Zero Stop loses elevation in scope

[Arken7mm]

I've been reading reviews on scopes from bigjimfish and from other reviewers and customers about different scopes and noticed that on some scopes that their zero stop feature limits the internal elevation in the scope. So, if a scope manufacturer says their scope has 100 MOA / 27 Mil of internal elevation adjustment that is usually BEFORE the zero stop was set/screwed in place by the buyer. After the zero stop adjustment is set it is well below 100 MOA / 37 Mil.

Here is a small list of some scopes below that have this problem...

Vortex Strike Eagle 5-25×56 34mm:
Internal elevation: 110 MOR or 32 Mil...

A reviewer wrote this about the Vortex Strike Eagle 5-25×56: “This design has a small disadvantage. When the RevStop™ ring is inserted, a bit of the elevation range gets lost. It goes from 110 MOA to 47 MOA when the zero stop is used so you lose over 60% of the available elevation, I’d call that a lot more than a bit! The fact that Vortex isn’t putting that info anywhere but hiding it in the manual, is extremely misleading knowing that customers are absolutely going to want to use the zero stop feature."


Meopta Optika 6 5-30x56...
Internal elevation: 110 MOA / 32 Mils

bigjimfish: "The zero stop on the Optika6 scopes is a unique system. I have illustrated how to change it in the illustration below. You will note that, due to its unique cog-based system, use of the zero stop system will limit the maximum elevation range to a little less than three full revolutions. This comes out to somewhere around 28 mils total travel, which is a lot."

BigJimFish's Meopta Optika6 5-30x56 RD FFP Scope Review

BigJimFish Reviews Meopta Optika6 5-30x56 RD FFP zero stop scope as part of the Sub $1k Optics review series.

www.snipershide.com

Bushnell Match Pro ED 5-30x56...
Internal elevation: 103 MOA / 30 Mil

bigjimfish: "I would also add a little more movement range to the zero stop system to increase the travel, as it currently maxes out at 26 mils. This could possibly limit your travel a bit as the scope has about 29.4 mils of internal travel. Given all the factors involved in mounting and such, in practice it is vanishing unlikely too limit you in practice, but in theory, it could."

Review of the Bushnell Match Pro ED 5-30x56mm Rifle Scope

BigJimFish reviews the new Bushnell Match Pro ED 5-30x56mm Rifle Scope

www.snipershide.com

I have a couple questions...

Are there any scopes out there that once the zero stop is enabled/set that it does not limit or effect the scopes' internal elevation? Is there a way to set a zero stop in the scope to not effect internal elevation? Do you set it below 0 like a -0.5 or something? I'm ignorant on how that works.

Is zero stop really that important to have? Is it necessary? I personally would like all the internal elevation adjustment I can get since I will be shooting past 2000+ yards with 300 PRC with a 40 MOA base and not want to lose my zero at 100 yards. I would need a scope with at least 100 MOA / 27 Mil of internal elevation adjustment for that.

 

[Don'tnegotiatew/terrorist]

I see on your sig pic the Arken symbol.
My EP-5 does'nt lose any elevation adjustment when using the Arken Zero Stop feature.
The feature just brings you quickly and reliably back to your (in my case) 100 yard zero to make adjustments from there.
No guessing just crank it down to stop........... Don't know if that helps?

 

[Ikeman83]

Any scope that is able to dial through the full range of adjustment with a multi-rotation turret will lose elevation when the zero stop is set. Any Scope.

The manufacturer is giving you the full range of adjustment.

With a 0 MOA mount you will get roughly 1/2 of the total range.
With a 20 MOA mount you will get roughly 1/2 of the total range + 20 MOA, as long as 1/2 the range is more than 20 MOA.
With a 40 MOA mount you will get roughly 1/2 of the total range + 40 MOA, as long as 1/2 the range is more than 40 MOA.

The only cases where you won't see this are on single rotation or rotation limited turrets, in which case you will always only get that rev amount or less if you run into end of range first.

 

[Slides]

I've been reading reviews on scopes from bigjimfish and from other reviewers and customers about different scopes and noticed that on some scopes that their zero stop feature limits the internal elevation in the scope. So, if a scope manufacturer says their scope has 100 MOA / 27 Mil of internal elevation adjustment that is usually BEFORE the zero stop was set/screwed in place by the buyer. After the zero stop adjustment is set it is well below 100 MOA / 37 Mil.

Here is a small list of some scopes below that have this problem...

Vortex Strike Eagle 5-25×56 34mm:
Internal elevation: 110 MOR or 32 Mil...

