Hi I am wondering if my scope is too low? It seems to me that I have to tilt my head too much to get behind the scope in order to use the scope properly. This puts a lot of undo stress in my neck. I have a Ruger Precision in 6.5 cm the stock cheek weld is as low as it can go. How would I know what height of rings do I need? My scope is a 30mm tube, thanks for the help, Robert
- Thread starter Rude Robert
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Low rings “are so 1990”
get a set of rings that are comfortable to shoot, you’ll shoot better because your more comfortable.
get a set of rings that are comfortable to shoot, you’ll shoot better because your more comfortable.
Get taller rings. Last thing you want is to be forcing yourself to look through the scope. The rifle/optic should feel like an extension of your body. Something comfortable that doesn’t strain muscles and set up properly so when you get on the rifle the optic is naturally in your field of view
The old “low as you can go” style of mounting an optic has gone to the wayside.
The old “low as you can go” style of mounting an optic has gone to the wayside.
It is too low
Trial and error. Buy med, high, and xtra hi rings from someplace with easy returns.
Doesn't matter to this problem
Every chassis/stock, and every face/neck, is different.
On something like a Manners, 1.125" height rings/mounts fit me right, but on an AR or something with a similar comb height (like your RPR), a taller 1.5" mount/ring height is usually it (and what I'd recommend you try).
On something like a Manners, 1.125" height rings/mounts fit me right, but on an AR or something with a similar comb height (like your RPR), a taller 1.5" mount/ring height is usually it (and what I'd recommend you try).
If you aren’t using ARC rings you better cross reference their heights with other manufacturers. One company’s lows can be another’s medium, both being the same height.
I was at a gun store today and they had Nightforce 30mm 1.5 rings so I put them on and I like the height and the rings a lot. I don't have any way to make sure that the vertical cross hair is straight up and down at this time. The height though is a lot better for me and that's a big improvement for sure.
Do you or any of your neighbors happen to have a tire swing? If you look around your house/range can you see any radio antenna towers or giant metal utility poles? Got a piece of string you can hang from the ceiling with something tied on the end to make a plumb line?
Level your stock/chassis and then align/level your reticle with any of the above and you should be good. Gravity is gravity, and radio towers and larger metal utility poles are usually plumb.
Another thing you can do is use a carboard box and draw a crosshair with a sharpie. You will need something like an IOTA however (https://8541tactical.com/IOTA_revie... IOTA effectively,from passing into the scope.)
Place the box on the ground, about ~10-12 yards away from your rifle. Using a sharpie and a decent level with a straight edge, draw a crosshair. Get behind rifle and using the reticle, level the scope on the crosshairs.
Easy way to level inside, IMO.
Cool thank for the suggestions. I will try that them both.
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So, another technique that I find works easy and levels better than anything is, place a level on a flat spot of the gun, and then level the crosshairs to the horizon and set a scope bubble level. Horizon and scope level are what matters most. The gun and scope don't necessarily need to be balls on level to each other.
If you want the gun and scope balls on level for whatever OCD reason, you can place the gun level and look at the cross hairs through the objective lens. Crosshairs unlevel with the gun will be readily apparent.
If you want the gun and scope balls on level for whatever OCD reason, you can place the gun level and look at the cross hairs through the objective lens. Crosshairs unlevel with the gun will be readily apparent.
Do you have any form of small level, a string, and a flashlight?....
This weekend I will work on this for sure thank you all for your help.
I have a ruger precision I assume the the flat edge in the handrail would be good to level the rifle correct?
Last scope I mounted with feeler gauges between the rail and flat under the turret assembly. Easiest method by far and doesn't require heavy duty bench and hard rifle mounting.
How did you use the feeler guages?
It was in a mount but you could do similar with rings, in my case, torqued unimount to pic rail, roughly where I thought it should be for eye relief with scope turrets centred between rings, very lightly tightened rings so I could still move the scope then played with combinations of feeler blades until I found one that was snug between the flat turret base and flat on the top side of the mount. I intend to do similar with rings on a hunting rifle next week, probably best to final torque rings to rail after rings on scope I guess. I was lucky it was a straight stack in the feeler set.
