transfering same scope between rifles

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transfering same scope between rifles

Post by Tubs » 10 Oct 2022, 9:59 pm

Hi All,

Two Noob questions....

1. How reliably do people find they can use the same scope for different rifles and ammo types by simply recording the windage and elevation turret settings for each combination of variables?
2. I have a few of the same scope, can I expect to be able to use the same windage and elevation turret settings on all of them from 1. and for them to all be accurate?

Ive always had dedicated scopes but see this as an unnecessary luxury now.

Thanks
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Re: transfering same scope between rifles

Post by Gamerancher » 11 Oct 2022, 8:09 am

Not at all a "reliable" way to go. There will always be a difference between scopes, mounts and rifles. Even with the same rifle, take the scope off and then put it back on, there will be a "shift" in point of impact. The difference may be small or it may be large, it depends on the quality of the mounts and how well the scope is set up in them. There are some high quality "quick release" mounts that will hold zero but that is on the one rifle, change rifles, different story.
I suppose it depends on how accurate you want to be, if you're happy with "minute'o'rabbit" at 50 yards you'll most likely get away with it. Hitting that same rabbit at 300 yards, yeah, Nah!
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Re: transfering same scope between rifles

Post by northdude » 11 Oct 2022, 10:53 am

Dedicated scope and rifle combo is the way to go. Or learn to shoot with irons
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Re: transfering same scope between rifles

Post by scoot » 11 Oct 2022, 1:22 pm

Using high quality mounts will get return to zero pretty good. Using high quality scope will get elevation / windage between rifles pretty good.
Depends how much money you want to spend to achieve this. Some mounts alone cost more than most people spend on scope mount combo's.
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Re: transfering same scope between rifles

Post by bigpete » 11 Oct 2022, 3:02 pm

northdude wrote:Dedicated scope and rifle combo is the way to go. Or learn to shoot with irons


100% agree
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Re: transfering same scope between rifles

Post by bladeracer » 11 Oct 2022, 4:44 pm

Tubs wrote:Hi All,

Two Noob questions....

1. How reliably do people find they can use the same scope for different rifles and ammo types by simply recording the windage and elevation turret settings for each combination of variables?
2. I have a few of the same scope, can I expect to be able to use the same windage and elevation turret settings on all of them from 1. and for them to all be accurate?

Ive always had dedicated scopes but see this as an unnecessary luxury now.

Thanks


If they have picatinny rails it's doable. It will retain zero, but you would always want to fire at least one shot to confirm before firing at a live target. Weaver rails and dovetails I haven't managed to retain zero even for hunting accuracy.

If your rifle has sights that you can use with the scope mounted then you can simply zero to the iron sights.
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Re: transfering same scope between rifles

Post by Tubs » 11 Oct 2022, 5:41 pm

scoot wrote:Using high quality mounts will get return to zero pretty good. Using high quality scope will get elevation / windage between rifles pretty good.
Depends how much money you want to spend to achieve this. Some mounts alone cost more than most people spend on scope mount combo's.


Yeah my rings are cheap cheap Chinese and my scopes are all cheap Bushnell AR's.
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Re: transfering same scope between rifles

Post by SCJ429 » 11 Oct 2022, 6:27 pm

bladeracer wrote:
Tubs wrote:Hi All,

Two Noob questions....

1. How reliably do people find they can use the same scope for different rifles and ammo types by simply recording the windage and elevation turret settings for each combination of variable

Thanks


If they have picatinny rails it's doable. It will retain zero, but you would always want to fire at least one shot to confirm before firing at a live target. Weaver rails and dovetails I haven't managed to retain zero even for hunting accuracy.

If your rifle has sights that you can use with the scope mounted then you can simply zero to the iron sights.

What he said, pic rails make it easy, mark the slots where the mounts sit. Couple of shots to fine tune your zero and you are away.
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Re: transfering same scope between rifles

Post by bladeracer » 11 Oct 2022, 7:53 pm

Tubs wrote:
scoot wrote:Using high quality mounts will get return to zero pretty good. Using high quality scope will get elevation / windage between rifles pretty good.
Depends how much money you want to spend to achieve this. Some mounts alone cost more than most people spend on scope mount combo's.


Yeah my rings are cheap cheap Chinese and my scopes are all cheap Bushnell AR's.


Perfect, mine are the same :-)
You can zero the AR Optics 4.5-18x40 on one rifle, transfer it to another rifle and dial to the pre-recorded required zero and you should be very, very close if not spot on.
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Re: transfering same scope between rifles

Post by Tubs » 11 Oct 2022, 8:47 pm

bladeracer wrote:
Tubs wrote:
scoot wrote:Using high quality mounts will get return to zero pretty good. Using high quality scope will get elevation / windage between rifles pretty good.
Depends how much money you want to spend to achieve this. Some mounts alone cost more than most people spend on scope mount combo's.


Yeah my rings are cheap cheap Chinese and my scopes are all cheap Bushnell AR's.


Perfect, mine are the same :-)
You can zero the AR Optics 4.5-18x40 on one rifle, transfer it to another rifle and dial to the pre-recorded required zero and you should be very, very close if not spot on.


Legend, thanks
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Re: transfering same scope between rifles

Post by Biscuits » 12 Oct 2022, 3:16 pm

I pondered this a while back…. and just bought another scope.

