FAsmus
09-13-2011, 05:30 PM
Gentlemen;
The other day, when I was shooting the M1908 Brazilian Mauser up at the range a fellow shooter showed up and watched as I fired off my last few rounds. He was polite enough to stop talking when I was trying to hold steady and pull lightly but all the rest of the time he talked constantly.
One thing stuck in my mind as he spoke – that being a method to mount a scope on my old M70 – I don't remember how he got on the subject. It appeared that he had a Buehler base, adjustable for both windage and elevation + two sets of rings in his parts box that he bought at a gun show 100 years ago and never found a use for. He offered these things to me cheap. I didn't say anything at the time but the idea stayed with me. I called him up on Saturday and he brought them up to the range on Sunday.
Sure enough; all he wanted was $10.00. I bought everything on the spot. Here at home I took it all apart, cleaned everything up, took off the receiver sight from the M70 and screwed the Buehler mount into place. It fit perfectly. Then I tried to find my scopes – it had been so long since I'd seen them, let alone used one that I'd forgotten where they were. I had to search for nearly an hour before they turned up, all safely boxed up in styrofoam peanuts in a container under my stockpile of primers.
First I tried my good 12X Leopold target-knob scope. The bell of the objective was too big and would not clear the bull barrel I have on the M70. Then I tried my 6X Burris – same problem; although the bell was smaller it was not small enough. All that remained was my old hunter 3X Leopold – which has no bell at all – it fit.
I loaded 60 rounds to test it and off to the range I went. The base needed some final alignment work yet, only possible from the concrete bench at the lower firing line. I worked it over some, intending to set the external adjustment of the mount such that the internal adjustments of the scope itself would be all the way down in elevation at 100 yards and in the middle for windage.
I did this by bore-sighting after figuring out how much travel I had available in the scope. A certain point was reached when I noted that the external vertical adjustment feature of the base worked OK but it didn't have enough travel to allow me to run the internal adjustment of my scope all the way down and still stay on the 100 yard target by means of the external adjustments of the base. I needed more elevation of the rear base. In order to accomplish this so I took a washer from my sight-parts box, inserted it under the rear base mounting screw hole, screwed everything down tight and Presto! It was a good fix.
I was all set up, so with a bore-sighting complete I fired, spotted and adjusted the external screws to a 100 yard zero. ~ Leaving the internal scope adjustments at the bottom for elevation and in the middle for windage. It was easy to move the mount for zero. Then I fired a group of 5 x 0.920 just for the sake of keeping good records of the M70's performance over time with the chosen load of RCBS 30-180-SP and 21.0 grains 4759. ~ Sub MOA accuracy is pretty much always good for my cast bullet shooting.
After that I headed for the hill-top with my remaining 48 rounds to see what I could see over the long-range course of fire.
I was shooting solo, conditions were good but it had rained the previous night and the ground was crusted over – dust from misses was nearly invisible – making it very tough to get on the steel. I wasted quite a few rounds before finally getting a good dust cloud at 500m, adjusted for it and from then on it was much easier to get hits.
Even with only the 3x scope on the rifle it was easy to hold on-target but I was very glad to see Ed's truck come up the road before much more time went by. He settled in and we worked together. He was fiddling with his Rolling Block and was happy to spot my small-bore 30s as I was his shooting with a new load of his own.
I used the iron sight elevation chart that I have for the M70 to make elevation changes in the Leopold scope's elevation once I had established a starting point. Once I had this good starting point the numbers worked out very closely and with Ed's help I got hits and reliable elevations for all eleven distances we have available.
The only sticking point was the 834 yard distance. The elevation was listed in the iron sight sight-setting chart all right but there was an unknown there caused by this distance having needed a custom elevation extension to be added to the receiver sight and I didn't know how many minutes of actual elevation this item added to the sight, thus, I was quite in the dark about where to move my scope's internal elevation adjustment for the additional distance over and beyond the target set at 670 yards ..
I thought about this as Ed fired off his rounds with me spotting. When he was done I had worked up a wild guess about elevation. I cranked it in – and got a hit with my first shot, then the second shot, then the third shot. My! It had turned out to be a fine day! ~ I did miss after the third round but got back on with the last of my box of 60 before going home a happy shooter.
I know it is "non-traditional" to use a scope at all for the long range type shooting we do around here. On the other hand, it is interesting to try something besides the old receiver peep or usual tang sights and aperture front alla time. I plan on keeping the scope on the rifle for awhile – just for variety if nothing else. It is interesting to note that it seems (at this point) that there is enough internal adjustment left in the scope such that I might be able to use it for the 1000 yard distance as well. This prospect is really pretty cool.
Good afternoon,
Forrest
PS - If anyone has a set of tall Buehler rings out there please let me know - I'd like to tryout that 12 Leopold!
