Building a 338 Norma Mag to shoot to 1 mile. What power scope do you recommend?
Range reports welcome.
I'm thinking Leupold Mark4 ERT 8.5-25 x 50mm.
Range reports welcome.
I'm thinking Leupold Mark4 ERT 8.5-25 x 50mm.
Rifle Scopes What power scope for 338 to 1 mile?
- Thread starter garandman
- Start date
Nightforce atacr, sent a pm on brass too
Remember this. It's important.
A top end of 20-25x is a good place to be as far as power. It's enough to see the targets but also not too much which would limit your internal travel as most of the higher power scopes have less travel than most 20-25x scopes. As an example I used a NF 5.5-22x on a Chey Tac to hit out to 2500 yards and I was only on 17x.
What's your price range?
Zoom is less important than glass quality and total travel of the reticle. Higher zoom is nice but mirage can be killer.
Like others have said, don't skimp here. Nightforce nsx would be the lowest quality glass i would consider. A good scope between that and Schmidt/march is the nightforce ATACR. Top end glass, but made affordable by keeping it second focal/no bells n whistles.
Like others have said, don't skimp here. Nightforce nsx would be the lowest quality glass i would consider. A good scope between that and Schmidt/march is the nightforce ATACR. Top end glass, but made affordable by keeping it second focal/no bells n whistles.
$2K
Gotta be FFP.
Would love commentary on Leup Mark 4 ERT mentioned above. I'm a Leup fan, and my Mark4 6.5-20 ERT is excellent glass. As indicated, I need to find out if the 8.5-25 FFP Mark4 has enuf internal adjustment.
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That Leupold has 70 MOA of elevation. Run your numbers and see if it will be enough. Figure a 30 MOA base and you should have about 60-65 MOA in a perfect world where you don't use alot of windage to zero the scope. Dropping to the 6.5-20 doesn't help as it has 70 MOA as well.
Mark 4 ER/T 8.5-25x50mm (30mm) M1 Front Focal - Leupold | Leupold
Have you looked at the Vortex Razor 5-20x50? 125 MOA of elevation, FFP, very good reticles and very good glass and under $2k.
Mark 4 ER/T 8.5-25x50mm (30mm) M1 Front Focal - Leupold | Leupold
Have you looked at the Vortex Razor 5-20x50? 125 MOA of elevation, FFP, very good reticles and very good glass and under $2k.
Vortex Razor at 3650 yds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPbQ3SYpXpY&feature=player_embedded
Billy Carter made this shot a few months ago with a 375 cheytac, and the Vortex Razor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPbQ3SYpXpY&feature=player_embedded
Billy Carter made this shot a few months ago with a 375 cheytac, and the Vortex Razor.
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I have used an S&B 5-25 pmII, a Vortex Razor 5-20, and a Trijicon 5-20 on my 338. The S&B had the best glass. The Trijicon had the best eye relief (4"). The Razor had the second best eye relief 3.9" My S&B had a p4f ret. The Trijicon had Mildot ret (dots the size of basketballs). The Razor had an EBR 2B ret. All things considered, eye relief, reticle, elevation range and ffp vs sfp, my favorite scope for my 338 is the Razor.
If at all possible I would recommend you come up with another $500 and buy an "open box" Steiner from Camera Land.
These are new $3250 MAP scopes for $2500 shipped.
Alpha glass, MSR reticle, etc.
Zen Ray - CameraLand NY
Joe
These are new $3250 MAP scopes for $2500 shipped.
Alpha glass, MSR reticle, etc.
Zen Ray - CameraLand NY
Joe
Consider the new Kahles 624i with the AMR (Advanced Milling Reticle):
? View topic - In the Building....
? View topic - In the Building....
i would recommend the atacr as well, it's great for this particular purpose
Takes the ATACR out of the mix. Maybe someday NF will give the people what they want but not yet.
I have a Mark 4 ERT 6.5x20 with the H58 and love it. I have no place to shoot 1 mile but its works good to 1200 yards so i'll bet the 8.5 x 25 work great. Are you active Military or LEO? if so Leupold will offer some awesome discounts.
My pick for my 338 was a Premier 5-25x56. I am very happy with the optic. FFP, good glass, good warranty and service, and I love the reticle. But seeing as your budget is $2k is drops a Premier out of the running. On that budget the Vortex is as good as it gets. Take Robs advice and get a Razor, you will not be dissappointed.
