Can't move my scope back far enough for proper reticle FOV.

[alpinewanderer]

Hey guys,

I could use some advice from the community on products and solutions for my problem. I am 6'7'' tall and 225 lbs. I have a length of pull of 16''. I have a Tikka T3x Lite Stainless with a Vortex Viper PST FFP 4-16x50 Gen. 1 mounted with Warne Tikka High rings. I have hunted with this setup for a couple of years now but am trying to reach out for longer kill shots at 200-400 yards.

In training over the last few months with my bipod, off my pack, and free-hand, I have definitely discovered that my eye relief with the optic could be improved so I don't have to crane my neck forward a couple of inches to get full reticle FOV. I have this issue at both 4x and 16x magnification. As it stands now the Vortex is back as far as it can go before the bell of the objective hits the front ring (I can't go back much farther before hitting the barrel either).

What suggestions do you guys have for rings that would work with my tikka that could help get my optic back 0.5 - 1'' further? Am I going to have to pop a picatinny rail on and find extension rings? What brands or solutions do you all suggest? Matte black stuff is always cool

Thank you for the input.

 

[LightFoot]

You could go to a picatinny rail and that would probably get you what you want.

However....

It looks like you have a slip-on recoil pad giving you that extra 2.5 inches or so of length of pull. Take that off and your problem may solve itself. You may not need the extra LOP.

>>>----JAKE----->

 

[alpinewanderer]

Thanks for the response Jake. I could take it off but the LOP right now is only at 15'' with that pad. Without it it feels like a youth rifle.

Also, it just occurred to me that this thread should probably be moved to the DIY modifications forum. Oops.

 

[Reburn]

The simple answer. Take off the LOP pad and get over it. Sucks being 6'7" sometimes, Yep I'm 6'7" as well. Learn how to shoot rifles with a standard LOP. Otherwise run down the rabbit hole sir. You will need a rail and new rings to start to fix the scope position and then you will figure out if you have clearance issues with the windage turret / cap and need taller rings to raise the scope and then get a stock pad to raise your eye line and then the gun will feel too top heavy and not streamlined enough. all this may not apply to this gun but you get the drift.

 

[Where's Bruce?]

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him remove his buttpad.

 

[Rob5589]

You need to shorten the LOP. Even with a pic rail and moving the scope back, the elevation and parallax knobs will hit the ring. What you have now sits nearly at the edge of the action. A pic rail won't get you back much further.

 

[wind gypsy]

Remove the butt pad or buy some neck rings.

 

[alpinewanderer]

Not going to shorten the LOP. Not negotiable. I’m looking for some quality extension scope rings. If anyone has some personal experience with some that worked well, I’m interested to hear it.

 

[wind gypsy]

If you must, you can mount a front ring back further to the tikka rail and not have a recoil pin in it. Or you can put a pic rail and grind off the front of it or use really high rings to keep the bell from hitting it. Both of these situations are less ideal than a shorter LOP.

I will say that you are already playing with fire on both a gen 1 PST (known to have frequent tracking/zero retention issues) and vertical split rings (unevenly clamp and frequently deform scope tube in turn compromising erector function). So you might as well have a scope mounted high or with a less robust base interface too.

 

[Rob5589]

If you are absolutely not willing/able to change the lop, maybe a blank pic rail and have a smith set and drill it to hang back over the bolt? You don't have a ton of options. You could try a pic rail with a one piece mount and see how far back you can get it. The scope will sit pretty damn high unfortunately.

 

[Reburn]

Not going to shorten the LOP. Not negotiable. I’m looking for some quality extension scope rings. If anyone has some personal experience with some that worked well, I’m interested to hear it.

Honestly man if this is were your at. Buy a scope with a longer tube and some sportmatch rings. You will kill 3 brids with one swoop and everything will work better for you.
Bird 1 - Ditching the vortex.
Bird 2 - Ditching the vertically split rings.
Bird 3 - fix your eye relief woes.

 

[alpinewanderer]

Thanks for the further advice and clarifications guys.

