suggested magnification on a 3006
- Thread starter grizzly416
- Start date
- Location
- London, Ontario
People use a fixed 10x to shoot to 1000 yards....
Its really up to you, if a 10x fixed scope can go that far, anything from a decent brand and variable adjustment would be fine.
Its really up to you, if a 10x fixed scope can go that far, anything from a decent brand and variable adjustment would be fine.
Scope? Who needs a scope if your only going to be shooting 500-1000 yards? Ever heard of iron sights/ Palma/ Target Rifle? Ok iron sights are not for everyone and a good set of irons with all the goodies will set you back as much as a scope.
- Location
- Somewhere on the Hudson Bay Coast
I began long range shooting with a 3-9X hunting scope on a .30/06 sporter, and I did well enough using a sighting target high above my impact target, that I got the bug. But getting a proper target scope improved things tremendously. I suggest you choose your scope based on the characteristics of your rifle. If you do not have an adjustable cheek piece on your rifle, choosing a scope with a large objective bell will require it to be mounted too high for you to have a proper cheek weld. If you have a sporter length stock that comes close to fitting you, having a big power variable might require that the ocular comes so far behind the cocking piece that you are liable to get tagged when the rifle recoils.
Get the best scope you can afford to buy, and don't cheap out on the mounts. With ranges beyond a half mile you will probably benefit from a 20 minute base. Just keep in mind that you only have the full 20 minute advantage when the mounting point furthest to the rear is used. I prefer to set mine so that when the scope adjustment is bottomed out it coincides with a 100 yard zero, then all of my vertical adjustment is useable.
A scope with target turrets is useful to the long range shooter. The larger the tube diameter of the scope, the more vertical adjustment it will have. Parallax adjustment is a nice feature on scopes with 10X or greater, but having the adjustment on the objective is often better system than on a third turret, even though it is not as handy. Go to the US Optics web page and read what they have to say on the subject.
AS to magnification, big power can be a trap, particularly in a fixed power scope. A 10X can be useful out to 1000 yards, depending on the size of your sighting black, but a 2 MOA bull is easily seen at 10X, and a 10X doesn't suffer from mirage as badly as higher power scopes. If you want a higher power scope, go with a variable so you can dial down under the mirage. A high power variable like a 4.5-16X or a 6.5 -20X is pretty nice.
I like a mildot reticle for the ease of holding off for in difficult wind conditions, but as a rule of thumb the simpler and less cluttered the reticle the better.
I said earlier that you should purchase the best scope, that you can afford. If that means choosing a used scope, that is better than choosing a poor new scope. A scope that adjusts properly out of the box, but whose adjustments wear out in short order is not economical. If you get a used scope you can check the scope with a collimator or you can shoot a box. To shoot a box on a 100 yard target, fire a single shot or a small group and adjust 6 MOA up, shoot again, adjust 6 MOA right, shoot again, adjust 6 MOA down and shoot again, and finally adjust 6 MOA left and your last group should hit the first.
Get the best scope you can afford to buy, and don't cheap out on the mounts. With ranges beyond a half mile you will probably benefit from a 20 minute base. Just keep in mind that you only have the full 20 minute advantage when the mounting point furthest to the rear is used. I prefer to set mine so that when the scope adjustment is bottomed out it coincides with a 100 yard zero, then all of my vertical adjustment is useable.
A scope with target turrets is useful to the long range shooter. The larger the tube diameter of the scope, the more vertical adjustment it will have. Parallax adjustment is a nice feature on scopes with 10X or greater, but having the adjustment on the objective is often better system than on a third turret, even though it is not as handy. Go to the US Optics web page and read what they have to say on the subject.
AS to magnification, big power can be a trap, particularly in a fixed power scope. A 10X can be useful out to 1000 yards, depending on the size of your sighting black, but a 2 MOA bull is easily seen at 10X, and a 10X doesn't suffer from mirage as badly as higher power scopes. If you want a higher power scope, go with a variable so you can dial down under the mirage. A high power variable like a 4.5-16X or a 6.5 -20X is pretty nice.
I like a mildot reticle for the ease of holding off for in difficult wind conditions, but as a rule of thumb the simpler and less cluttered the reticle the better.
I said earlier that you should purchase the best scope, that you can afford. If that means choosing a used scope, that is better than choosing a poor new scope. A scope that adjusts properly out of the box, but whose adjustments wear out in short order is not economical. If you get a used scope you can check the scope with a collimator or you can shoot a box. To shoot a box on a 100 yard target, fire a single shot or a small group and adjust 6 MOA up, shoot again, adjust 6 MOA right, shoot again, adjust 6 MOA down and shoot again, and finally adjust 6 MOA left and your last group should hit the first.
Last edited:
Boomer, I have a great deal of respect for your knowledge and experience, but I have to disagree with you on this one. If you are using a 1 piece 20 MOA base, the entire base is slanted at 1/3 of a degree. With regular (non-shimmed) rings the mounting points used will have no affect on the angle imparted to the scope.
Mounting distance only becomes important when shimming your rings such as with the Burris Signature Zee rings or shimming the back of a 2 piece base. In this case, the closer the mounting points, the more angle imparted to your scope for a given thickness of shim.
