Scopes: What’s the Deal on the Deal?

I have trued and mounted the Leapers scopes using the below method.

I got 2 leapers scopes 😮
Made a jig with an unused tri rail leveled & mounted in a vice.
Used bubble level for leveling, I don’t think this is critical.
Mounted accushot rings at the very rear end, basically very close together.
Used vinyl decal lining in place of the sticky cloth tape.
Used grease inside the rings on the vinyl decal.
Its not critical that the rings line up 100% for this purpose.
Mounted the problem scope 4-16×50 with screwd up turrets and lost zero.

The scope was mounted so the turrets hung off the back end to clear for 360 degrees rotation.
The only problem was that when rotated care was needed to not slide the scope fore and aft.
Clamp the mounts for a firm hold but to be able to rotate.
The vice holds evrything in place quite well. Care needs to be used, to not upset this setup.
Set up a target at 20 yards and adjusted the sight pic.
Started to adjust and reference the cross. What I actually found was, if you can not get pinpoint hold when rotating the scope try to get the smallest amount of offset. Has to be acceptable for such a cheap scope. I did both scopes this way, 4-16×50 and poor me, 6-24×50. I also had to mount a pair of new B-Square medium airsport mounts to the TSS.
Bought a 1′ solid alloy rod, polished it and cut about 215mm 8-1/4″.
Used this to mount the rings.
Worked out the eye relief and ring spacing with the scope loosely mounted, marked these positions on the rifle’s rail.
This is for repositioning the rings as no firm clamping is done at this stage.

Popped the alloy bar in place, tightened the rings down on the bar using a feeler guage.
Feeler is used to keep gaps even between upper and lower clamp.
Then tightened the rings onto the rail.
Gave the rings a minor lap with 2000 grit (one layer with masking tape on edges) to check for high spots.
Only rest the bar in lower rings and rotate a little back and forth. This will show up any issues with the rings, decent rings are porbably a good thing. The narrow rings are possibly more forgiving however, I like the wide rings as they are designed to spread the clamping load on a wider area, if mounted properly.
The rings looked pretty good after a tickle with 2000 grit, there were no real high spots to worry about.
That bar was really helpful as a ring alignment aid and for lapping.
Oh yeh clean the silicone grease off the scope tube before mounting it! Finally mount the scope and use a feeler guage to get even clamping between upper and lower rings.
Use the string line to get the vertical hair vertical.
Use a bubble level to level the rifle.
Go and see where the pellets go !!!
I have not concluded what has to be done from here.
After mounting and testing, it was shooting about 4-1/2 dots low and 4 dots left @ 20 Yards. I do not have a range so will read some more posts on here and work out what to do.
Maybe the previous posts about shimming the rings onto the rail, or shimming the scope in the rings will do it.
It is obvious to me after what I did, it would not be ideal to introduce any tweak or uneven load on the scope tube.
The other options, bend the rail, Pffft lol.
Again can’t be sure if its the rail or the scope, being a Leapers. So might just have to go try different ranges and click it out.

Not odd at all. The finances were, and are, not a concern for me, even at $800 (though I think that they were less when I bought it, so maybe $650) and I was told that it was an awesome scope so I thought “okay, why not?”. I can say that, having owned that quality of scope, for the majority of shooting it is just a waste. Let’s be honest here – most people cannot outshoot their $300 airguns, so what makes them think that they have a need for a $300 or more scope? I’m not saying that having an expensive, fantastic scope is a bad thing, just that I think that for most people, myself definitely included, it is a luxury and not a necessity.

I have a 10x power Leupold mark AR with target turrents . It comes with lifetime guarantee .

You really dont need the xtrra power unless your seriously shooting field target .

the glass is good , the repeatability of the clicks are excellent and I especially like the lightness of the scope . its very very light .

I use BKL mounts which are pricey, but excellent . never had an issue even on my 350 magnum .

I paid just over 300 for it .

I can have Leupold install any reticule or future reticule on it .

it will hold its value for years . Its an all round good buy .

my next scope is going to be between the Bushnell 4200 and Wonders optics WOTAC scope.(because I cant afford a better Leupold LOL)

The Bushnell is well established and is a good scope for the money .

The Wotac is made by Matt Wonders , (an American made scope)

and has most of the things that are important for the serious shooter , the reticules are mil dot and MOA side focus 30 mm tube and the tracking is repeatable.

it also comes with a lifetime guarantee, and he will repair it if there is anything wrong with it .
sniper central ran a box test and on it and gave it an overall good review and said that the glass is comparable to a Leupold.

for around 300 bucks with a lifetime guarantee , it sounds like a good deal . at least Im going to get one myself.

http://www.sightwonders.com/wotac.html

Dont buy a leapers if your a serious air gunner. or you’ll buy another one in a year or two . they dont track worth a shit , and thier glass is not the best, in high power anyway.and thier resale value is low.

I had one and it broke within a year .

the good shooters say you should pay as much for your scope as you did for your gun. the reason being that a cheap scope will not maximize the performance of the rifle .

If you paid 600 your your rifle and put an eighty dollar scope on it , your not going to get the performance as if you put at least 400 dollar scope on it .