Just to be clear with you all, I am by no means an expert long range aficionado. I am relatively new at this. I have never killed anything past 200 yards but in preparation for some hunts this fall that may require getting out to about 400 yards or so I have been putting in the time every week on my rifle and have had positive results with the mods I've made so far (butt spacers, slip-on pad to extend LOP farther, Beartooth cheek riser pads for optimal eye height, etc). I've shot rifles with sub-optimal LOP for 14 years. I got by "okay" but this year I've been trying hone my tools and make them truly customized for me.

Reburn, you said that you're the same height as me. What has been the best performing formula for you as far your long range hunting setup goes?

What do you all think would be a better choice than the Vortex I have currently (i.e. what should I consider saving up for)? Who makes rings of a quality that you recommend? Any and all advice is appreciated. I'm a first generation hunter (no family member of mine on either side that has been alive at the same time as me has been a hunter much less a firearm owner) and I don't really have anyone close to me act as a resource. Hence, I'm stumbling around here on the interweb.

 

[Stalker69]

Night force, has everything you need. Scope and extended mounts.

 

[Reburn]

Good Morning,


I'm still getting caffeinated so forgive me if I ramble a bit. I'll try and keep everything clear and concise on this info dump. You may not like some of what I'm going to say but it’s not to pick on or patronize you but rather steer you down the path that is going to lead you to the most success with least amount of headaches. The upside is you already have a solid gun that needs little. I'm going to ignore the fact you’re a southpaw and I realize there are much less options for y’all.

Being 6'7" is very cool except when you need to by kuiu pants (they make talls now whoop) and shoot guns and fit in cars. Since we are talking about rifles, I'm NOT going to not talk at all about shotguns which is a whole nother world. The most important part of the gun interacting with your physiology is the stock to shoulder and cheek interaction. The "comfort" and angle and position of your arm amounts to nothing. The second most important part is your hand to grip and trigger interaction. Your arm does come into play here, but I will talk about it in a minute. Your neck and shoulder aren’t that much different than a 5'8" man. So, the stock interaction with your body is good with the standard LOP. Scopes, rings, guns, stocks and all the pieces are designed around a standard LOP. You have already figured this out by having eye relief problems. If you’re not in the scopes eye box right you can have all kinds of problems with limited field of view, parallax, and focus problems. These problems will hinder you to become a good shot with your gun. As you have figured out there is no good solution to getting the mechanics of your gun working right with a LOP pad. This is why everyone has said ditch the LOP pad. So, let’s give that a try. What do you have to lose? You can put it back later if you say this guy was an idiot and nothing works.

Mechanics wise your front scope ring is too far back. I know why you have it this way but you need to have it grabbing onto the receiver at the correct place which is 1/2" forward of where it is and where the recoil pin on that tikka is. This will move the scope more forward and increase your eye box problems. yet another reason to ditch the LOP pad. The scope rings to receiver placement and interaction IS THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING. If your scope isn't mounted well getting good groups is going to be impossible. This connection needs to be bomb proof and sturdy. Formidious has a write up here somewhere about scope mounting on a tikka with sports match rings. Here is a link to eBay for the rings. They are 30mm. Yes, they are coming from the UK. These are the best rings for a tikka period, unless you decide to use a picatinny rail.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Sportsmatc...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

So now we have the LOP back to standard. The scope moved back forward mounted in sportmatch rings with the recoil pin installed and properly degreased and lock tighted. Yes, it feels like a kid’s gun. But your shoulder and cheek are now on the correct place on your gun and in the correct relation to your scope without having to crane your neck forward. everything is comfortable and natural. Shoulder the gun with your eyes closed and then open them. Can you see the scope well? Do this on minimum and maximum power. Pay special attention to your shouldering correctly in the pocket. Pay special attention to your cheek placement and neck hold. Get in a couple different positions including prone and micro adjust your scope forward or back to get the eye box perfect.

