Scope Gremlins

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The evil forces of the Gremlin Underworld have been afoot in my gun safe! How did I arrive at this conclusion you ask? I submit the following as evidence.

1. Months ago, I put a new Timney trigger in my Remington 700 CDL .30-06 rifle. Recently I took the rifle to the range and was settling it into the bags when front of the scope moved in my hand! The front scope mount ring, a Leupold ring no less, had broken in two. Glad that happened at the range!

2. My scoped Ruger MKIII began to shoot odd shaped, much larger than average groups. I gave it a very thorough going over and the problem persisted. Finally I decided to shoot group, rap the scope with a screwdriver handle and shoot another group. Bingo! The windage was off by several inches. I removed the scope and shoot it. Loose parts rattled inside. Scope was an older high quality made in Japan optic which is now in the landfill.

3. Two weeks ago I put a new old stock BSA Sweet 17 scope on my Marlin 882 SS .22 WMR rifle. I bore sighted it and as usual my first shot landed within an inch of the bullseye. Cool, or so I thought. The rifle would not group. Two shots here, a shot there, two shots way over there. Switching ammo didn't help. Then all of a sudden its shooting a foot high at 50 yards. Yeah, you guessed it, the erector assembly for the crosshairs failed. Usually the older, all metal BSA scopes are solid performers. I have six identical units.

4. Last Sunday, my wife and I hit the .22 rifle range. I took my Marlin 80DL .22 LR on which I'd just done some trigger work. Shooting bulk high velocity ammo, it settled in nicely shooting sub one inch groups at 50 yards. So I commenced to sniping my 2 inch metal spinners, plastic medicine bottles and bits of clay pigeons at 50 to 70 yards. All of a sudden I started missing. First several shots high left, then several shots right on, then several shots low and right. What?? I returned to my paper targets and the culprit became readily apparent. The crosshairs were rotating around in a circle!. Second of the BSA scopes to bite it in two weeks.

So, I am hoping the Gremlins are satisfied. Also hoping the other four BSA scopes don't suffer the same crosshair failures, as I don't really have the cash to re-scope all .22 rifles at once!
 
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I bought a BSA scope many years ago,when they first hit the market. Used it once and sent it back.Kind of like most optics made in China..really poor quality. Pretty much my last venture into "cheap" optics. I now stick to better brands. Yes,more money..but zero issues and spot on accuracy. I like Trigicon for high quality and reasonable pricing on tube optics and Eotech for my holographic sights. Uber high end optics are nice as well..but not sure they are worth THAT much more. (Think Zeiss,Hensoldt,Swarofski etc..although one of my past regrets was selling a sniper rifle and not taking the Hensoldt scope off it. Nicest scope I have ever owned)

A shooter is only as good as his gun,ammo and optics. Don't skimp on any of them. :)
 
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I hope Leupold is not selling China made scope rings. The steel from China is way sub standard (M2CW). A broken ring is really a strange occurrence.
The failure of cheap scopes are really an everyday occurrence, especially if subject to very much recoil. I have a few cheap scopes on 22RF and they function ok, but for any item that will go to the field for hunting, quality scopes are sitting atop. Way to many stories of broken scopes when a nice game animal was the object of firing the gun.
 
I hope Leupold is not selling China made scope rings. The steel from China is way sub standard (M2CW). A broken ring is really a strange occurrence.

Strange, I spent a couple of hours in Leopold training yesterday and I know the answer to the ring steel question...must be something going on in the cosmos.

One of the things I learned was: their rings are made from forged steel from steel mill here in the United States. Their tubes are made from an aircraft aluminum and they are the second highest user of that aircraft speced aluminum, behind Boing.

A broken ring is almost hard to believe but stuff does happen and things that should never fail sometime do. I'm sure if the screws were over tongued passed 28 inch pounds I could see one of them failing not the ring. More likely a scope tube would crush first.

For the OP at least Leopold has a no hassle lifetime fix or replace guarantee. I think if a ring broke they will want it and will replace it without hassle.

The BSA scope failures don't surprise me one bit. They don't have the best reputation for build quality. There are many other budget scopes I would buy other than a BSA.
 
Time for the chicken legs, feathers and chanting to begin. I'm sure some of our Louisiana members can provide some details to help.

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I bought one of those CDNN scopes with the integrated base and mounted it on a 5.56 rifle. At the range I got through about 10 rounds when the groups went to rats. Turned out the screws between the mount and scope were loose, probably because they needed Loctite. One day I'll get back to the range and see if blue threadlock has fixed the issue.
 
Strange, I spent a couple of hours in Leopold training yesterday and I know the answer to the ring steel question...must be something going on in the cosmos.

One of the things I learned was: their rings are made from forged steel from steel mill here in the United States. Their tubes are made from an aircraft aluminum and they are the second highest user of that aircraft speced aluminum, behind Boing.

A broken ring is almost hard to believe but stuff does happen and things that should never fail sometime do. I'm sure if the screws were over tongued passed 28 inch pounds I could see one of them failing not the ring. More likely a scope tube would crush first.

For the OP at least Leopold has a no hassle lifetime fix or replace guarantee. I think if a ring broke they will want it and will replace it without hassle.

The BSA scope failures don't surprise me one bit. They don't have the best reputation for build quality. There are many other budget scopes I would buy other than a BSA.

The Leupold rings and base were on the Remington when I bought it and appeared to be much older than the rifle. New set of modern Leupold rings on it now.

The BSA Sweet 17 4-12X40 AO actually have pretty good optics. I guess the weak spot is the recticle assembly, or at least in those two scopes. I have Burris and Redfield optics on my centerfire rifles and Leupold, Burris and one Swift on my handguns. Time to start upgrading the Rimfire scopes.
 
I have an Interarms Mark X .223 B/A that used to make one hole groups. I got a Leupold 3x9 scope basically free so I took the cheap scope off and replaced it. At 25 yards it's a foot low. Since the base is basically a picatinny rail, I turned the mount around, same result. Moved the Leupold to another gun and replaced with a Weaver. Same result. Changed mount, same result. Some bad juju at work. A favorite rifle relegated to "I get to it someday." Joe
 
I have an Interarms Mark X .223 B/A that used to make one hole groups. I got a Leupold 3x9 scope basically free so I took the cheap scope off and replaced it. At 25 yards it's a foot low. Since the base is basically a picatinny rail, I turned the mount around, same result. Moved the Leupold to another gun and replaced with a Weaver. Same result. Changed mount, same result. Some bad juju at work. A favorite rifle relegated to "I get to it someday." Joe

Sounds like the haunted 6x42 scope I bought years ago. Superb optics, but it wouldn't dial in like it was bent or something.
 
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