AusVarmint

There are plenty of threads around discussing scope choices for the 22lr. Most of the time people seem to go for smaller objectives, and often they'll also go for low magnification as well.

That (or open sights) makes sense if your using the 22 to teach kids to shoot, or if you just want to set up a cheapy for plinking in daylight.

But your 22 is a serious work rifle and you use it for spotlighting most nights of the week. That means you'll be making a totally different choices to most of the rest of us. Can you tell us a bit about some of the different scopes, and sights, you've tried over the years, and what you look for in a rimfire spotlighting scope?

Hmmm, ok.

As most of the shots that I take are way less than 40 yards, I look first look at if a scope has either side or objective focus, the vast preference is for side focus.
I sight my scope in so it is hitting a square of black electrical tape on a white background, at 30 yards.
Clarity is not quite, but almost as important, weight or length don't come into the equation for me shooting out of the ute.
I like plenty of magnification, I use 8 power now, but used 6 power before and a nice big objective lens, 50mm is preferred.
I wont look at any of the American scopes, the ones that I have tried have all been next to useless to me.
I like a #4 reticule, but a wide duplex is pretty good as well, the #4 seem to have nice thick side bars and they really stand out well in the light. Click adjustments are way better than friction type in my opinion, and 1/4 inch or 6/7mm movements,, but you can get away with 1/2 inch movements if you have adjustable rings/mounts.
It doesn't make much difference if they are steel tube or aluminium to me.

The scope I have on my rifle now is a Ziess Conquest 4-14x50 side focus model. I like this one the best, and am glad that I got it. Was the most expensive scope I purchased at the time, balked a bit at the 1100.00 price tag, but I think its well worth it now. Got it from QGE, but that was before I discovered the joy of internet shopping, I would have got it from O/S if I had known how to go about it at the time. The light gathering ability on this one is very good, I can still see rabbits heads 90 degrees out the window using the little light I have set at about 40 degrees off front mounted under my mirror, where you cant see them with the naked eye.

In the past I have used a few others, all seem to be the Euro type scopes, I reckon that because they usually pay more attention to the light gathering abilities of their scopes than the yanks do.
Starting with an old Kahles 6x42, was a goodun, but had a chip in the ocular lens and some of the coating was starting to let go on the objective, the biggest trouble was it didn't have paralex focus available. I have had that one since the 70's along with my old Brno mod 2 rifle, its been retired, one day hope to get a new barrel in the rifle and scope fancied up a bit.
Had a Tasco Euro class 6x42, which I thought was a pretty good scope, on a par with the Kahles in my opinion, it had a 30mm tube, worked well and I still have it in the cupboard. I reckon they were very good product and fantastic for the price they were selling for at the time, now I doubt if anyone would want to pay more than 50 bucks for it, Ill keep it. Again, no focus ability.
Got hold of a second hand Pecar 8x45 in very good condition and used that for 6 or so months, again a very good scope, but no focus ability, paralex at 40 yards was woeful, so I sold it to a mate who just had to have it to go with his other one he had.
Tried Leupold, Redfield and Weaver scopes at various times, but they aren't in the ball park as far as Im concerned. Might be different these days, but Im happy with the setup I have now and wont be changing anything unless something breaks. Would like to try some of the really top end Euro glass, but the price of them puts a dampener on that idea.

One of the main things I try and let people know is to get what suites you and your eyes. others may disagree, but hey, they are entitled to be wrong.

Thanks Camel,

Bloody good info. Good to get the nitty gritty details on sight-in distance, side focus and so on.
I'll have to try some of those high tech electrical tape targets.

One thing I forgot to mention is mounts, I like to have them made of steel, preferably a full bridge, but sometimes that is not available. the Hilver/Lynx/Tasco type are my idea of a perfect base and ring set up, the studs give a vast amount of adjustment for windage, both front and back.

Now this is my secret target arrangement, please don't tell anyone else, this is just between you and me.

A 8 x 8 inch square of black coreflute, preferably scrounged from the tip like I did, some white paper stuck on with some sticky tape, then a square of black tape cut from the roll and stuck in the middle. Mount this onto the top two wired of a fence, hang it off a branch, jamb it between a couple of rocks, you get the idea, can check the sights haven't moved just about anywhere.