Zeroed at 60 yards at home, hit a centre on F class electronic target at 800 yards straight off the balistic calculator.
If you don't have feeler gauges you can also use a deck of playing cards as well. It's close enough in a pinch and does well enough for load development and some short and mid range stuff. I use the plumb bob method with the red string that hangs down from inside my garage that attaches to the door mechanism. Ive been thinking I should draw a perfectly vertical sharpie line on the wall at the end of my reloading bench and use the ol' "flashlight through the objective trick to align the shadow of the vertical stadia with the perfectly vertical sharpie drawn on the wall at the end of my reloading bench" trick. They all get the job done. The latter two are probably the most accurate methods though.
How do you level the rifle or action to your line to that level of accuracy in your vice? Even "professional" levels I don't trust after working in a physical metrology cal lab, I'll flip them both ways on action or pic rail but you are still relying on the action drilling/surface and rail holes/fastener interface being dead on, I doubt many people at all could beat a guage block or feeler guages leveling the action by eye even with a good digital level or thousand dollar bubble to make all the flashlight finger puppet stuff meaningful.
Throw that baby up on a bag or a vice or whatever you have and get the rifle stable and level, then level the scope to whatever method you choose. On my pic rail you can use the feeler gauge/card trick method with reasonable results, but if your expecting pure excellence and long bomb shots I wouldn't do that. Also, if assuming the reticle to be straight inside your scope can lead to problems. You want it level with your method of choice, but you might find the reticle is canted in the scope. You probably won't, but sometimes they are rotated in the scope.
The reticle is the only thing that matters so food for thought there.
Then get your fancy bubble level on your scope to line up straight with your reticle as it sits clamped in your rings and lined up and level with whatever method you choose. That way the gun and the level are both set up together and are, for lack of a better word, "calibrated" to one another. I don't trust my gun to be straight relative to my scope. I do trust my scope level to show me my reticle is level.
There are a bunch of people who don't give a shiz what their gun is set up as relative to their scope and will even intentionally can't their rifle to fit their body better while shooting, but have their scope straight in that position. I'm not one of those due to my OCD tendencies, but to each their own and bless their hearts.
The reticle is the only thing that matters so food for thought there.
Then get your fancy bubble level on your scope to line up straight with your reticle as it sits clamped in your rings and lined up and level with whatever method you choose. That way the gun and the level are both set up together and are, for lack of a better word, "calibrated" to one another. I don't trust my gun to be straight relative to my scope. I do trust my scope level to show me my reticle is level.
There are a bunch of people who don't give a shiz what their gun is set up as relative to their scope and will even intentionally can't their rifle to fit their body better while shooting, but have their scope straight in that position. I'm not one of those due to my OCD tendencies, but to each their own and bless their hearts.
Worrying "Is the scope level to the rifle?" is so irrelevant.....Hold the reticle level/plumb.
Yep, geometry supports it.
I do like my scope perfectly level with the vertical axis of my gun….because I’m anal that way and I’m not talking about guns you’d shoot offhand.
But off a little on the level is not a biggy compared to canting the gun. I the Frank posted some math and dwgs illustrating this. Maybe from Jack Masters?
That doesn't work quite as well if you have any significant cant in rail/mounts or if the scope tracks true to housing not recticle axes.
I use one of these digital angle indicators to level the rifle using the scope base (no mount or scope) when it is stable on a Accu-Tac BR-4 bipod and rear sand bag. Once I have it leveled, I repeatedly bump the rifle just to ensure the readout on the digital angle indicator comes back to zero. Once I'm satisfied it will remain level during the scope mounting process, I add the mount and scope and use a plumb bob to level the reticle to gravity. Tighten up all screws and verify the reticle is inline with the plumb bob. I used to level the scope via placing the digital angle indicator on top of the elevation turret, but have recently changed my process. There are other ways, but this is what I've migrated towards.
https://www.mcmaster.com/21465A81/
https://www.mcmaster.com/21465A81/
You are REALLY over thinking this i believe...
Option 1 get behind your rifle with a bipod that can be locked out.
I like to get the rifle relatively level from front to back then simply get comfortable behind it and address the rifle. Basically lay / sit/ stand there comfortably and lock the bipod at whatever angle you naturally addressed it.
