 4-8 clicks. Elevation will depend on bore to scope center distance just to achieve parallel line of sight to bore and that will decrease to get desired trajectory to range.
With a gun I can't view down bore or get bore sight for I would center the scope and shoot at 15-20 ft. Once on then move out to yards. If it hits at feet but goes wacky at yards on windage I would suspect a parallex issue.

I'm fortunate enough to have have managed to get it lined in. I don't know how close to the end of travel it is since I didn't turn either adjustment far enough that they wouldn't go any further. Originally, I posted here to find out about how far the dials could be turned before reaching that point. I was under the assumption that turning to far would cause damage. Since it took at least 100 clicks with each knob to get the rifle to shoot accurate, I thought maybe I was approaching the point of causing damage. It didn't seem like I should have had to adjust that far and was mainly here to ask people if 100 or more clicks sounded like "too much". To ask a different way, "How many turns of the dial does it take to reach the end of travel?"

 

[JJFitch]

I'm fortunate enough to have have managed to get it lined in. I don't know how close to the end of travel it is since I didn't turn either adjustment far enough that they wouldn't go any further. Originally, I posted here to find out about how far the dials could be turned before reaching that point. I was under the assumption that turning to far would cause damage. Since it took at least 100 clicks with each knob to get the rifle to shoot accurate, I thought maybe I was approaching the point of causing damage. It didn't seem like I should have had to adjust that far and was mainly here to ask people if 100 or more clicks sounded like "too much". To ask a different way, "How many turns of the dial does it take to reach the end of travel?"

Glad that you got it sorted out to your satisfaction.

It does seem odd that in today's world of precision machining of new firearms that it should take more than a few clicks. I think you even mentioned the same experience.
There must be something going on that hasn't been addressed. Keep us informed if you find something wrong.
A shooter at "hunter sight in" asked for help zeroing a new rifle that came with a factory installed scope. It (POI) just wasn't staying in one spot round to round vertical string 12-13 inches at 25 yards!. To make a long story short the scope ring screws were not torqued and the front mount was loose because of a broken screw. I always bring a "torque driver" and an assortment of gun smith screws!

All the best,

 

[12Pump]

Glad that you got it sorted out to your satisfaction.

It does seem odd that in today's world of precision machining of new firearms that it should take more than a few clicks. I think you even mentioned the same experience.
There must be something going on that hasn't been addressed. Keep us informed if you find something wrong.
A shooter at "hunter sight in" asked for help zeroing a new rifle that came with a factory installed scope. It (POI) just wasn't staying in one spot round to round vertical string 12-13 inches at 25 yards!. To make a long story short the scope ring screws were not torqued and the front mount was loose because of a broken screw. I always bring a "torque driver" and an assortment of gun smith screws!

All the best,

Well, it WAS sighted in. Last night, I discovered the rear screw that tightens the rear scope ring to the base was completely loose even though I hadn't been doing any shooting lately. It was so loose that the scope rattled as I picked it up and I was able to raise the rear portion of the scope significantly. I retightened it, and it took at least a half turn of the screw to tighten it. Of course, that meant having to sight-in once again, which is the 4th time this week.

I've been noticing these screws (both the front and back screws that tighten the rings to the base) loosening up like this before and have had to retighten. If both screws came loose at the same time, the entire scope would fall of the rifle. I googled this problem and seen the advice to use lock-tite. But I don't understand why they loosen up so much when the gun hasn't done anything but lean up against a wall since the last time I made sure the screws were tight. I have them tightened right now, and put a white chalk mark on the top of each screw to see if they somehow start rotating themselves. I thought maybe they had been stripped, but I don't think that could be the case since I've made sure not to tighten them beyond "finger tight". Also, I wouldn't even be able to retighten them if they were stripped.

I sure was glad to be able to sight the scope in after all the bad luck I've had with prior scopes. But now these new problems are starting to get pretty aggravating.

 

[JJFitch]

Well, it WAS sighted in. Last night, I discovered the rear screw that tightens the rear scope ring to the base was completely loose even though I hadn't been doing any shooting lately. It was so loose that the scope rattled as I picked it up and I was able to raise the rear portion of the scope significantly. I retightened it, and it took at least a half turn of the screw to tighten it. Of course, that meant having to sight-in once again, which is the 4th time this week.