Now what do we do with your gorilla hands and pterodactyl arms. This is where things get a touch tricky and you may want a different stock for your gun. Your palm interaction to the stock and trigger finger placement on the trigger is of the second most physiological importance. I couldn't get comfortable behind the stock tikka stock and ordered a mesa precision stock. My paws were just too large. On most guns when I place my palm on the gun in the correct place it puts my trigger finger catching the trigger in the first joint crease and not on the center of the pad. I learned how to shoot all my guns pulling the trigger in the first crease. This isn’t ideal for many reasons. It’s nearly impossible to get a straight rearward trigger pull in the crease. I have learned how to do it. It took a while. your index finger needs to be touching the trigger in a relaxed position on the center of the pad. 90% of the time upgrading stocks to something like a mesa precision with a bigger palm swell will help you get that paw of yours in the correct place for your index finger to fall on the trigger correctly. I can’t find that axial precision makes a lefty inlet.

https://mesaprecisionarms.com/products/rifle-stocks/tikka/tikka-altitude-stocks/

But what about my pterodactyl arm reburn. . Man, your arm is just there to hold your wrist for ya. It truly doesn’t matter where you put it or how it feels. You will acclimate to it. Your grip matters a ton. But what your arm is doing amounts to a hill of beans.

Scope wise. The 2 undisputed champs are going to be SWFA 3-9 or a Night force. Stay away from the NX8 night force. It is a fantastic scope and I love mine but the eye box and exit pupil is very unforgiving especially at 32 power. Here is a link for the SWFA. Yes, it’s a mil scope. Yes, you should just learn how to shoot mils. There is so many benefits. But that is an argument that has beat that horse to death here multiple times. Frankly, I don't want to have it again. Yes, it’s only a 9 power. You don't "need" more magnification. I routinely bang a 10" circle at 500 with my night force NXS 2.5-10 scope. Either scope will serve you well. If you have the cash the night force has all the bells and whistles and features, you could ask for. But the most important parts the dials and return to zero both functions equally well. One just cost 50% less than the other.

SWFA 3-9x42 SS HD 30mm Riflescope

SWFA 3-9x42 SS HD 30mm Riflescope Details SKU: SS39X42MQ Finish: Matte Reticle: MIL-Quad Tube Diameter (mm): 30 Elevation Knob: Exposed Target (.1 MIL) Windage Knob: Exposed Target (.1 MIL) Parallax Setting: Fixed Focus Focal Plane: First

www.swfa.com

 

[Reburn]

Here is my sons first gun which pulls double duty as my training gun. Notice where the scope is. This is why I'm saying LOP doesn't matter. My son (step son) is small for his age of 14. I'm bigger than most. Yet we can both get behind the same gun comfortably. Because our cheek to should to stock interaction is similar. He uses a armaggedon gear cheeky ba$tard when he shoots to get his cheek up a bit.

Tikka 223, in a mesa precision stock with SWFA 3-9 with sportsmatch rings. And it shoots as good as my customs that cost 5 times more.

 

[HiMtnHntr]

Some talley one-pieces might allow you a little wiggle room. This is a common issue with smaller shooters, which it appears you aren't? Humm... In any case, a different ring/base style could do what you want easily without spending much money.

 

[5MilesBack]

Just looking at that picture I can't see why you wouldn't be able to get it to fit. That scope must have a really short eye relief. To fix the problem I'd go with the rail and good rings for that rail (NF is decent), and get a new scope with more eye relief. The last thing I'd want is to get even closer to the scope. And I'm 6'6".

 

[11boo]

I did something similar on a 45-70 to get proper eye relief. Brownells sells all sorts of pic rail, new rail let me get my scope exactly where I wanted it. I also got new rings for the rail.

 

[SerottaCSI]

Reburn's advice is solid and thorough. I struggled with my rifle that has a longer LOP than I need. To compound the problem, I have a scope that has a long bell taper that limits how far back it will mount. I didn't want to move to a rail because it would raise the scope and add some weight to a compact, lightweight mountain gun. I solved the problem by buying a Talley extended front ring, and that made the system work, but not by much. My plan is to send the stock back to manners and have the LOP shortened a bit. If you listen to shooting podcasts regularly, like the "the every day sniper," "VP Precision," "long range pursuit," etc. LOP gets discussed occasionally. Current wisdom is that LOP isn't as critical unless it's too long.

 

[Reburn]

Current wisdom is that LOP isn't as critical unless it's too long.

Correct unless you are talking shotguns or rapid shoulder and fire AR type weapons with iron sights. But even then cast and drop matter just as much as LOP.