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thedecline

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Does anyone here use a microlevel or similar device for dealing with cant? It seems like a good idea but possibly also a gimmick. Incorporating a level into your reticle seems like the way to go for keeping trajectory vertical. What say you?
 
thedecline said:
Does anyone here use a microlevel or similar device for dealing with cant? It seems like a good idea but possibly also a gimmick. Incorporating a level into your reticle seems like the way to go for keeping trajectory vertical. What say you?
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I just keep my xhairs level by eyeball. Watching a level then the xhairs and target you waste time and miss wind changes.

NormB
 
Keeping the rifle level only really matters at longer range (for .308 target rifle shooting, it matters at 1000 yards but it doesn't really matter at 600 yards).

If you are target shooting on a range, you can make your horizontal crosshair parallel to the target frame.

If you are shooting in the field and you don't have a reliable "horizon" then a bubble level of some sort might be helpful at longer ranges. I bought a "Scop Level" which clamps to the outside of the scope tube. To be honest it is niftier than it is actually useful to me in my shooting.
 
NormB said:
I just keep my xhairs level by eyeball. Watching a level then the xhairs and target you waste time and miss wind changes.

NormB
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See this is why i believe having a level built into a scope would be ideal or something of an attachment like the microlevel. that way you dont need to take your eye off the crosshairs to adjust for cant.

i suppose it only matters for long range shooting but thats what im building my .308 700 for.
 
thedecline, feel free to buy any and all nifty devices you feel like. More than a few of us shooters are guilty of this ;-), the worst thing that can happen is that you buy something that you like that you don't really need. You asked in your original question whether or not this was a gimmick. Two target shooters (me and Norm) have suggested that it probably is more of a gimmick than not, in the context of long range target shooting with a scope. One long range hunter (Dogleg) indirectly said the same thing (if I may interpret his post, he is saying that a bubble level of some sort is useful, but there is no need for it to be visible in the reticle).
 
I looked threw one and they are nice.

I have a Horus asli (angle slant level indicator) on my scope. Works good and easy to see. Still for the most part, I find what I feel is straight usually is.
And there right, however for my self I tend to check it more once I go past 350y. But that's just me.
 
I do the same as Dogleg when I am just plinking LR, at a range you really don't need one. I set up my rifle level on the my bi-pod, lock her down and then don't worry too much. For targets I would worry more about having your scope perfectly level to the rifle so you adjustments track perfectly.

For plinking I found the scope level was useful past 800 yards, and if you want to hit first shot at 1200 plus I found it was necessary for me, but I live and shoot in the mountains and there is not much to reference level since everything is up or down, either that or my idea of level is crooked. Maybe it would be different on the flatlands.
 
I use an Anti cant and really like it. There is a differance even at 500m. I notice that when the crosshairs look level to my eye I look up at the anti cant and find I'm a fair bit out. I lock my bipod down, and on solid ground it works pretty good, but shooting on packed snow the rifle comes out of level quite easilly and I have to make slight adjustments to level after every shot. This is where the anti cant shines. I do most of my LR shooting from the prone position.
 
Call me a tactinerd but all these people talking about how much cant can make a difference in long range makes me want to build a device that uses a laser to take a distance reading to your target and then with a given ammo, plots trajectory like balistics software and puts a dot where you are going to hit taking cant into consideration. Then have a little attachment for windage calculations and you should be damn close to bang on every time. Seems like a lot for one device to do but it would basically be ballistics software with an actuating laser output.

Million dollar idea right there boys. How much would you pay for a scope that would tell you exactly where you will land a shot? Math > human skill. I like dreaming...
 
Zeiss Hensoldt Beat u to it.
$12,000
3302859908.jpg
 
Boomer that diagram of the effect of cant is not to scale; it is probably more misleading than it is helpful. Also it does not include another crucially important piece of information - the amount of elevation that you have on your scope. (I realize that you probably already know this)

Most of the bulk and presumably the cost of "The solution" shown is an inclinometer (measures the angle you are pointing "uphill" or "downhill"). To measure and neutralize cant one needs a bubble level.

For what it's worth the effects of cant are usually small and the effects of inclination are usually far, far smaller (so if an anticanting level is a bit of bling an inclinometer is a whole big bunch of bling)

thedecline, having a ballistics computer integrated into a scope is a nice idea and a fun one to think through isn't it?
 
If your aiming point (reticle) is not directly over top of the centerline of the bore of your rifle, how can you possibly hit anything you are aiming at? I am a complete novice at any sort of shooting, but I do notice a small difference with my target rifle even at 100 yards if my rifle is not level. For target shooting I use it all the time, and it helps me shoot smaller groups. Mine is the Vortex bubble level that attaches directly to the scope, I am a right handed shooter and I have the level mounted so that it sits out to the left side above the side focus knob. When I look through the scope with both eyes open the level appears to be inside the scope in the upper right quadrant of the reticle, I then level out the rifle and then when I am ready to shoot I close my left eye and the bubble disappears. For less than $50 bucks it is a pretty economical way for me to increase my consistency and get smaller groups.
 
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Crashman some target shooters who are right handed but don't see well from their right eye will mount their sights offset so that they can shoot right handed and left eyed. This puts the line of sight three or four inches to the left of the bore. Making parallel movements of the sight line like this has almost no meaningful effect when shooting from 300 yards to 1000 yards. For shooting at closer distances there is a distance-dependent amount of windage adjustment needed to compensate (a fair bit for 50m smallbore and I would imagine a very large amount for 10m air rifle).

It might help to understand that there is a different effect from the amount of distance the sightline is moved from the boreline, versus the angle the sightline is moved.

The reason that a small amount of cant effects the horizontal position of the shot on the target when shooting at longer range, is that the elevation of the sightline (say 20 MOA to 40 MOA needed to shoot 600 yards or 1000 yards) is rotated a small amount (say 1 degree or 5 degrees clockwise). This rotation-of-an-angled-sightline is key to understand what is going on.

For anyone interested in formulas the amount of sideways POI change will be:

sideways POI shift = sine of angle of cant times amount of elevation on sight

So if you are shooting with 35 MOA of elevation (say 1000 yards with a .308) and cant your rifle 5 degrees, the POI will shift 35MOA * sine(5 degrees) which is 3.05 MOA. In most cases a 5 degree cant would be very very visible so errors of 2 degrees or 3 degrees are probably more realistic (so 1.22-1.83 MOA).

If you are shooting with 15 MOA of elevation (say 600 yards with a .308), a 5 degree cant will give you 1.3MOA of horizontal shift, and a 2 degree cant will give you 0.5MOA
 
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