Give ZERO FOCUS on if the rail is level or if the stock is level etc
Then mount the scope level to gravity.
Option 2. Setting the rifle up in a neutral manner.
Get the rifle roughly level from front to back then use a level to compare to the butt of the stock. Once stock appears to be vertical you can "check" the rail. If the rail appears horizontal at this time then good you know it's perpendicular to the stock and a good reference.
Once you've leveled the reticle to gravity.
Go set up a target and make a long vertical line on it relative to gravity and put a dot towards the bottom of it.
Match the verticle line of your reticle up with the vertical target line as you shoot.
Keep dialing up and shooting at the dot at whatever interval you like. As long as impacts follow the line up then your reticle is also "in line" with your turrets
For a reference during the mounting process you can put one of the little clamp levels on the barrel that can be adjusted to say "level" whenever you are in the position you want the rifle to be set up. That could be at 0° or 10° though compared to whatever indicator of level you are wanting to use.
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Still, that isn't an issue.
Well, that is a defect in the scope and needs to be fixed by the mfr.
I agree that a "crooked" scope on a rifle is not optimum, but it is not a cause of accuracy issues. Keeping the reticle level/plumb when fired is the critical factor.
Only so long as you have recorded elv & wind dope or have your own script/spreadsheet account for the bore axis to scope turret axes cant and as far as I have seen all of the available calculators assume bore inclination is square to scope adjustment axes. For very small angles it's irrelevant to most people but you can't escape the mathematics.
The tilt of the rifle in relation to the horizon is irrelevant if the reticle's y axis is perpendicular to the horizon.
You can't escape the mathematics.
So many who can't wrap their head around the fact the rifle doesn't need to be level if the scope is...
Not to be argumentative, but rather a serious question I have thought about...so it occurs to me that if your gunsmith is clocking your barrel and there is a slight upward curvature 
how much of a difference would that make if the barrel is clocked vertically and the rifle is canted? I know prefits probably don't come clocked and bugholes abound, but if anyone with knowledge has something to share on this I would be interested to hear it.
how much of a difference would that make if the barrel is clocked vertically and the rifle is canted? I know prefits probably don't come clocked and bugholes abound, but if anyone with knowledge has something to share on this I would be interested to hear it. Can somebody here find Lowlight"s extensive trigonometry calculations to show this that a 1 degree canted rifle with level/plumb scope affected point of impact a couple of inches at 1K yards? I know it seems counterintuitive @Slides , but from what I remember in highschool Trig, his calcs appeared correct.
If you have 40 MOA inclination between bore axis and turrets your windage will be increasing off as distance increases. The more rifke can't the greater the horizontal bore effect too. If you have 0 degree cant between scope and bore, sure shoot the thing any way you want, lay at 45 who cares if you accept the horizontal offset effect. It's the inclination between turret scales and bore axis and horizontal offset not the actual angle of the stock/action that matters.
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Graduated mech eng with honours and worked at a physical metrology calibration lab, error is probably irrelevant for many but if someone wants to be a pedant and tell me I'm wrong on the theory I'll take offence. Doesn't hurt to do as best you can if shooting at targets with hakf MOA scoring rings.
Agree for most purposes, most people can do it by eye and it's fine.
Gross conceptual error. Go back and model the system again. You're not the only engineer in this thread.
Just for an unusual but not beyond reason example that may assist people to understand, consider a left hander buying an AR10 or 15 platform. They decide they don't like brass in the face and will run the scope on a 45degree angle and a forward grip also mounted at 45 degrees until they get a lefty rifle. Brass now passes just under their chin rifle canted right.
Let's call scope to bore measure 2.83 inches giving 2 inches horizontal offset for simplicity sake. Old mate then goes to zero at 50 yards at his local indoor range. Scope turret path and reticle is at 45 degrees to conventional vertical of the chassis but true to gravity/horizon for zeroing and use. Zero is dead nuts at 50 yards.
If you then go to 100 yards, point of impact will be 2 inches to the right of POA, at 150 yards, 4 inches, 200y 6 inches, 250y 8 inches 300 yards 10 inches.