How far from being widely available is this reticle ? It looks Good.
Id worry more on elevetion travel thsn magnification
i use a 20x, no issues, on a 12x12" target
+1. I love the ability to either dial a hold, use the grid, or a combination of the two.
You could do the dial/hold combo on any mil-based reticle. I personally think the Horus reticles excel at it thanks to their grid pattern.
Another thing to think of though...If you're shooting at a mile, you'll probably be using close to all of you magnification. If your scope is FFP, you'll lose some of that useful reticle. Just checked my MK4 6.5-20x. At min power, you have the full reticle (22 mils) visible. At max power, the 8.8 mil hash mark is at the bottom. Due to the angle of looking through the glass, I'd say only 8 mils of it would really be useful. You'd have to find the right balance of magnification and hold over required.
Agree with IKE, you need to find the right balance of magnification and holdover/elevation, otherwise you may end up with an unfavourable combination.
I usually only shoot up to 1,500 meters, but recently shot a mile in Hungary and had to turn down the magnification to about 34x to be able to see enough hashmarks for a 4 mil holdover (with clicked elevation 17,2 mils on the March for a total of 21,2 mils -note: this is a .338 Lapua Magnum in which I'm running a relatively hot ammo). On my old Savage 110BA topped first with Premier 5-25x and then S&B 5-25x I could click all the way for a mile and use maximum magnification (unless the mirage was really bad), however lower-cost riflescopes usually don't have as much elevation available as these top dogs. As an extreme example, when I was shooting with .308Win at 1,500 meters I had to use maximum elevation on the Premier with 40moa sloped base and still had to dial down to only 8x power to be able to use the hashmark all the way down on the thick stadia line of the reticle for holdover...
Anyway, what you also need to consider is that usually you want to zero your scope at about a third of the way down of the elevation (if you use a lot of slope/angle in your mounts/base and zero your scope all the way at the bottom, it does give you the full elevation range as specified by the manufacturer of the scope, however you lose a lot of optic clarity, you gain the 'moon circle', your parallax adjustment for close range - hundred to couple hundred meters - will be quite poor, and many scopes also tend to have slightly differing clicks at the extremes of scope adjustment (all the way down and all the way up, they are usually a bit shorter - i.e. 0.1 mil in the normal adjustments, but only 0.095-0.09 mil at the extremes). Same also goes for the opposite extreme - when you click all the way up to maximum elevation, your sight picture often starts to deteriorate, your clicks might not be absolutely exact (which at these distances makes quite a difference), so you may want to dial down a bit and then rather use more holdover (dial down to the 'small mils' and then use full mils for holdover - in my example above, my March FX has 24mils/66moa theoretical elevation available, but with A.I. AX338's 30moa angled rail (and no additional angle in scope mount) zeroed for 100 meters I could practically dial 18 mils of useful elevation, for a mile on that day I needed 21,2 mils elevation, so I dialled 17,2 mils and used 4 mil holdover (this way you aim with a 'cross' of reticle hashmarks).
Bottom line - check your ballistics - how much elevation will you need with your 338 Norma Mag load to get to a mile (up to 1k its similar to 338LM, but over 1k the slight difference starts to show), then check whether the scope will have enough travel - what elevation you will have available will depend on how much moa-angled base/mounts you will use and whether you will zero at 100 or more. On paper the Leupy you are considering should have just enough elevation, but after mounting/zeroing you may end up with only 50 or even less moa available, and you will need quite a bit of holdover. In this case FFP really helps to avoid all the re-calculations with magnification changes, but if you have to go down too much with the magnification you won't be able to be very accurate. Since holdovers are in general not very good for accuracy (which you will need for one mile shots), if you plan on shooting a mile accurately or often, you might want to consider something with 120moa or more (theoretical) elevation. Above mentioned ATACR and Vortex Razor both fulfill this criteria, but you lose FFP, so instead you perhaps could consider second-hand S&B, Premier, or other top optics (for these distances you really need top quality optics, and you would probably end up getting one of the 'big boys' eventually anyway).
Good luck and safe shooting!
