Custom Leupolds

[Jamieb]

Hey Josh.
 Ya want to go shooting next Sat. ? I'll be going up to the same area we went to when you came down here before.
 I need to confirm my drop at 700 yards + for my 7-08.  I run out of adjustment in the scope at about 950 yards so that's as far as I'll be shooting this rifle.  I'll probably bring a few other rifles, all wearing scopes that have 1/4 moa turrets.
Alright now to the topic of this post. Don't buy the BDC turrets. Stick with plain old 1/4 click M-1's. A scope with the BDC turrets is stuck on one rifle with one load. Try to resale one.

[Jamieb]

BTW. Leupolds turn around time is realy fast right now. It's alwas taken 2 weeks, give or take a day, from me putting a scope in the mail to it sitting in my mail box. I got a scope back today that I sent to leupod on Mon. afternoon. The VX-III 3.5x10 got fitted with M-1's.

[G.R.K]

Mine are on their way back form Leupold as we speak.  I spoke with the cs rep and he told me that a bdc comes with a stock M1 turrett and I ordered two others for different elevations.  I will play with the stock one a little to use inches as my drop as opposed to the yardage ones on the custom turrets.

Can someone post some pic's on how to change a M1 turret?

[longear]

Jamieb the scopes not stuck on the gun the caps on the turret interchange!

[Jamieb]

I've never been interested much in a BDC turrets as a matter of fact I hadn't even heard of anyone getting them until I read it here on this site. I've got one scope with a subtension retical and I made it work but I swore I'd never try to make the trajectory of a bullet match a scope again, it took me way to much work and time to make it happen. I ran the numbers through a ballistic calculator and I thought it was going to be easy to match the bullet drop to the scope, well it wasnt.  Unless you've taken the time to (shoot) and confirm the drop, your not going to be able to order a scope with a custom reticle or BDC turrets that matches your actual bullet drop. A ballistic calculator may be close but you'll have to get out and shoot at distance to know the true drop. A 1/4 click turreted scope will work for any cartridge and any trajectory. I've used tall target turrets and M-1's on 22's all the way up to my .375 H&H and it works well and easy.

[S.O.B]

First things first, there is no point in doing any of this work if the rifle for said scope is not capable of at least 1/2 min.

Absolutely not true... my .300 RUM will only run about 1MOA at 100 from the bench... but it'll hold that (and often better) all the way out to 1000 yards... and 10" groups at 1K ain't nothing to sneeze at.

Yeah that accuracy thing is way over rated for long distance shooting. Oh by the way 1  MOA at 1k is about 10 feet so your right it's not important to have an accurate gun for such applications, I'm way wrong don't pay any attention to me.

[Jamieb]

First things first, there is no point in doing any of this work if the rifle for said scope is not capable of at least 1/2 min.

Absolutely not true... my .300 RUM will only run about 1MOA at 100 from the bench... but it'll hold that (and often better) all the way out to 1000 yards... and 10" groups at 1K ain't nothing to sneeze at.

Yeah that accuracy thing is way over rated for long distance shooting. Oh by the way 1  MOA at 1k is about 10 feet so your right it's not important to have an accurate gun for such applications, I'm way wrong don't pay any attention to me.

Do the math again. 1 moa at 1000 yards is 10"

[JoshT]

Yeah that accuracy thing is way over rated for long distance shooting. Oh by the way 1  MOA at 1k is about 10 feet so your right it's not important to have an accurate gun for such applications, I'm way wrong don't pay any attention to me.

Dude... you're a moron.

If 1 MOA = 1" @ 100 yards... then what's 1" x 10? It is correct that 1 "MOA" is actually like 1.024" at 100 yards, but it's not equal to 10 feet at 1K

Have you ever shot further than 100 yards?

How about 400... or 800?

[257 Wby Mag]

Yeah that accuracy thing is way over rated for long distance shooting. Oh by the way 1  MOA at 1k is about 10 feet so your right it's not important to have an accurate gun for such applications, I'm way wrong don't pay any attention to me.

