Rifle Scopes Scopes, Mounts, and Levels, oh my!

[Flyboy22]

Sorry for the corny title.

I wanted to ask for your opinion on the dreaded mounting of the optic.

In a perfect world: Reticle is level with the GUN and the WORLD when shooting. Many people adamantly insist the reticle must be level with the gun for accuracy. On the other hand, some instructors (ie Todd Hodnett in Art of the Precision Rifle) say that the only thing that matters is the reticle being level with the world. As a technical person the second argument makes sense to me. For the experts: how important is it for the reticle to be exactly level with the rifle itself?

This brings us to mounting. Is it enough to place levels on the turrets, scope mount, and rifle and simply get them all lined up? Or is it more accurate to use the string hanging from the ceiling technique to line up the reticle in the rings? Do gunsmiths have equipment that makes paying them for this better than doing it yourself?

Lastly, I want to mount a level to the scope (Accuracy 1st level to PMII 5-25 w/Bobro QD). Do you recommend placing it in front of or behind the turrets? And finally, how do you make the level be LEVEL with reticle? (string method?)

Learning, one outrageously long post at a time... Thanks for all your help.

 

[Temp9]

Level with the world is what you want. The only thing that will change by not having the in level is that the bore will be slightly offset horizontally. Zeroing the gun will make any effects from the horizontal offset negligible. By extension, leveling your base and rings is unnecessary.

I prefer to mount my bubble level in front of the turret (closer to the muzzle). This only works if the level is large enough to see over your turrets. If it isn't, mount it in on the ocular side. I level the reticle to a plum line, then adjust the bubble to match.

 

[Captain Kirk]

The reticle being level with the horizontal and verticle axis is criticle,. For proper tracking or holdovers you are relying on the reticle and rifle being true on axis, and it is also important that the rifle and optic be level with one another. To argue which one is more "critical", reticle from a tracking standpoint, but why not ensure the rifle/optic are level when mounted?

Kirk R