Scope running out of elevation

[SomeJackassOnAForum]

I'm confused, you're adding shims to the front but can't dial down far enough to zero? You should be trying to bring the front of the scope down, not up.

Tell me you don't know how scopes work...

Op, you have too much declination in your mount.

 

[BigFaus]

As @huntsman22 said, have you read the instructions on the Leupold about adjusting the zero stop?

Yes at the end of my travel. I spoke with seekins and think it may be a rail issue. I've tried two sets of scope and two sets of rings and both run out of travel.

 

[Macintosh]

Yes—you should not run out of elevation to zero with either of those scopes unless you have more than 35ish moa of elevation built into the rail/rings. A 40moa rail would cause the elevation issues you are experiencing on both scopes.

 

[4th_point]

Yes at the end of my travel. I spoke with seekins and think it may be a rail issue. I've tried two sets of scope and two sets of rings and both run out of travel.

Did they have you measure the thickness of the rail at both ends?

Seekins C/S is pretty good but you may need to get the right person on the phone with product knowledge.

And did you check to see how much total travel you have? I've seen some scopes get out of whack with improper zero stop setting and it's easy to count clicks to make sure nothing is amiss.

 

[BigFaus]

Yeah im thinking at this point it is a rifle issue. I believe it will be going back to seekins.

 

[SomeJackassOnAForum]

Hey Gents. Looking for a little guidance here. I'm currently shooting a Seekins ph2 with their low rings attached. I'm having trouble finding a load that meets my standards and intially thought that maybe the scope was the problem as I stack every other shot on top of one another but with a 2in gap in between. For example, the first shot hits where I am aiming and then the second shot goes two inches left. The third shots threads the same shot as the first hole, the 4th shot goes two inches left. etc.

The first scope I had on this rifle was a vortex razor hd 3-15x50, I'm still not sure if the scope is the problem but initially zeroing this in I had to add a shim to the front because it was running out of elevation, and that solved my problem.

To verify the vortex wasn't consistent, I tried a new a scope (Leupold vx5 3-15x44). I'm running out of elevation. I had to add a shim to the front but this time I ran way out of elevation. I'm down as far as I can go but I'm still shooting 3 inches high, however my shots are consistent. Any suggestions, guidance or advise is much appreciated. Thanks.

You can have weird things happen when you bottom out a scope. Basically the internals are bouncing off the inside wall of the scope. Not great.

Yeah im thinking at this point it is a rifle issue. I believe it will be going back to seekins.

Could be, but you're looking at a complete system of machined parts. Total range of adjustment on those scopes is 75 MOA on the Leupold and 79 MOA on the Vortex. Basically 37.5 MOA from center to end of range on the Leupold and 39.5 on the Vortex.

Assuming you didn't change the rings, the scopes are basically telling you the same story. They're maxed out, and the Leupold is maxed out a little higher than the Vortex.

Your barrel is a negative cylinder machined into the center of another cylinder, fitted into another negative cylinder in the receiver, which is machined into shape on the top surface to have a certain inclination to the bore of the rifle, onto which you're putting a rail that has been machined to have a certain inclination to the top receiver surface.

Each of those items, and each of those fittings has a spec and a tolerance that's resulting in the system pointing your muzzle 20 MOA too high relative to where it should be. It could be something as simple as the rail being out of spec, or it could be small stacking tolerances through the system pointing your muzzle higher than it should be.

All of that to say, you may need a replacement 20 MOA rail, or the solution to your problem may be a 0 MOA rail, but literally everything in your system could be within tolerance.

 

[WeiserBucks]

I cant believe that people are still trying to shim optic mounts/ rings in 2023 and that some people are still debating what/where to shim as if there should be shims, ever.