Last edited:
- Location
- Somewhere on the Hudson Bay Coast
Well all I can tell you is try it. Once the ring is tightened on the scope tube, moving the rings on the mounting points will raise and lower the scope relative to the bore, and will change the point of impact downward. I had to move my scope ahead two slots so that I could have a 100 yard zero with the elevation dial bottomed out.
I tend to agree with Boomer - mounting the scope higher on the triangle (formed by the rail above the bore) should give you more adjustment at longer distances, assuming that the front and back mounts are equidistant.
Had to think about this a bit (for the first time) when this was brought up in another post ... but bringing the front mount in and/or the back mount forward will also affect the total adjustment at long range on a rail with built-in MOA. The advice I've seen before (that I follow) is to allow the maximum spread between mounts on the rail that your scope can accommodate.
FWIW - I use 20 MOA rails for a .308W up to 900m.
Had to think about this a bit (for the first time) when this was brought up in another post ... but bringing the front mount in and/or the back mount forward will also affect the total adjustment at long range on a rail with built-in MOA. The advice I've seen before (that I follow) is to allow the maximum spread between mounts on the rail that your scope can accommodate.
FWIW - I use 20 MOA rails for a .308W up to 900m.
Moving the scope forward or back will change the POI. However 20 MOA base is 20 MOA regardless, the angle does not change by moving the scope forward or back or changing the ring spacing. In short you can't change a 20 MOA base into a 15 MOA or 25 MOA by moving the scope forward or changing the ring spacing, all you will do is change the POI.
- Location
- Somewhere on the Hudson Bay Coast
A 20 MOA base provides a maximuim of 20 MOA elevation above the bore, but the height above the bore changes with each subsequent mounting point forward of the highest mounting point on the rail. That is to say, the rear most mounting point on the rail provides a full 20 MOA of elevation above the bore, but any mounting point forward of that has progressively less elevation above the bore. If I fix the rear ring to the scope tube and attach it to the last mounting point on the front of the rail, not only do I not have any increase in elevation, I probably have to remove the barrel before I can mount it there.
I didn't mean this to turn into a total thread hijack... but anyways...
20 MOA isn't an elevation or linear distance. 20 MOA is 20 Minutes of Angle, a measure of angle. There are 60 minutes in 1 degree, making 20 MOA 1/3rd of a degree. No matter how you move the rings on the rail or the scope in the rings, your scope is still sloped forward at 1/3rd of a degree.
Now, if you're looking through the scope at a slight angle to line up the reticle with the target (as you would be with the turret adjusted all the way 'down' (crosshair nearer to the top of the tube)) and you move the scope forward it will change your POI, but I would not imagine the change to be that drastic... With the turrets (reticle) centered I wouldn't think there would be a change at all, simply due to the fact that your line of sight through the scope to the target should be identical...
How many MOA were you able to change your POI doing this Boomer?
I am definitely considering giving this a try for myself to see if I can better understand the phenomenon you are describing...
For what its worth and to the original poster... I completely agree with everything else in Boomer's first post.
20 MOA isn't an elevation or linear distance. 20 MOA is 20 Minutes of Angle, a measure of angle. There are 60 minutes in 1 degree, making 20 MOA 1/3rd of a degree. No matter how you move the rings on the rail or the scope in the rings, your scope is still sloped forward at 1/3rd of a degree.
Now, if you're looking through the scope at a slight angle to line up the reticle with the target (as you would be with the turret adjusted all the way 'down' (crosshair nearer to the top of the tube)) and you move the scope forward it will change your POI, but I would not imagine the change to be that drastic... With the turrets (reticle) centered I wouldn't think there would be a change at all, simply due to the fact that your line of sight through the scope to the target should be identical...
How many MOA were you able to change your POI doing this Boomer?
I am definitely considering giving this a try for myself to see if I can better understand the phenomenon you are describing...
For what its worth and to the original poster... I completely agree with everything else in Boomer's first post.
- Location
- Somewhere on the Hudson Bay Coast
I
How many MOA were you able to change your POI doing this Boomer?
It was a while ago, but it seems to me that it was on the order of 2' at 100.
With the typical adjustments on North American scopes, we adjust the height of the reticle above the bore by a value expressed in minutes of angle, which is the amount of adjustment we see at the target; the angle is created by the the line of sight and the line of bore. The lower the reticle in relation to the bore, the higher the POI. The sloped base, regardless of value, 20 MOA, 25 MOA, or 30 MOA, provides additional adjustment as we can bring the highest setting, causing the lowest POI, of the scope into coincidence with our bullet impact at a given range and we gain all the vertical adjustment in the scope for adjustment for longer range. If you are not using the entire height of the sloped base, it doesn't make sense to suggest it remains a given value, because the angle between the line of sight and the line of the bore has changed or there would be no change in the POI.
Terry Perkins
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- Bruce County
Anyways, back to the original question...
Get as much magnification as you can handle in a scope that you can barely afford.
If you are going to use the rifle for hunting, I recomend a variable 3 to 9 power type. My own rifle had weaver see through mounts so i could use the iron sights if the scope was damaged or fogged; and a 3 to 9 bushnell scope mounted on top.