Gunslinger
P.S.: Sorry for the longer post, here's a pic of the shooting mentioned above:
I usually only shoot up to 1,500 meters, but recently shot a mile in Hungary and had to turn down the magnification to about 34x to be able to see enough hashmarks for a 4 mil holdover (with clicked elevation 17,2 mils on the March for a total of 21,2 mils -note: this is a .338 Lapua Magnum in which I'm running a relatively hot ammo). On my old Savage 110BA topped first with Premier 5-25x and then S&B 5-25x I could click all the way for a mile and use maximum magnification (unless the mirage was really bad), however lower-cost riflescopes usually don't have as much elevation available as these top dogs. As an extreme example, when I was shooting with .308Win at 1,500 meters I had to use maximum elevation on the Premier with 40moa sloped base and still had to dial down to only 8x power to be able to use the hashmark all the way down on the thick stadia line of the reticle for holdover...
Anyway, what you also need to consider is that usually you want to zero your scope at about a third of the way down of the elevation (if you use a lot of slope/angle in your mounts/base and zero your scope all the way at the bottom, it does give you the full elevation range as specified by the manufacturer of the scope, however you lose a lot of optic clarity, you gain the 'moon circle', your parallax adjustment for close range - hundred to couple hundred meters - will be quite poor, and many scopes also tend to have slightly differing clicks at the extremes of scope adjustment (all the way down and all the way up, they are usually a bit shorter - i.e. 0.1 mil in the normal adjustments, but only 0.095-0.09 mil at the extremes). Same also goes for the opposite extreme - when you click all the way up to maximum elevation, your sight picture often starts to deteriorate, your clicks might not be absolutely exact (which at these distances makes quite a difference), so you may want to dial down a bit and then rather use more holdover (dial down to the 'small mils' and then use full mils for holdover - in my example above, my March FX has 24mils/66moa theoretical elevation available, but with A.I. AX338's 30moa angled rail (and no additional angle in scope mount) zeroed for 100 meters I could practically dial 18 mils of useful elevation, for a mile on that day I needed 21,2 mils elevation, so I dialled 17,2 mils and used 4 mil holdover (this way you aim with a 'cross' of reticle hashmarks).
Bottom line - check your ballistics - how much elevation will you need with your 338 Norma Mag load to get to a mile (up to 1k its similar to 338LM, but over 1k the slight difference starts to show), then check whether the scope will have enough travel - what elevation you will have available will depend on how much moa-angled base/mounts you will use and whether you will zero at 100 or more. On paper the Leupy you are considering should have just enough elevation, but after mounting/zeroing you may end up with only 50 or even less moa available, and you will need quite a bit of holdover. In this case FFP really helps to avoid all the re-calculations with magnification changes, but if you have to go down too much with the magnification you won't be able to be very accurate. Since holdovers are in general not very good for accuracy (which you will need for one mile shots), if you plan on shooting a mile accurately or often, you might want to consider something with 120moa or more (theoretical) elevation. Above mentioned ATACR and Vortex Razor both fulfill this criteria, but you lose FFP, so instead you perhaps could consider second-hand S&B, Premier, or other top optics (for these distances you really need top quality optics, and you would probably end up getting one of the 'big boys' eventually anyway).
Good luck and safe shooting!
Gunslinger
P.S.: Sorry for the longer post, here's a pic of the shooting mentioned above:
What would be good scope for a ruger 300 PRC. For a MILE shot
I hope to use my newly acquired S&B PMII 3-27 out to a mile one day. Did I compromise?
100 percent. Bender is brown glass and known for failures.
ZCO or Nightforce. Everything else is trash
That seems awfully flat for that combination even at my elevation.
In fact it is close to my 338 edge with full boogie loads with solids with a better BC and a 200+ fps speed advantage.
Maybe special necropost loads?
You sure you didn’t mean to type 18.1 mils?
Have you confirmed this dope?
I’m getting 17.1 mils at 2850fps at 800 ASL.
He is running a 30 MOA rail.
That will have no affect on total elevation dialed. I have a 30 moa rail and I still need to dial 18.1 mils from 100 yard zero confirmed thru drop data.
That's what happens when I don't get enough sleep
All good man!That's what happens when I don't get enough sleep
Back to the OP's question... I think 20x would get it done, probably 18x. I think a good general rule for steel targets (maybe it's only my rule?) is 1x per 100 yards as a minimum. Of course it depends on target size. I've shot 18" wide targets with 27x and had no issues. I prefer something in the high 20's. The benefit of the extra zoom is it will help you spot impacts better.
I run a 45 moa rail but as stated below that has no bearing on how much come up you will need
Yes, massive amount of magnification isn’t needing for ELR
Here’s a 338 Norma we were shooting out to 2500+ with a 4x16 Hensoldt
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