Why cant people accept the fact that some people dont need a drop tested scope?

[Shō[t]gun]

People get too caught up on the "drop" part of the drop tests, as if it's testing the durability of a scope against hard dirt and rocks from torso height like what would happen out in the field. Of course any reliable scope dropped at a weird angle off your shoulder while your clumsy ass slips off a trail is liable to get jacked up. No company makes a scope to consistently survive that test. The drops on a foam pad and shooting mat do replicate the times I've seen my gun case tossed by TSA or dropped off the back seat or sliding across the bed of my truck at a red light, or banging my barrel against a limb that I thought was higher, or the gun sliding off a tree it was resting against. So yeah its a solid data point for repeatability, but I have zero faith that a SWFA or Trijicon ocular eyepiece will be more resilient against granite and hard dirt than any other brand.

 

[iamthenick]

So how do you know if a scope is drop tested? My vortex viper says its "shockproof", is that the same thing?

 

[tony]

Well, I got too far behind in this thread to catch up, has everyone reached an agreement yet?

Seems some are pretty emotionally invested in the topic. Kind of like buy Tikka!

I’m a nobody that’s looking for reasonably priced, realistic equipment that won’t fall apart for the occasional hunting I do.

 

[PredatorSlayer]

This last fall I was elk hunting and I was watching a meadow sitting in some rocks with my rifle set up in my quikstiks. I moved around and my rifle fell with the objective hitting a rock and leaving a good size ding. I was 20 miles back in and still had several days left on my hunt. Didn’t want to blow the area out checking zero, so I just told myself this is the exact scenario that I dumped all this money into a drop proof scope for and continued hunting.

Checked zero when I got home and it was dead on. Scope is an NX8 4-32x50. It replaced a VX6HD 4-24 that had a zero shift in a stiff wind.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

So how do you know if a scope is drop tested? My vortex viper says its "shockproof", is that the same thing?

When shopping you can review the ones that have been tested by Form and others on this site. A major perk with Form's stuff is while its not lab conditions controlled he's doing the same thing over and over with a rifle that is bonded to the stock, has known scopes for baseline checks to validate batches of ammo, etc. and thus isolates to the scope itself as much as practical. He even shows how stuff "fails" with rings torqued to scope manufacturer specs because the scope moved so then he goes back and torques to ring manufacturer specs.

For your current scope and/or after purchase you can personally drop test your setup which ultimately is the sample of 1 you are most concerned about. Maybe the idea of dropping a rifle 3' onto a padded mat makes you uneasy but the starting height in his testing is 18" which doesn't seem too extreme for personal equipment imho. That 18" drop knocks plenty of scopes outta zero, if so you don't need to proceed to higher tests since something in your system has already failed you. You can make sure your rifle is bedded right, torqued right, etc. and its helpful if you have a scope you know is reliable cause when you swap back and forth and only experience a shift with the one scope its pointing to that scope as the issue vs something else.

Rifle Scope Field Evaluations

rokslide.com

 

[Doc Holliday]

This last fall I was elk hunting and I was watching a meadow sitting in some rocks with my rifle set up in my quikstiks. I moved around and my rifle fell with the objective hitting a rock and leaving a good size ding. I was 20 miles back in and still had several days left on my hunt. Didn’t want to blow the area out checking zero, so I just told myself this is the exact scenario that I dumped all this money into a drop proof scope for and continued hunting.

Checked zero when I got home and it was dead on. Scope is an NX8 4-32x50. It replaced a VX6HD 4-24 that had a zero shift in a stiff wind.

Is that on your 280 AI FFT?

 

[CorbLand]

This last fall I was elk hunting and I was watching a meadow sitting in some rocks with my rifle set up in my quikstiks. I moved around and my rifle fell with the objective hitting a rock and leaving a good size ding. I was 20 miles back in and still had several days left on my hunt. Didn’t want to blow the area out checking zero, so I just told myself this is the exact scenario that I dumped all this money into a drop proof scope for and continued hunting.

Checked zero when I got home and it was dead on. Scope is an NX8 4-32x50. It replaced a VX6HD 4-24 that had a zero shift in a stiff wind.

