Moved some scopes around today and needed to Center the Reticle. Got out my real old, time-proven, never-fail, always-works cardboard box with the two " V " slots, set the scope in the "V", sighted in at a post off in the distance and went to adjusting.

While looking through the scope, I remembered "Woods"(of all people) mentioned it was real easy and fast to center the Reticle by placing the Objective Lens against a mirror and simply crank in the adjustment until the Reticle and the Reflected Reticle aligned with each other. Knew there was little chance of it working. Plus I'd tried it before and couldn't see a thing - no Reticle - nothing!
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Wellllllllllll, today it worked as slick as Mrs. Sarah slipping a TKO to the entire obammer mob. I believe I had a bit more Wattage in the light bulb than the last time I tried it, but IT REALLY WORKS!!! And no Thingys needed!

Woods was correct!!! AMAZING!!!!!

Please explain the process.

ok...neat trick,,,,I like it but what did I gain by doing this?

Now if I had a "turn in " Leupold style base where I can adjust windage by only adjusting the base screws I can sight in the scope and have the reticule centered....but what do I gain?

quote:

Originally posted by Doc:
Please explain the process.

It's easy. Put a scope flat against a mirror. You will see the reticle and a grey reticle shadow. Move the adjustments until the two coincide and you will have your scope optically centered.

Hot Core, I can't decide if I liked you better as Mortie or not......................................DJ

quote:

Originally posted by djpaintles:
Hot Core, I can't decide if I liked you better as Mortie or not......................................DJ

Photo of Hot Core!!!!!

Told you so!

Since you gave me that bum steer on filing down a shell holder and then said we were even because I told you about the mirror trick, this means you owe me one!

If you live long enough (and I hope you do) you will find that I am right about everything!

And since we are quoting Mark Twain tonight

quote:

I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.
- Speech, September 23, 1907

Presumably if the reticule is centered when you mount it, you will have the full range of adjustment in all directions. Having said that, if the mounting "systems" is off, it probably doesn't matter much. But, if you do have adjustable mounts, then, centering the reticule first, and then mounting the scope will give the aforementioned full range of adjustment. All this assumes that the question was not "tongue in cheek"!
Peter

Mortie? I thought about Seafire's old hero as I was remounting the Scopes - because - one was being swapped onto my Squirrel rifle. Did Mortie go over to 24hour with his hero denton?

Hey Doc, DJ nailed how to do it. It does make a difference for me with a bright light source near the mirror.

Hey Vapo, Peter is correct. In my case, it lets me see if I need to change over to the Burris Signatures immediately, or just let it occur as a normal up-grade. I've always liked the Reticle near the Horizontal and Verticle Alignment Center because on some of the old rag rifles I had long ago, you could run out of adjustment at distance. And back then, it was a lot of work with special Bases to correct the issue. Of course for you guys who use weenie scopes on woosie rifles, and don't shoot past 100yds, it is no big deal.

I always thought the Rear Bases with the Lateral Adjustment Screws were a Redfield Design. But lots of folks make them. They have an inherent Design Flaw for folks that use Large Mass Scopes on High Recoil rifles - only the Front Ring holds the Scope from slipping. What will happen is the Mass of the Scope wants to remain in place and the Recoil causes the Front Ring to slip "Back" on the Scope Tube. While the Rear Ring "tears through" the Lateral Adjustment Screws. This will cause Point-of-Impact shifts until you notice what is going on(voice of experience).

There is a fix for the Redfield Design and that is to "Pin" the Rear Ring to the Base. It does prevent the Slippage, but you no longer have the Lateral Adjustment. I suppose you could put a small side-to-side slot and still retain some Lateral Adjustment, but the Burris Signatures eliminate the problem without needing a Bridgeport.

Hey Woods, It is time for you to tie the Frisbie down, pack up the dogs and take a trip with Ike headed toward you and BH. I do OK in a Hurricane, but the Tornadoes which come along with them are a real pain. And YES I do owe you one.

quote:

Originally posted by an apparently delusional or Liquid Corn filled Mr. Thingy:
If you live long enough (and I hope you do) you will find that I am right about everything!

quote:

Originally posted by Hot Core:

Hey Woods, It is time for you to tie the Frisbie down, pack up the dogs and take a trip with Ike headed toward you and BH. I do OK in a Hurricane, but the Tornadoes which come along with them are a real pain. And YES I do owe you one.

Yeah, I am a third of the way through boarding up the windows. Those plylox hurricane clips work good and make it a lot easier. Hope I got enough OSB board and clips.

It was predicted that the eye would come right over BH and then me southwest of Houston, but they just shifted the track East to come in closer to Galveston. I think it is going to shift further East like Rita did at the last minute. Didn't even get any rain out of Rita, just a lot of work. It's about 95* and humid as hell. Hope it don't shake all the pecans off my trees!

Got a 15KW generator and 20 gallons of gas. Guess I should be like all the folks you see on TV and just have the govt come take care of me.

Gotta go sweat some more.

They sent 1500 people from New Orleans up here and it kept the Police busy tossing them in the jail. Heard something about the Louisville Mayor "rethinking" the Open Door Policy.

Anyway, stop by and grab BH and bring the whole herd. We can fit you all in somewhere.

quote:

Originally posted by vapodog:
ok...neat trick,,,,I like it but what did I gain by doing this?

Now if I had a "turn in " Leupold style base where I can adjust windage by only adjusting the base screws I can sight in the scope and have the reticule centered....but what do I gain?

I have never understood why the rear windage would ever be used to adjust a scope...this would mis-alighn the front to rear ring C/L and does highly stress a scope.

quote:

Originally posted by ted thorn:
I have never understood why the rear windage would ever be used to adjust a scope...this would mis-alighn the front to rear ring C/L and does highly stress a scope.

Older scopes had less windage adjustment than our newer ones do. More than a few setups needed the rear windage adjustment to be able to come into alignment. Fortunately the a lot of the older scopes also had steel tubes that were more resistant to such abuse.
There was even a somewhat quick detach lever that some African hunters used that basically was a lever that you could turn out one side of the rear base with and then turn out the scope from the front dovetail. Obviously the more you used it the looser it became. Thank goodness we now have better scopes with more windage and good QR mounts like Talley's now adays.

The only windage adjustable bases that I use nowadays are the Sako Optilocks. I optically center the scope and then align the front base to center the vertical crosshairs with a boresite so that I can get equal windage adjustments either way. With the Optilocks you move the Front base instead of the rear, and they have a plastic insert that gimbals inside the rings and keeps the scope from getting stressed. Neat setup, but not cheap and it only works on Sako angled dovetails...............................DJ