As I was going shooting the other day, my scope took a decent bump on the side on the way out. I didn't think much of it at the time, as I thought I had a pretty durable setup. It's a remington 700, EGW base, TPS rings, and an IOR 3-18 FFP scope. I set up shooting at 100 yards, shot a group, and found that my zero was around 3" left. As a test, I wacked the scope on the right side of the objective and then it groups about 5" to the right. It's hard to quantify, but I'd estimate the force of my wack to be similar to what it might sustain if the gun dropped 5" and landed on the objective. So, I swapped rings, scopes, and guns, and I was able to reproduce the problem in every configuration.
So, I thought I'd run this test on other guns. In testing 7-8 different rifle/scope's, they all moved to some degree, ranging from 1-6". And we're not talking barska scopes and $10 rings. Scopes were a couple Leupold mark4's, varix-3, zeiss conquest, IOR, falcon menace, Nikon buckmasters. Most of the rings were TPS, with a warne and leupold in there. The setup that moved the least (only about 1.5"), was a DPMS SASS with yankee hill riser, tps rings, and mark4 scope.
So I guess my question is, is what's a reasonable expectation of a rifle/scope setup hold zero under impact? You certainly want to have confidence that your rifle wont change zero just from the common jolts it may receive in transport. Real-life anecdotes would be appreciated. Thanks
So, I thought I'd run this test on other guns. In testing 7-8 different rifle/scope's, they all moved to some degree, ranging from 1-6". And we're not talking barska scopes and $10 rings. Scopes were a couple Leupold mark4's, varix-3, zeiss conquest, IOR, falcon menace, Nikon buckmasters. Most of the rings were TPS, with a warne and leupold in there. The setup that moved the least (only about 1.5"), was a DPMS SASS with yankee hill riser, tps rings, and mark4 scope.
So I guess my question is, is what's a reasonable expectation of a rifle/scope setup hold zero under impact? You certainly want to have confidence that your rifle wont change zero just from the common jolts it may receive in transport. Real-life anecdotes would be appreciated. Thanks