Milsurp scopes and heat

[Shrinkmd]

I see lots of threads on scoping milsurps, but the other day at the range I nearly burned myself on the Mojo sight and started wondering, what happens to a scout type (S&K, or even the Iron elite for the Mauser) mount attached to the rear sight base after it heats up? I guess most people with Remchesterbys wouldn't put 100 rounds or so through their rifles in an hour or two, but since it's a milsurp...

Anyway, wouldn't that heat get transferred through the base and scope rings and melt the scope? Has anyone encountered this problem yet? I Know it's not a great idea to shoot too quickly, but the consensus on Mosin/mauser appears to be that you shouldn't fret too much about throat erosion and just have fun, you'll get the same 4 MOA (with surplus, if you're lucky) anyway for the next 10-20,000 rounds, right?

 

[CWL]

What part of the scope do you think will melt? It should be made of any combination of steel, aluminum, glass. Except for the glass, these should be the same materials as most of your rifle.

I think that you'll cook-off a round in the chamber or ignite the wooden stock long before you melt a scope.

 

[Bartkowski]

100 rounds in an hour or two probably isn't enough to heat the gun up enough to do anything to the scope, but really what do you think will melt?

 

[Omnivore]

Well, the wooden stock is going to be on fire before your scope "melts".

I know of one person who has told me directly he had a problem. He was using an EOTech on an M1A in the hottest part of the summer in Arizona-- well above 100F in the shade, and he fired 1,000 rounds in a day of "gun school". The problem was that the reticle got blurry.

I have personally fired over 10,000 rounds (7,000 on the same AK with the same Aimpoint sight) with our barrel-mounted optic mount with no problems. Some of that included firing a 75 round drum as fast as one could jerk the trigger, followed by a 30 round magazine.

Hot? Very. Problems? Nope. Would I ever shoot that much that fast in any conceivable real-life scenario? Not even close. Do I ever have to even think about heat when shooting “normally” (aiming each shot)? No, unless you count the normal practice of avoiding touching the barrel with your bare skin.

Use quality equipment and you'll love it.

 

[esmith]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=eNAohtjG14c

Unless you are doing this, you need not worry about it.

 

[Shrinkmd]

Cool

No pun intended...

I have heard the rule of thumb that if you can touch the barrel near the muzzle for half a second or so, then it is ok to keep shooting, but that if you can't touch at all you need to cool down. Obviously shooting a warm to hot barrel affects the grouping, POI, etc, but this is fun shooting, and not a custom target rifle. Does that sound about right? I want to enjoy my milsurps, but not abuse them.

 

[eab]

The only problem I have heard of is with EOTechs on barrel mounts. For some reason some of the mounts don't dissipate heat that well and the EOTechs don't take the heat that well. Never heard of any other problems.... But yeah... Scopes shouldn't mount... If it was a bad quality scope it might change the POI or zero but it won't melt.