That is definitely an edge case but it demonstrates the effect. Most people with some experience mounting a scope where they are comfortable on a rifle will probably have a very modest offset, and if zeroing at 100 yards like many here or 300y like a lot of F class it is mitigated further but it's real and depending on circumstances could make a real difference to someone if they don't understand it.
Let's call scope to bore measure 2.83 inches giving 2 inches horizontal offset for simplicity sake. Old mate then goes to zero at 50 yards at his local indoor range. Scope turret path and reticle is at 45 degrees to conventional vertical of the chassis but true to gravity/horizon for zeroing and use. Zero is dead nuts at 50 yards.
If you then go to 100 yards, point of impact will be 2 inches to the right of POA, at 150 yards, 4 inches, 200y 6 inches, 250y 8 inches 300 yards 10 inches.
That is definitely an edge case but it demonstrates the effect. Most people with some experience mounting a scope where they are comfortable on a rifle will probably have a very modest offset, and if zeroing at 100 yards like many here or 300y like a lot of F class it is mitigated further but it's real and depending on circumstances could make a real difference to someone if they don't understand it.
No one cares about scope offset because anyone who deliberately mounts their scope crooked on purpose is an idiot. You don't mount a scope to be comfortable, you mount it to be right, which means plumb/level.
Back on track with mount height...
The longer I do this the more I tend to think some of the finer aspects of rifle setup (not whether a scope should be plumb/level or not), like ring/mount height, can be more about one's personal preference. Not every rig is the same, so while some broad advice can be given when it comes to AR-type guns, with bolt guns, depending on the chassis/grip/weights, it's not nearly as cookie cutter.
Anatomy matters, if one has a giant melon, low rings/mounts are probably going to be wrong, but that doesn't mean there's no such thing as too tall, especially with certain rigs.
...like I found out yesterday, when while trying a 1.5" mount (coming from a 1.125" height one) I discovered that while it indeed gave me a more erect head position, and was easier to get square behind...the gun also felt really top heavy, and that messed with how it sat on a bag, and how it tracked under recoil... (so now I'll be trying a 1.250" height mount lol).
Back on track with mount height...
The longer I do this the more I tend to think some of the finer aspects of rifle setup (not whether a scope should be plumb/level or not), like ring/mount height, can be more about one's personal preference. Not every rig is the same, so while some broad advice can be given when it comes to AR-type guns, with bolt guns, depending on the chassis/grip/weights, it's not nearly as cookie cutter.
Anatomy matters, if one has a giant melon, low rings/mounts are probably going to be wrong, but that doesn't mean there's no such thing as too tall, especially with certain rigs.
...like I found out yesterday, when while trying a 1.5" mount (coming from a 1.125" height one) I discovered that while it indeed gave me a more erect head position, and was easier to get square behind...the gun also felt really top heavy, and that messed with how it sat on a bag, and how it tracked under recoil... (so now I'll be trying a 1.250" height mount lol).
anyone who ever messed with vintage sniper rifles, especially the Mausers, knows about too-tall mounts and how bad they are.
If I could go higher I would. Classification rules limit height to 1.5” or less, these rings made by Mohr accuracy are at 1.450” from receiver rail to bottom of scope tube. This was kind of a breakthrough moment for me in shooting standing unsupported offhand silhouette, getting my head more vertical ( body mechanics) helped get me to the top of AAA scores. Knocking on master scores, just not quite there yet in total game focus, I’m a very lazy shooter.
some guys do use canted rifle holds, but their scopes are rotated in the rings to remain plumb
some guys do use canted rifle holds, but their scopes are rotated in the rings to remain plumb
I'm still curious to see this model with which magically cancels any horizontal offsets.
Again, no one cares that you're confused. Truly no one gives a shit about your lack of understanding.
If you are confident in your "model" post it up buddy. As you said, plenty of engineers on here.
Imagine telling everyone you are an engineer and not comprehending what would be, what, junior high in North America, geometry?
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A bread sandwich was attempted…
This one?
Gunsmithing - Scope level to a rifle
Reading over this resurrected thread got me thinking. And that's not always the best place for me. It's obvious that the only thing that matters is that the reticle is level when the shot is taken. The rifle could be canted a few degrees and as long as it was zeroed in that position with a level...
www.snipershide.com 
