So today I'm at the 300 range having a little casual conversation with a guy a little older than me. And he offers, would I like to send a few rounds down range with his 500 dollar bolt action rifle and a 90 dollar 25x fixed power scope. I say sure and ask him what kind of rifle is it? He tells me it's a Model 70 Winchester 22-250 caliber with a Leopold scope. Nice looking rifle but the optic has me second guessing. He reloads his own ammo which makes me think twice before forming an opinion. So I take my time and send 3 down range. All 3 are dead center but 2 inches low. The guy says hmmm that's odd? Now I'm beginning to wonder was it me? So he says let me see whats going on here. He makes no adjustments and sends 3 dead center sub 1'' moa. I'm not understanding what just happened. So I offer would he like to shoot three rounds with my rifle. A 6.5cm Surgeon action, Bartlain barrel in a Manners T7 topped with a Kahles 624i. He takes his time and sends 3 down range (300). All three impacts are sub 1" but,,,,,,, they are 2'' high. Seeing this my mind is saying WTF. This has me scratching my head. Now let me see whats going on here. I KNOW MY RIFLE. I then send 3 straight into a one inch square box. He then asks me if I understood what just happened with both of our shooting each others rifles. It then hits me why this happened. What I came up with is the following. Each shooter has his own sight alignment with the reticle. Is this part of each persons eye relief? My eye wants to naturally look from an above angle sight picture and his eye wants to look from a below angle sight picture? Does what I attempted to describe above correlate to my conclusion.
Rifle Scopes Understanding the basics
- Thread starter CBDR
- Start date
The only way sight alignment plays into it is if the parallax isn't set correctly. Pretty simple to slightly move your head around to see if reticle moves around on the target if that's the case.
Eye relief isn't personal... it's a form factor of the optic and how light passes through it.
This phenomenon constantly happens with me my friends and family. I think there are number of different things happening at the same time to change the POI from person to person.
I call one of the differences "torquing the rifle" Pick any direction on the clock, people push or pull, up or down, left or right, etc, on the rifle differently from person to person which throws the groups in whatever direction. Cheek weld pressure, where the butt is set in the shoulder or pocket area, how much the bipod is loaded or lack thereof, how the trigger pull is executed, etc, you get my point.
Ever wonder why benchrest shooters shoot smaller groups? One obvious reason is the shooter is removed from handling the rifle to a larger extent. Another is the rifle is tuned in the rest to track straight back, both greatly reducing or totally eliminating imposed torque.
And parallax error...
I call one of the differences "torquing the rifle" Pick any direction on the clock, people push or pull, up or down, left or right, etc, on the rifle differently from person to person which throws the groups in whatever direction. Cheek weld pressure, where the butt is set in the shoulder or pocket area, how much the bipod is loaded or lack thereof, how the trigger pull is executed, etc, you get my point.
Ever wonder why benchrest shooters shoot smaller groups? One obvious reason is the shooter is removed from handling the rifle to a larger extent. Another is the rifle is tuned in the rest to track straight back, both greatly reducing or totally eliminating imposed torque.
And parallax error...
That's good stuff, diver. I'm pretty damped experienced on rifles, but I always love it when I am shown an angle I'd never seen before.
I always, and only, shoot my own stuff. The only exception is my father, but he and I are built very similarly, and we drive rifleswith a very similar approach, so other than eyepiece focus differences, our rounds cut the same paper.
I always, and only, shoot my own stuff. The only exception is my father, but he and I are built very similarly, and we drive rifleswith a very similar approach, so other than eyepiece focus differences, our rounds cut the same paper.
True.
It's a mystery which will never be solved in this case.
Each theory could be a cause, or combined, including the other factors. It's mostly vertical that is different I've noticed and off to the side too and that's off the bench with a Harris.
If shooting off a benchrest with a non benchrest rifle, even the position of how far forward or how far backwards the placement of the forend is, can affect the vertical.
I'm 5'7 and a friend is 6'3. Of course we have our rifles adjustments set up the opposite, he can barely see through my scope because he's got a bigger face, yuh know, there's just some extra torque going on in that equation. And the LOP is so short for him as well. It's crazy how much different our POA and POI are.
Thank you all. As Diver160651 points out, ( I can grasp the vert shift) by how tight we make ourselves with the rifle.