With Tron on this one. I’ve spent 310 quid on my MTC Viper top of the range jobbie, and its probably too much scope for the rifle. At 100 yards its nice to be able to go up to x24(of a possible x32) and have a half decent picture, but when out hunting, which is what I do most, x10 is the prefered mag for a good wide and clear picture. What I wouldn’t do without is the big 60mm OB which really does make a differnce in low light.
A good, 4-16×60 scope would be ideal for most situations. And also a 30mm tube for plenty of click range.

Sorry Steve, didn’t see the thread until now.

I don’t have a huge amount of experience with all of the different scopes out there, but I have had the Nikko-Stirling Diamond 10-50×60 which was an EXCELLENT scope, but it should be for $800 or whatever it costs now. I currently use a Nikko-Stirling 6-24×56 which is a $250-$300 scope and it is great. The image quality is fine, it isn’t too big, it isn’t expensive and it holds true and doesn’t fog up.

To be honest, in my humble opinion, too much focus is placed on scopes for hunting and informal airgun shooting. Of course the scope is important, but I’ve never felt that it was required to go crazy on price when just shooting at squirrels 40 yards away, you know?

A couple things I’ve learned this past year about scopes and mounts are as follows:

Even a factory optically centered scope may be off enough to make sighting difficult. After some experience with tweaking my AF scope I read of one way to optically center was to stand it, objective lens down on preferably a thick glass mirror, and place it in direct sun light, adjust focus until you see both the cross hairs and the reflection of the cross hairs. Yes, it has to be in direct bright sun light or you may not see the fainter reflection. Then adjust until the two line up. That worked good for me and I was able to work from close out to 100 yards.
Since then I got another scope to replace the one I dropped off the bench, with a really fully adjustable one piece scope mount. One piece mounts have their own problems but I got additional instructions on optically centering any new or old scope. This time I didn’t have to wait for sunny day. In fact I did it on a rainy day. The instructions were scanty so that’s why I’m giving my rendition of centering for everyone to better understand.
You need to set the scope on two “V” notches. The instructions said cardboard would do. Suuurrrrre, but it takes a lot longer. I would strongly suggest making your scope centering rest out of wood with the “Vs” padded slightly with cloth or felt. The cardboard I used kept changing a little. The scope has to be able to turn 360 degrees. The instructions I got said something like adjust while looking at a distant object until the crosshairs stays centered. What I found out was to work on just one crosshair at a time. I preferred to set whichever crosshair horizontal, line it up with a distant point then rotate the scope 180 degrees. Note how much (Mil Dot?) it is from the target point it started at. Is it now lower or higher? Whichever, give the turret a few clicks watching to see if it narrowed the difference. Watch your target and give the scope another 180 degree turn. Of course it the gap got bigger you need to click in the other direction. Once that crosshair stays on spot repeatedly, do the other crosshair. When the second one is centered, recheck the first one. The first one may need just a touchup but it should be really close. When you’re happy, it’s probably really good.
Now that the scope is optically centered keep your hands off the turrets until you have done a similarly good job of correcting for mount deficiencies.
Understand your mount!
If your mount fits 9-11mm rails then expect it to be off center of your rifle.
My expensive one piece mount fits 9-11mm and is off center on my 11mm AF rail. It ain’t off much but is yours? Perfect zero at 50 yards will be off at 100.
My mount has gambles (sort of like U joints with sideways adjustment) so both tilt to match the other and front and rear are individually adjustable up and down and sideways. So, I started off with the gambles and thus the rings adjusted towards the center of the rail.
Now, I don’t have a barrel sighting Laser but I do have the AF Laser mounted to the front top rail. So, I bore sighted it at Rat distance of 10 yards (could have been 8 yards). In bore sighting I use like parallax to get good center. I get the Laser dot in view threw the barrel and move my head side to side and up and down adjusting the Laser aim until it appears to be centered (it will disappear side to side and top to bottom with equal head movement).
Next, set the scope to low power and with the Laser on you should see the dot smack on the vertical crosshair but low of course. If you didn’t use a plumb line to set up horizontal/vertical, you might just turn the scope to get the vertical in the dot. Next go for greater distance. 20, 30, 50 yards, try them all. Spot the Laser on a distant target check that it is still on the vertical line. Sometimes it helps to zoom the scope so you can see the dot. Too much and it might be out of view. If the dot creeps to one side with distance, one or two things may be wrong. The Scope AND/OR the Laser may be off center and therefore at a slight angle to the bore.
Don’t worry, at this point we’re threw with the Laser.
You really should level the rifle with a couple of levels and set up a plumb line. I use a white plumb line that I colored black every couple inches or so. IMO it’s 10 times more visable.
NO, don’t touch the turrets yet!
If you’re going to shim the rear scope mount to zero for 100 yards, now is the time to do it. With my AF scope and rings I used a 0.007″ piece of plastic from under a new shirt collar. You get the bonus of zero at 100 and a zero closer in. It all depends on the pellet and power. One of my setups had the second zero of 21 yards. That worked good. Knowing my velocity and data from ChairGun Pro I initially shot and tweaked the scope at 21 yards. I got a 6″ splatter at 100 yards but then changed pellets and started over.
Recapping, an optically centered scope is the first critical step to accuracy.
Secondly the mount must be as close to center as possible and some will not get to center without maybe shaving the rail and I wouldn’t want to see that done.
Third, the scope can be shimmed but some say it can weaken the tube. One drop and mine bent.
A Laser can help check for vertical center but is a poor choice.
If you zero close but your shots creep further off to one side with increasing distance, your mount is most likely off center.