It’s not free to swap scopes as you have to confirm zero and ammunition costs $$$. Then there’s the time (and noise if applicable) of confirming zero.
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Re: transfering same scope between rifles

Post by northdude » 12 Oct 2022, 6:53 pm

you might get it close after the swap and like they say your still going to need to confirm zero. If it was that easy everyone would be doing it...
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Re: transfering same scope between rifles

Post by Barbarian » 13 Oct 2022, 10:47 pm

bladeracer wrote:
Tubs wrote:
scoot wrote:Using high quality mounts will get return to zero pretty good. Using high quality scope will get elevation / windage between rifles pretty good.
Depends how much money you want to spend to achieve this. Some mounts alone cost more than most people spend on scope mount combo's.


Yeah my rings are cheap cheap Chinese and my scopes are all cheap Bushnell AR's.


Perfect, mine are the same :-)
You can zero the AR Optics 4.5-18x40 on one rifle, transfer it to another rifle and dial to the pre-recorded required zero and you should be very, very close if not spot on.


As others above have said, your mileage may vary between the quality of your rings/mounts and scope.

If your direct mounting to a reciever dovetail then I don't think it would be worth it.

However, if you have a high quality Unimount and a well made picatinny scope base then you'll have an easier time. (Tough, it is far from a simple affair)

Myself, I've got two NX8's 2.5-20, 4-32 respectively and a NXS 4-16 all wearing MDT or SPUHR unimounts which I share between 5 rifles depending on the shooting I'll be doing. I'm fortunate enough that I have some space to confirm zero in my own backyard from 100-300yds, it does mean a little added cost involved in zeroing each rifle and potentially more wear on the components of the zero stops as I adjust them between rifles. However aside from the time spent I don't consider it a great loss - its all time well spent with my face on the gun.

The only significant inconvenience is if I remove the glass from my match rifle as all others are on my open license and I can't legally zero it on my own property.

In a perfect world I'd have glass on every rifle and I'll work toward it but you can make it work if you keep good data and mark your rail positions.
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Re: transfering same scope between rifles

Post by Gamerancher » 14 Oct 2022, 8:21 am

Tubs wrote, "Yeah my rings are cheap cheap Chinese and my scopes are all cheap Bushnell AR's."

By the way you worded the original post, I took it that you were asking if you could zero a scope on a rifle, write down the settings, and then put that scope on another rifle, zero it again and write down those settings.
Then you want to be able to swap it between rifles, adjust to your written down settings and be good to go.
Yeah, sorry, I don't think you'll find it that easy, especially with low budget gear. Good luck to you if you can fluke it but I reckon that is what it will be.
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Re: transfering same scope between rifles

Post by bladeracer » 14 Oct 2022, 12:37 pm

Gamerancher wrote:Tubs wrote, "Yeah my rings are cheap cheap Chinese and my scopes are all cheap Bushnell AR's."

By the way you worded the original post, I took it that you were asking if you could zero a scope on a rifle, write down the settings, and then put that scope on another rifle, zero it again and write down those settings.
Then you want to be able to swap it between rifles, adjust to your written down settings and be good to go.
Yeah, sorry, I don't think you'll find it that easy, especially with low budget gear. Good luck to you if you can fluke it but I reckon that is what it will be.


Actually, you can with precisely that "low budget" gear, cheap bulk Chinese rings and rails and Bushnell AR scopes. When I was a kid you bought rings and you had to ensure you always assembled the ring halves the right way around and never mixed them up, they were essentially "hand-made" so the holes through them and the screw holes were only accurate if positioned the same way they were manufactured. The beauty of CNC is that each piece can now be made by the thousand, without ever needing to be referenced to the other part, and they'll always fit. Somebody in Europe can make a rail and rings and charge you $600 for them, and the Chinese can reverse engineer them, feed the drawings into their CNC equipment and turn out product with exactly the same precision, and sell them to you for $40. That's assuming the Euro company didn't simply buy them from the Chinese company in the first place and whack on their own ridiculous price tag.

Picatinny is a standard specification, and while there is no requirement to stick to that standard, anybody copying them is likely to measure them precisely and turn out a product to the same precision. My Rugers have OEM Ruger rails, EGW rails, Weaver mounts and $10 Chinese rails. Weaver stuff annoys me as it doesn't seem to have a standard specification, and is not compatible with picatinny. The picatinny stuff does let you mount and dismount scopes without losing zero, at least a hunting zero - if you're shooting competition this becomes irrelevant as I think all competition includes sighting shots before shooting for score anyway. But yes, I wouldn't recommend firing at live targets without confirming your zero. As long as your scope tracks precisely then there is no reason at all that you can't simply dial in a pre-recorded "seven clicks down and four right" if that's the difference between its zeros on two different rifles. If your rifle has iron sights you don't even need to record zeros, just aim your sights at a target at 50m and zero your scope to the same target, or an offset from it.

Now, if you're using the "low-budget" stuff this does seem counter-productive to some extent. I would think you are better off just putting a $300 scope and rings on each rifle and not get involved in swapping. But if you have three rifles and decided you'd enjoy using a $2500 scope in $500 rings, you may well not want to put one on each rifle, swapping becomes more viable.
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