I purchased a Bushnell Elite 6500 4.5-30x50mm and a Leupold 1-piece picatinny rail mount to go on top of my Rem 700 5r. The Elite supposedly has 50moa of elevation/windage adjustment range, so with the 20moa rail, I was expecting to have around 45 moa of adjustment to get the projectile to near 1000 yds (playing it close, I know) -> 50moa/2 (where optical zero exists; the point at which the line of site and bore are parallel) - 20moa (rail slant) = 5moa of additional upwards adjustment remaining, and 45moa in the down direction. If I use 2 or 3 moa of adjustment to get the 100yd zero, then I'd expect to have more like 7 or 8moa at the top end remaining.
After zeroing the rifle at 100 yds, I found a few things that were surprising: 1) the scope actually has 52 moa of elevatoin range (not *that* surprising), 2) There is almost 16moa of upwards adjustment remaining instead of 7-8moa, like I would have expected. The rail is a Leupold Mark 4 picatinny (model 59235), and I can't find solid information online about how much cant this rail has to it; I've seen both 1/4degreee (15moa) and 20moa in different places. The package the rail came in says nothing about the cant.
Am I mis-calculating, is the rail really not 20moa, or do these sorts of errors lie within the realm of normal manufacturing variances?
After zeroing the rifle at 100 yds, I found a few things that were surprising: 1) the scope actually has 52 moa of elevatoin range (not *that* surprising), 2) There is almost 16moa of upwards adjustment remaining instead of 7-8moa, like I would have expected. The rail is a Leupold Mark 4 picatinny (model 59235), and I can't find solid information online about how much cant this rail has to it; I've seen both 1/4degreee (15moa) and 20moa in different places. The package the rail came in says nothing about the cant.
Am I mis-calculating, is the rail really not 20moa, or do these sorts of errors lie within the realm of normal manufacturing variances?