I keep a couple behind the seat of my ute in the pocket of the seat cover. Once I've used one, I either stick some grey duct tape over the holes and stick a new black square on it, or put another square of tape anywhere else on the paper.

Again, don't tell any other blokes about it, or they will want to copy it and I will loose the royalties they should pay me as the inventor of this excellent target system.

So are you working the side focus quite often, hence find that a handy feature? Do you play with the magnification much or have you set and forgotten on your preferred magnification?

Send Leupold your list of features/needs and see whether they send you a free scope to test for them. I suppose sometimes its not about light gathering, but also contrast to make out your target clearly in low light ... and I gather the Euro scopes are doing it for you much better in this aspect?
Cheers...
Con

Yep, the Conquests give me a good picture. Don't play with the magnification at all, well maybe if in the late afternoon I see a black lump down the paddock that may be a pig, or a mob of goats if I want a killer, just to check them out, then back onto 8 power. Don't use the side focus much, but its hand to give me a reasonable idea of range to something, Ill use it to get a rough distance to a fox or cat coming in to where I gut, makes it easy to work out if I have to aim a bit higher. If the rabbits are a bit blurry, either, a. I am too close and just hold a little high, or b. they are too far out, so I drive a little closer.

Dunno if I could be bothered with Leopold, tried that one with Winchester Aust. when they brought out the new power point ammo, sent them a nice invitation to send me a case of their new ammo and I'd give them a report after using the 5000, alas all it seemed to do was include me into their advertising outlets, so they can send me adds for their crap that I have no interest in, you know, knives, caps, clothes, fucken floor mats. They didn't even mention the free ammo I was trying to get out of them. bastards

I learnt a couple of really useful things from threads on the rimfire central website. Under the optics section there was a great thread on how to adjust parallax on a non-AO scope to modify a centre-fire scope with parallax set at 100-150yards to a scope that can be used for rimfires, with parallax set at whatever distance suits.

Basically this approach works on scopes that have an outer ring on the end of the objective bell, like Leupold VX I, Simmons, Bushnell etc. Often this ring can be loosened by hand; if tight a rubber jar lid strap can be used. Once loosened the front lens in its carrier can be screwed out a turn or two which will reduce the parallax distance. As long as the lens carrier is not screwed right out the integrity of the gas seal is not compromised.

I used this approach to set the parallax on a Simmons Whitetail Hunter 2-10x44 scope down to 50m. I set the rifle up in bags, loosened the front ring, and then made incremental adjustments on the lens carrier until the was no movement of the cross-hairs against a target at 50m when I moved my eye around. All up took about 15 minutes.

This approach opens up all sorts of scopes for use on rimfires and other short-range rifles, and apparently is the approach used by the factory.

Here is the thread:http://www.rimfirecentral.com/forums/sh ... hp?t=94809

I have also used this to a Leupold 4-12x40 scope that had pretty ordinary parallax at 100m.

Marcus

Yeah, I have tried to do that as well mate, only trouble was the outer ring on the scope I tried to do it to was stuck to the front lens carrier, tightened it up again and left it as I didn't want to stuff my old scope.

That was a good read Camel, nice to get information like that from a pro who
actually shoots a lot & has to earn a living doing it.
I have had a scope with AO on my old Brno Mod 2 [1973] since the late seventies
and although a lot of mates hang shit its still there
Its an old Weaver Steelite 4-12x40 that ended up on there when a cheap 4 power
shit itself, as it was just sitting in the cupboard gathering dust. I soon learned how
to set the AO for the different rimfire distances and never looked back. One again
thanks all that info.
Cheers

Cheers bloke, always available to help if I can.

Some good info camel thanks

Camel I am going to guess that when you sight in at 30 yards it is on the rising part of the trajectory have you ever checked for your other point of aim? If so what distance is it?

Havent specifically shot tests at different ranges. I guess that after a while it sort of becomes instinctive to hold either above or below the eye, mostly though, I hold on the eye for a side on shot, and about hallway between the butt of the ear and the top of their skull for a rear end shot. There is about an inch to inch and a half of target area on sideways shots that is a definite kill area, just need to be careful not to go in front of the eyes, buggers never go down properly and need a smack on the head with a stick.
When I get close in shots, I hold the cross hairs just at the top of the head. I try very, very hard not to shoot any further out than 40yards approx. max.