I've been noticing these screws (both the front and back screws that tighten the rings to the base) loosening up like this before and have had to retighten. If both screws came loose at the same time, the entire scope would fall of the rifle. I googled this problem and seen the advice to use lock-tite. But I don't understand why they loosen up so much when the gun hasn't done anything but lean up against a wall since the last time I made sure the screws were tight. I have them tightened right now, and put a white chalk mark on the top of each screw to see if they somehow start rotating themselves. I thought maybe they had been stripped, but I don't think that could be the case since I've made sure not to tighten them beyond "finger tight". Also, I wouldn't even be able to retighten them if they were stripped.

I sure was glad to be able to sight the scope in after all the bad luck I've had with prior scopes. But now these new problems are starting to get pretty aggravating.

For mounting scopes the "best practice" is to use a thread locker and a torque driver. For the base screws try thread locker and 40 inch pounds of torque. For the screws holding the scope rings 24 inch pounds.

I had a scope base come loose after a motorhome accident on black ice! I missed a couple of nice bucks before I realized the problem.

 

[Stevel]

You are learning why people use standard practices and techniques. Everything on mounting a scope rests on the step before.

To answer your question, if you tightened the mounts with the gun hot, they could have loosened when it cooled and the metal shrunk.

Knowing the rifle and mounts would help. Some 22s have rails built into the receiver. More modern ones use regular mounts.

 

[illinoisburt]

From what I've seen most scopes have between 60 to 100 minutes of adjustment, which at 1/4 clicks would be 240 to 400 from side/side or up/down. If you started with the scope centered, 100 clicks could be nearing the maximum range of adjustments depending on your particular scope. Still if it sighted in okay and you did not bottom out the adjustments it's probably fine. Besides, with 22 recoil I doubt it's going to break loose. 300 mag would be a different story.

 

[12Pump]

For mounting scopes the "best practice" is to use a thread locker and a torque driver. For the base screws try thread locker and 40 inch pounds of torque. For the screws holding the scope rings 24 inch pounds.

I had a scope base come loose after a motorhome accident on black ice! I missed a couple of nice bucks before I realized the problem.

I don't have a torque driver. I just used the allen wrench that was included with the mounting rings, and I tried not to use very much pressure when tightening the rings that hold the scope itself. The 2 screws that hold the rings to the mount can be done with my fingers. Again, I tried to not use too much pressure when doing this for fear of stripping the screws. Those are the ones that have been loosening.
Question, can a person do 40 inch pounds of torque with their fingers alone? If not, then I could just tighten it by hand as much as I can and that would be more torque than I've used so far.

 

[12Pump]

You are learning why people use standard practices and techniques. Everything on mounting a scope rests on the step before.

To answer your question, if you tightened the mounts with the gun hot, they could have loosened when it cooled and the metal shrunk.

Knowing the rifle and mounts would help. Some 22s have rails built into the receiver. More modern ones use regular mounts.

Well, I never did that. The gun was fitted with the scope indoors after not being fired for weeks. After that, I only fired a handful of rounds each time I tried sighting it in. Every so often after that, I would check the tightness of the screws and would occasionally find one of the base screws loose, even if it hadn't been fired recently.

BTW, my rifle is a Ruger 10/22 and I'm using the included (but not built-in) weaver scope base. The scope rings I'm using are the Vortex brand, same as the scope, which is a Vortex Crossfire 2.

 

[12Pump]

From what I've seen most scopes have between 60 to 100 minutes of adjustment, which at 1/4 clicks would be 240 to 400 from side/side or up/down. If you started with the scope centered, 100 clicks could be nearing the maximum range of adjustments depending on your particular scope. Still if it sighted in okay and you did not bottom out the adjustments it's probably fine. Besides, with 22 recoil I doubt it's going to break loose. 300 mag would be a different story.

Here's something I've been wondering about lately: Now that I've adjusted the reticle a good amount down and to the right, I wouldn't want to go any further in those directions. So I was thinking that if I ever have to remove the scope and re-mount it, is there a way to do it in a way that would slightly angle the scope slightly so that any corrections I would have to make would be up and to the left in order to adjust the reticle closer to the center of its adjustment range? For example, would tightening certain screws first before other ones cause the scope to angle in a desired direction? Since I had to do so much adjusting up and to the right with the reticle, that would mean the scope is mounted a bit high and right (I think). I'd like it to be just as much the opposite next time.

 

[Hookeye]

When using rings that have a cross bolt, you push the ring toward the muzzle, cross bolt bearing against the fwd wall of the base's slot. That is your " recoil " stop.

I do that w both rings ( insurance ).

If you dont, then a bit of shooting vibe will have things loose quickly.