Scopes? Educate me on these

[kcw12]

Hello fellas. I just traded for a mosin nagant (cheap, wanted a rifle, and had a junk pistol).

Well i got to shooting it and i noticed it was pretty darn accurate. Well since crow season is in, and i wanna get back that these devils for messing up my corn, i decided to go crow hunting with it. So i grabbed the mosin and had a friend come with me. He brought this rifle, not sure what caliber, but it had a weird stock on it (im a country boy, i dont know alot about rifles and mods) Well anyways, I seen a crow at about 150 yards, my friend said 163, with his range finder, but i think it was closer to 125-150 or so. So i got in my shooting position, drawed on the crow, and fired. Crow went puff. I was pretty pleased with my shot, I normally shoot open sights. I can pretty well drill out one of them little paste board targets on a remington 22 box. You know the ones that have a black center about the size of a pop can with a 22 rifle. I've also taken deer at 100 yards with a old side lock muzzleloader with ball ammo.

He let me shoot this rifle at another crow, and i liked the scope, so educate me on these things. Only scopes ive delt with is the 4x on my 22 mag, and a 3-9 ive put on my inline muzzle loader

I'm wanting something i can get like sighted in for 250 and shoot up to 500 yards, yes i know 500 yards is a pretty good distance, but i think this rifle can take a crow or a coyote at that range.
I'm pretty scope dumb, i was looking at cabelas and basspro, whats a mil-dot, and how do them scopes with 200 300 400 and 500 knobs work? Im a complete retard when it comes to scopes.

 

[DnPRK]

MIL Dots were intended to be a way to estimate range by measuring the size of the target with the dots on the cross hairs and doing some mental math. Most who are serious distance shooters use a range finder or practices range estimation enough to be able to eyeball the distance and get pretty close.

Several companies sell scopes with "rangefinder" or "ballistic" reticles. Go to midwayusa.com and do a search for those words.

The scopes with knobs marked 100, 200, 300 Etc. have an internal adjustment for parallax. The knob does not perform any adjustment to the cross hairs to line them up to the bullet ballistics at those ranges. Instead, the knob fine tunes the cross hair position within the scope optics erector to make the cross hairs stop dancing around when you are dialed in to that distance. (If parallax isn't adjusted for your target distance you can move your head around left/right/up/down and watch the cross hairs dance around the target up to 3-5 inches - enough to cause you to miss the target). Google "parallax" for more information.

Mosins are not friendly when it comes to mounting a scope due to the split bridge on the rear of the receiver. You'll have to do some Google searching to find a mount that will work with your rifle. (Many mount systems require you to cut off the bolt handle and screw on a stub handle to get clearance for a scope). Other mounts replace the rear sight and require you to use a long eye relief scope. Still others bolt to the side of the receiver (the way the Russians did it during WW II).

 

[kcw12]

One of my friends owns one of these rifles, and is a tool and die guy, hopefully he will help me and we can get a scope mounted on it.

He's already modified his bolt handle, without buying the kit. So i figure it wouldn't be that hard to drill and tap a couple holes on the receiver.

What would be you alls recommendation on a scope for this rifle?

 

[Wolfgang]

it's against the law to shoot a crow at 500 yards unless you are using a pistol

 

[Dr. Peter Venkman]

Buy an S&K Scout mount that replaces the rear sight of your Mosin and allows for you to use Long/Extended Eye Relief scopes on it (pistol scopes, essentially). You can get decent results (from what I have seen at the local range) without having to mess up your Mosin or do much work.

 

[dagger dog]

there is a handheld paper slide rule (remember them?) available for about 20$ SWFA has them called the mill dot master. i have found the mil dot a little confusing. there is a reticule called BDC bullet drop compensating, that to me is a little eaiser and faster than mil dot. it has several horizontal lines below the intersecting line which are designed to be used for elevation for yardages out to 600 yds (wishful thinking for me). with my older eyes the smalll dots on the mill dot reticule blend together, plus the mil dot is set up on the metric system and the old grey matter doesn't function that fast any more to be able to do the math in my head and still be able to hold the crosshairs on the target.

i think the mil dot system was used for the military shooter (i hate the word sniper it's over used) and his spotter the spotter calling out the "dope " to the shooter who used the dots on the reticule for holdover and windage instead of dialing the dope in on the scope.