This is one thing I am wondering for the guys that say "just recheck your zero..." Are they really hiking miles back into a place and touching a round off to check zero after they bump their scope?

 

[Tod osier]

This is one thing I am wondering for the guys that say "just recheck your zero..." Are they really hiking miles backing to a place and touching a round off to check after they bump their scope?

I think for most of those guys the idea of hunting in the backcountry is pretty abstract.

 

[Macintosh]

My guess is that some people do, but only if its a severe impact. But also guessing 99% of people are not checking after very minor impacts of the sort that caused my personal scopes to lose zero.
Also, if Ive dropped my personal scope 9x from 36” on all sides and it didnt shift, not sure why I would feel the need to test it for a less-severe impact than that? The point thats lost on people is that the situation being guarded against is a scope losing zero from very minor impacts that most people dont think they need to check, or when the scope
loses zero and there wasnt ANY impact you could point your finger at. Checking after a hard drop is the easy, and to me, less important part. Less important because its easy to identify.

 

[KenLee]

And I see you one up'ed the silliness.

I bet the majority of people dont even think twice about a 2" group at 100 yds before going hunting. I see it all the time with targets left behind at the range the week before deer season. They would have no clue if their scope was introducing a 1/2" variation as they see it as acceptable and wouldn't even investigate.

My wife is a 2" group shooter in most feld situations. I know this because I make her practice before any hunt so I know what her limitations are. She missed her first animal this year. She panicked when she forgot to flip the safety off. She chambered another round and made the follow up shot in the vitals. She isn't taking up knitting any time soon.

Dern pesky safeties. One of my exes got excited and muffed the safety over a nice whitetail one morning years ago with me watching through binoculars. She only had a few seconds to take a shot and missed out. From a couple hundred yards below her, I busted the buck about 5 minutes later...just to piss her off worse. I'm helpful that way.

 

[CorbLand]

My guess is that some people do, but only if its a severe impact. But also guessing 99% of people are not checking after very minor impacts of the sort that caused my personal scopes to lose zero.
Also, if Ive dropped my personal scope 9x from 36” on all sides and it didnt shift, not sure why I would feel the need to test it for a less-severe impact than that? The point thats lost on people is that the situation being guarded against is a scope losing zero from very minor impacts that most people dont think they need to check, or when the scope
loses zero and there wasnt ANY impact you could point your finger at. Checking after a hard drop is the easy, and to me, less important part. Less important because its easy to identify.

Thats why I went with an NXS. Between all the research I did (scope eval, reviews, and personal friends that have them) it seemed like a scope that would do what I needed and had a history of retaining zero. I wont/dont worry about checking it unless I went ass over tea kettle.

Plan is to get a load built this spring and then I will do my own version of the drop test to confirm.

 

[Macintosh]

Seems some are pretty emotionally invested in the topic. Kind of like buy Tikka!

I’m a nobody that’s looking for reasonably priced, realistic equipment that won’t fall apart for the occasional hunting I do.

Guilty. Because chasing a zero on a couple scopes caused me to think I was the problem, and I wasted years and hundreds of $ in ammo trying to solve the “me” part, when a decent part of the problem was the scopes, and it chafes my ass when people dismiss it as inconsequential or imaginary. It was consequential for me, and this was just basic scopes for shooting at shorter ranges. A vx3, certainly one of the most popular “basic” scopes available, is about $500. Coincidentally, so is a trijicon credo at europtic. If someone is talking about spending that much money or more there are legitimately good options with minimal, if any, additional cost to choosing a scope that has been objectively shown at least a couple times to be more reliable.

 

[JohnJohnson]

This is one thing I am wondering for the guys that say "just recheck your zero..." Are they really hiking miles back into a place and touching a round off to check zero after they bump their scope?

My biggest curiosity is how many people bashing people for using non drop-tested scopes have actually done any verification on the reliability of their rifle/mounting system using their drop-tested ones. Having a drop-tested scope is just flat out better, I'm in agreement with that. But I'd bet you easily 90% or more of the most vocal people on the subject are coasting off of Form's testing and have done none of their own. Or put much thought into their scope base, rings, etc. I think a moderator commented on that in this thread but it does get to be an echo chamber sometimes. And a lot of it just appears to be a reason for guys to have a superiority complex as opposed to actually taking their opinions to the logical conclusion that Form has.