A reviewer wrote this about the Vortex Strike Eagle 5-25×56: “This design has a small disadvantage. When the RevStop™ ring is inserted, a bit of the elevation range gets lost. It goes from 110 MOA to 47 MOA when the zero stop is used so you lose over 60% of the available elevation, I’d call that a lot more than a bit! The fact that Vortex isn’t putting that info anywhere but hiding it in the manual, is extremely misleading knowing that customers are absolutely going to want to use the zero stop feature."


Meopta Optika 6 5-30x56...
Internal elevation: 110 MOA / 32 Mils

bigjimfish: "The zero stop on the Optika6 scopes is a unique system. I have illustrated how to change it in the illustration below. You will note that, due to its unique cog-based system, use of the zero stop system will limit the maximum elevation range to a little less than three full revolutions. This comes out to somewhere around 28 mils total travel, which is a lot."

BigJimFish's Meopta Optika6 5-30x56 RD FFP Scope Review

BigJimFish Reviews Meopta Optika6 5-30x56 RD FFP zero stop scope as part of the Sub $1k Optics review series.

www.snipershide.com

Bushnell Match Pro ED 5-30x56...
Internal elevation: 103 MOA / 30 Mil

bigjimfish: "I would also add a little more movement range to the zero stop system to increase the travel, as it currently maxes out at 26 mils. This could possibly limit your travel a bit as the scope has about 29.4 mils of internal travel. Given all the factors involved in mounting and such, in practice it is vanishing unlikely too limit you in practice, but in theory, it could."

Review of the Bushnell Match Pro ED 5-30x56mm Rifle Scope

BigJimFish reviews the new Bushnell Match Pro ED 5-30x56mm Rifle Scope

www.snipershide.com

I have a couple questions...

Are there any scopes out there that once the zero stop is enabled/set that it does not limit or effect the scopes' internal elevation? Is there a way to set a zero stop in the scope to not effect internal elevation? Do you set it below 0 like a -0.5 or something? I'm ignorant on how that works.

Is zero stop really that important to have? Is it necessary? I personally would like all the internal elevation adjustment I can get since I will be shooting past 2000+ yards with 300 PRC with a 40 MOA base and not want to lose my zero at 100 yards. I would need a scope with at least 100 MOA / 27 Mil of internal elevation adjustment for that.

If it's a scope with 28+ mil internal you want a unimount with another 20MOA or or more (or just cry once and buy an eratac adjustable so you know you can get very close to absolute elevation bottom) if you are concerned about losing available elevation. You don't need a zero stop with half a turn or less elevation adjustment below zero as it's easy to find zero from the limit.

Assuming no significant anomalies with your barrel, action or rail the 40MOA mount will only have you around 6MIL below the middle of scope adjustment range, so if you want to have more available you need to cant the scope more.

 

[Ikeman83]

If it's a scope with 28+ mil internal you want a unimount with another 20MOA or or more (or just cry once and buy an eratac adjustable so you know you can get very close to absolute elevation bottom) if you are concerned about losing available elevation. You don't need a zero stop with half a turn or less elevation adjustment below zero as it's easy to find zero from the limit.

Assuming no significant anomalies with your barrel, action or rail the 40MOA mount will only have you around 6MIL below the middle of scope adjustment range, so if you want to have more available you need to cant the scope more.

Every 20 MOA is equal to 5.88 mil, so a 40 MOA mount will be about 12 mil below center.

 

[Gohring65]

If you don’t have enough angle in your base to use all the available elevation travel, then not using the zero stop is null. I run several of my scopes with Burris xtr rings and 20-30 moa rails. I use the appropriate inserts to put me near the bottom of the elevation travel where I don’t need the zero stop. This does two things that’s a pro and con. The con on less than perfect glass is it puts my 100 yard zero near the edge of the lenses, this can make the image less than ideal, the good thing is it’s at 100 yards so image quality can suffer some and still be pretty precise, the pro is it puts the crosshairs near the center of the lenses when dialed up at 1000 and beyond, giving me the best possible image quality where I need it way out there.

 

[Slides]

Every 20 MOA is equal to 5.88 mil, so a 40 MOA mount will be about 12 mil below center.

So you have never actually mounted a scope yourself and checked the elevation range above and below zero? Don't comment if you don't have a clue. I have mounted and zeroed over a dozen scopes on rail/mount combinations with various inbuilt cant. Something in the order of 20MOA/6/7 milliradians with most actions/scope/ring/unimount combinations will put you around centre of internal scope elevation range for usual bolt gun setups. If you had actually done the work and tested it you would understand what I was talking about and not be a know all pedant about unit conversion to someone who worked in physical metrology at a national calibration laboratory.

