Some years back when I got into air rifles, I first became aware of the challenge of mounting scopes. The need to get the vertical crosshair in perfect alignment with the rifle's bore. I went so far as to create some graphics for it. This would be ideal....such that when a bullet is fired from the bore, assuming no wind drift or any of that stuff, the bullet would rise and fall thru the vertical crosshair. This is what we all think happens......or at least hope happens. Or at least should be the goal.
But unless the bore and vertical axis of the scope are in perfect alignment, that is not going to happen. If the scope is slightly out of plumb, this condition is created......you may have crosshairs in vertical alignment, but bore is offset to one side or the other. There would only be one point along the way where the two cross, and that is the distance you have sighted in for. Short of that, or beyond it, it will be off. The exaggerated version of this would if the rifle were fired horizontal instead of vertical.
So the challenge, for me anyway, has been to find a way to get the rifle and scope singing off the same sheet music when mounting scopes. The method I came up with on my own was to hang a visible plumb bob some distance out, the by bore sighting, center the plumb bob in the bore, and while doing that, rotate the scope until the crosshairs are in perfect vertical alignment with the plumb bob. When you get it all right, the two ought to be in alignment. Tried that recently when mounting a scope and for some reason, could never get the two in alignment.
So started giving some thought as to how to use levels, and eventually found there are products built for this purpose. The one I bought and used was made by Wheeler, which seems to be part of the Larry Potterfield shooting sports empire.
This one:
Anyway, the process used by that seems pretty fool proof. Rifle is set dead level.......scope is then set to dead level on top of it to match. The vertical line on scope now close enough to the bore's center line, the error won't be noticed inside typical range of the rifle. Bottom line, I spent over an hour messing around trying to get rifle and scope synched up using my old methods and when I checked with this set of levels, found I was still off, and by a lot.
So this is my new way of mounting scopes. My old way wasn't hacking it.
But unless the bore and vertical axis of the scope are in perfect alignment, that is not going to happen. If the scope is slightly out of plumb, this condition is created......you may have crosshairs in vertical alignment, but bore is offset to one side or the other. There would only be one point along the way where the two cross, and that is the distance you have sighted in for. Short of that, or beyond it, it will be off. The exaggerated version of this would if the rifle were fired horizontal instead of vertical.
So the challenge, for me anyway, has been to find a way to get the rifle and scope singing off the same sheet music when mounting scopes. The method I came up with on my own was to hang a visible plumb bob some distance out, the by bore sighting, center the plumb bob in the bore, and while doing that, rotate the scope until the crosshairs are in perfect vertical alignment with the plumb bob. When you get it all right, the two ought to be in alignment. Tried that recently when mounting a scope and for some reason, could never get the two in alignment.
So started giving some thought as to how to use levels, and eventually found there are products built for this purpose. The one I bought and used was made by Wheeler, which seems to be part of the Larry Potterfield shooting sports empire.
This one:
Professional Scope Reticle Leveling System | Wheeler
Professional Reticle Leveling System
www.wheelertools.com
Anyway, the process used by that seems pretty fool proof. Rifle is set dead level.......scope is then set to dead level on top of it to match. The vertical line on scope now close enough to the bore's center line, the error won't be noticed inside typical range of the rifle. Bottom line, I spent over an hour messing around trying to get rifle and scope synched up using my old methods and when I checked with this set of levels, found I was still off, and by a lot.
So this is my new way of mounting scopes. My old way wasn't hacking it.