 

[Tod osier]

Guilty. Because chasing a zero on a couple scopes caused me to think I was the problem, and I wasted years and hundreds of $ in ammo trying to solve the “me” part, when a decent part of the problem was the scopes, and it chafes my ass when people dismiss it as inconsequential or imaginary. It was consequential for me, and this was just basic scopes for shooting at shorter ranges. A vx3, certainly one of the most popular “basic” scopes available, is about $500. Coincidentally, so is a trijicon credo at europtic. If someone is talking about spending that much money or more there are legitimately good options with minimal, if any, additional cost to choosing a scope that has been objectively shown at least a couple times to be more reliable.

This whole emotionality thing cracks me up. The only scopes that I've been emotional about have been those that let me down and I'm not shy about that fact. Is it wrong to be pissed that you were a fool to trust the advertising? Wrong to be pissed that you bought what you thought was the best you could afford? Spent more for the gold (ring) standard? Trusted a scope on a kid's gun that went totally tits up when it was needed? Yep, if being pissed is an emotion, I'm there.

 

[Tod osier]

My biggest curiosity is how many people bashing people for using non drop-tested scopes have actually done any verification on the reliability of their rifle/mounting system using their drop-tested ones. Having a drop-tested scope is just flat out better, I'm in agreement with that. But I'd bet you easily 90% or more of the most vocal people on the subject are coasting off of Form's testing and have done none of their own. Or put much thought into their scope base, rings, etc. I think a moderator commented on that in this thread but it does get to be an echo chamber sometimes.

Nope, not me. I learned what the problem was here - absolutely. I have skin (blood) in the game - Animals missed, animals lost, ammo wasted, time wasted, needless upgrades wasted.

 

[JGRaider]

Guilty. Because chasing a zero on a couple scopes caused me to think I was the problem, and I wasted years and hundreds of $ in ammo trying to solve the “me” part, when a decent part of the problem was the scopes, and it chafes my ass when people dismiss it as inconsequential or imaginary. It was consequential for me, and this was just basic scopes for shooting at shorter ranges. A vx3, certainly one of the most popular “basic” scopes available, is about $500. Coincidentally, so is a trijicon credo at europtic. If someone is talking about spending that much money or more there are legitimately good options with minimal, if any, additional cost to choosing a scope that has been objectively shown at least a couple times to be more reliable.

I wouldn't dismiss someone's scope problem as imaginary or inconsequential. Stuff happens with any brand. By the same token the "drop test or you're a freaking dumbass" advocates shouldn't dismiss those of us who question the test's validity when we have scopes that fail the drop test work perfectly for us. It goes both ways.

 

[Tod osier]

work perfectly for us.

Work perfectly (until they predictably mess the bed) - is how many of us read that. FYI.

 

[CorbLand]

My biggest curiosity is how many people bashing people for using non drop-tested scopes have actually done any verification on the reliability of their rifle/mounting system using their drop-tested ones. Having a drop-tested scope is just flat out better, I'm in agreement with that. But I'd bet you easily 90% or more of the most vocal people on the subject are coasting off of Form's testing and have done none of their own. Or put much thought into their scope base, rings, etc. I think a moderator commented on that in this thread but it does get to be an echo chamber sometimes. And a lot of it just appears to be a reason for guys to have a superiority complex as opposed to actually taking their opinions to the logical conclusion that Form has.

I dont read every thread but has anyone ever truly bashed someone for the scope they use? I cant say that I have ever seen anyone truly be bashed for that on this forum. Overall, Rokslide is pretty civil.

 

[Macintosh]

I think the exchanges in this topic typically degenerate into a couple folks making subtle digs at each other, so it seems a fair point to me.

 

[Tod osier]

I dont read every thread but has anyone ever truly bashed someone for the scope they use? I cant say that I have ever seen anyone truly be bashed for that on this forum. Overall, Rokslide is pretty civil.

I agree, 90% of the time it is in a thread where someone is wondering scope X vs Y and Y has a record of misbehaving. DAMN I wish someone had taken me aside 15-20 years ago and helped me see the light that this forum's zealots push. I'm stubborn, but DAMN, I just wish I'd have heard.