 

[Slides]

If you don’t have enough angle in your base to use all the available elevation travel, then not using the zero stop is null. I run several of my scopes with Burris xtr rings and 20-30 moa rails. I use the appropriate inserts to put me near the bottom of the elevation travel where I don’t need the zero stop. This does two things that’s a pro and con. The con on less than perfect glass is it puts my 100 yard zero near the edge of the lenses, this can make the image less than ideal, the good thing is it’s at 100 yards so image quality can suffer some and still be pretty precise, the pro is it puts the crosshairs near the center of the lenses when dialed up at 1000 and beyond, giving me the best possible image quality where I need it way out there.

You can tell who actually understands what's going on and the systemic effects. Clearly some people think you magically get the full internal elevation range on top of wherever you set zero.

With a 30mm tube scope with reasonable magnification zero stop and range van genuinely matter, you should be trying to mount it very close to the elevation limit. If it's 34mm+ tube 30x or less max magnification very few people will have enough cant in their mounting combination that restrictions imposed by a zero mechanism actually impinge available internal adjustment, 95% of you will hit the physical elevation range limit before say the Meopta gear swivel hits the ring notch on the 3rd turn.

 

[Supersubes]

So you have never actually mounted a scope yourself and checked the elevation range above and below zero? Don't comment if you don't have a clue. I have mounted and zeroed over a dozen scopes on rail/mount combinations with various inbuilt cant. Something in the order of 20MOA/6/7 milliradians with most actions/scope/ring/unimount combinations will put you around centre of internal scope elevation range for usual bolt gun setups. If you had actually done the work and tested it you would understand what I was talking about and not be a know all pedant about unit conversion to someone who worked in physical metrology at a national calibration laboratory.

Youre joking, right? You into concrete work? Any bow kills?

 

[Slides]

Youre joking, right? You into concrete work? Any bow kills?

Given ammunition choice and if you load the weight of your head into a cheek piece or not can move vertical on zero by 2 MOA, yes, carrying on about 0.1xx milliradians on a zero without considering bore offset or a bunch of other stuff and not understanding that a scope isn't always either at bottom or middle of internal adjustment range when you plonk it on any particular rifle system is moronic, especially attempting to correct someone when you are wrong.

 

[Ikeman83]

Given ammunition choice and if you load the weight of your head into a cheek piece or not can move vertical on zero by 2 MOA, yes, carrying on about 0.1xx milliradians on a zero without considering bore offset or a bunch of other stuff and not understanding that a scope isn't always either at bottom or middle of internal adjustment range when you plonk it on any particular rifle system is moronic, especially attempting to correct someone when you are wrong.

Generally speaking, a scope on a 0 MOA base will zero near optical center, and for every 20 MOA in your base you'll be around that far below optical center. Bore offset is minimal, however having a suppressor on your rifle can be a good sized shift. Where you happen to be when you start is irrelevant to your position relative to optical center.

Not sure why anything I posted merited this response, I assumed that you'd made a typo.

Edit:

Took a look at 3 scopes that have 20, 20, and 30 MOA mounts, and they are:

20: 4 mils below center
20: 5 mils below center
30: 7 mils below center

Which is unsurprisingly very close to the 6, 6, and 9 mils below center that I set them to after I mounted them before taking them to the range to zero.

 

[MO Fugga]

Has anyone put their zero stop ring through a bandsaw to eke out another few mils? This should the place to find it lol.

 

[DFOOSKING]

Most target scopes do not limit access to available travel once a canted rail/mount are used. It is counterproductive to limit access at the top end.

Most guys are more focused on the issue hitting the bottom.

Odds are it is a scope catering more towards the hunting crowd than the PRS/Tactical shooting crowd. I think the Leupold CDS turret equipped optics actually limit access on the top end once the zero stop is set. But don't quote me on that.

Most PRS guys are running fast efficiently running cartridges....so 10 mils of available travel covers 99% of their match needs. Unless they are Westerners and Midwesterners who face a 1300yd shot once or twice at a match. Most I've ever needed at a match was 19.5 mils on my 308.

 

[Megalodong]

So you have never actually mounted a scope yourself and checked the elevation range above and below zero? Don't comment if you don't have a clue. I have mounted and zeroed over a dozen scopes on rail/mount combinations with various inbuilt cant. Something in the order of 20MOA/6/7 milliradians with most actions/scope/ring/unimount combinations will put you around centre of internal scope elevation range for usual bolt gun setups. If you had actually done the work and tested it you would understand what I was talking about and not be a know all pedant about unit conversion to someone who worked in physical metrology at a national calibration laboratory.

Over a dozen?!?!?!? you must be like a pro or something huh??