The other day, when I was shooting the M1908 Brazilian Mauser up at the range a fellow shooter showed up and watched as I fired off my last few rounds. He was polite enough to stop talking when I was trying to hold steady and pull lightly but all the rest of the time he talked constantly.
One thing stuck in my mind as he spoke – that being a method to mount a scope on my old M70 – I don't remember how he got on the subject. It appeared that he had a Buehler base, adjustable for both windage and elevation + two sets of rings in his parts box that he bought at a gun show 100 years ago and never found a use for. He offered these things to me cheap. I didn't say anything at the time but the idea stayed with me. I called him up on Saturday and he brought them up to the range on Sunday.
Sure enough; all he wanted was $10.00. I bought everything on the spot. Here at home I took it all apart, cleaned everything up, took off the receiver sight from the M70 and screwed the Buehler mount into place. It fit perfectly. Then I tried to find my scopes – it had been so long since I'd seen them, let alone used one that I'd forgotten where they were. I had to search for nearly an hour before they turned up, all safely boxed up in styrofoam peanuts in a container under my stockpile of primers.
First I tried my good 12X Leopold target-knob scope. The bell of the objective was too big and would not clear the bull barrel I have on the M70. Then I tried my 6X Burris – same problem; although the bell was smaller it was not small enough. All that remained was my old hunter 3X Leopold – which has no bell at all – it fit.
I loaded 60 rounds to test it and off to the range I went. The base needed some final alignment work yet, only possible from the concrete bench at the lower firing line. I worked it over some, intending to set the external adjustment of the mount such that the internal adjustments of the scope itself would be all the way down in elevation at 100 yards and in the middle for windage.
I did this by bore-sighting after figuring out how much travel I had available in the scope. A certain point was reached when I noted that the external vertical adjustment feature of the base worked OK but it didn't have enough travel to allow me to run the internal adjustment of my scope all the way down and still stay on the 100 yard target by means of the external adjustments of the base. I needed more elevation of the rear base. In order to accomplish this so I took a washer from my sight-parts box, inserted it under the rear base mounting screw hole, screwed everything down tight and Presto! It was a good fix.
I was all set up, so with a bore-sighting complete I fired, spotted and adjusted the external screws to a 100 yard zero. ~ Leaving the internal scope adjustments at the bottom for elevation and in the middle for windage. It was easy to move the mount for zero. Then I fired a group of 5 x 0.920 just for the sake of keeping good records of the M70's performance over time with the chosen load of RCBS 30-180-SP and 21.0 grains 4759. ~ Sub MOA accuracy is pretty much always good for my cast bullet shooting.
After that I headed for the hill-top with my remaining 48 rounds to see what I could see over the long-range course of fire.
I was shooting solo, conditions were good but it had rained the previous night and the ground was crusted over – dust from misses was nearly invisible – making it very tough to get on the steel. I wasted quite a few rounds before finally getting a good dust cloud at 500m, adjusted for it and from then on it was much easier to get hits.
Even with only the 3x scope on the rifle it was easy to hold on-target but I was very glad to see Ed's truck come up the road before much more time went by. He settled in and we worked together. He was fiddling with his Rolling Block and was happy to spot my small-bore 30s as I was his shooting with a new load of his own.
I used the iron sight elevation chart that I have for the M70 to make elevation changes in the Leopold scope's elevation once I had established a starting point. Once I had this good starting point the numbers worked out very closely and with Ed's help I got hits and reliable elevations for all eleven distances we have available.
The only sticking point was the 834 yard distance. The elevation was listed in the iron sight sight-setting chart all right but there was an unknown there caused by this distance having needed a custom elevation extension to be added to the receiver sight and I didn't know how many minutes of actual elevation this item added to the sight, thus, I was quite in the dark about where to move my scope's internal elevation adjustment for the additional distance over and beyond the target set at 670 yards ..
I thought about this as Ed fired off his rounds with me spotting. When he was done I had worked up a wild guess about elevation. I cranked it in – and got a hit with my first shot, then the second shot, then the third shot. My! It had turned out to be a fine day! ~ I did miss after the third round but got back on with the last of my box of 60 before going home a happy shooter.
I know it is "non-traditional" to use a scope at all for the long range type shooting we do around here. On the other hand, it is interesting to try something besides the old receiver peep or usual tang sights and aperture front alla time. I plan on keeping the scope on the rifle for awhile – just for variety if nothing else. It is interesting to note that it seems (at this point) that there is enough internal adjustment left in the scope such that I might be able to use it for the 1000 yard distance as well. This prospect is really pretty cool.
Good afternoon,
Forrest
PS - If anyone has a set of tall Buehler rings out there please let me know - I'd like to tryout that 12 Leopold!