Dude... you're a moron.

If 1 MOA = 1" @ 100 yards... then what's 1" x 10? It is correct that 1 "MOA" is actually like 1.024" at 100 yards, but it's not equal to 10 feet at 1K

Have you ever shot further than 100 yards?

How about 400... or 800?

TFF!! I know what he's saying though, I tell my old lady its feet, not inches too. grin.....

[JoshT]

Nice... I can here her now... bragging to all her friends about your 3-footer!

[PacificNWhunter]

JoshT
.300win mag shooting 165 grn box says 3100 ft per sec. But I am going to testing that soon through a chrono.

[Tony 270WSM]

Good advice on here. Run it through a chrono and test it at range as well. Double confirmation of your actual velocity. Had a load be 50fps from what Federal claimed. First found out it was off by checking the actual drop using clicks and then holdover at 400 and 500 yards. Confirmed in two different ways in the field so wasn't just making a mistake. Then later found a guy with a chrono and put a couple through. Findings were confirmed by it as well.

I have the VX3 CDS scope and am going to get the custom turret for my load once I can confirm the velocity from a chrono then actual drop at distance. Nice thing about it, it just takes some allen screws to change from the regular turret to the custom one. Not on there forever by any means, doesn't have to be sent in to be changed.

Was thinking about the hunting I do, so will have it be for 2500 ft and 50 degrees (middle of the road) plus all the other info. That way, should be less than 2 inches off at 600 yards no matter what. Out here I hunt 500-2000 feet but hope to get back to Idaho at some point and upwards of 5000 feet.

[JoshT]

I figure my drop chart for 3000' adjusted... I figure that's a good average for the areas I hunt... and going up to 6k... or down to sea level doesn't seem to effect my adjustments at all.

PacHunter... I'll fix you up a chart and send it to you... PM me an email address and I can put together a nice one for you out to 1200 yards.

[GEARHEAD]

go for it, i did, i shoot factory only as i don't shoot much. the first thing is, make sure you have a factory bullet your rifle likes. be sure its also one made for long range, tipped boat tail etc, is what you want. the higher the bc the better. then just contact leupold, fill out the chart, which will ask for your bullet data, be sure to get the bc for the bullet too, length of barrel is important as well, if you are a 24 in bbl, your fine, as the factory fps is probably from a 24 inch bbl, but check their web site to be sure. very important, is that you pick a temperature as well as altitude, that you will frequent most or be your primary, mine is set for 2300 ft with a 53 temp.
now while waiting for the scope to be returned to you, ya need to study your rounds ballistics and creat yourself a range card. you need this data, and can find it on the web, i use one called JBM. it will tell you your hold unders for maybe 450 yards at 25 degree of angle, you need to know your temps and altituded as well, and of course wind. i have all this data on a card from 300 to 1000 yards. i have data from 300 to 700 yards that fits into my scope cap, giving me my wind, angle, temp, and altitude variables. your scope and rifle are almost useless without this extra info. a quick example. your target is 456 yards. on flat ground at your chosen altitude and temp, you will smak it dead on. but this target is 28 degrees above you, its 20 degrees warmer than your scope setting, and 2000 feet higher too, the above knowledge provided on that card you made up, will tell you to drop that cross hair maybe 3 inches. if the temp, angle and altitude are the other way around, maybe you got a 3 inch hold over. good luck.

[high country]

I had cams made when mark was doing them for leupold......before they got greedy if I were you I woud trust NO chart anywhere till you shoot the distances yourself. then before you have the cam labled, take a piece of white adhesive paper and cut it so you can see the lines on your turret (if you are using a non turret scope just set your zero and take notes) shoot the distances you range and adjust the cam/elevation the required number of clicks to achieve zero.....map it on a piece of paper/the sticker on your cam. repeat at all ranges.

you will find that most ballistic data is usually goo to about 400 yards than starts to walk away from your gun becoming useless at 700ish yards. with practice (I use clay birds) at 1000k nothing is safe.