Elevation

Evening fella's, I've been building on a rifle that's for me to get myself out to 2500..... yea a chip shot for some of ya but hey a guys gotta have a goal I'm out to 1300 but well the 243 is sorta running out of steam and these are just steel targets no hunting in the plans or at least at those ranges until I get some things figured out.

What question is I'm running into most scopes I look at are lacking in the elevation department! something with 80MOA are easy to find but I'm finding out that scopes with enough elevation tend to be difficult to find and the ones I have found REALLY want to hurt the pocketbook. So what I've run into is pretty much to get to 2500 with the rifle I am building (300WM shooting 215 Berger's) just a guess of the numbers I'm going to be right around 110MOA so do you fella's just get into the reticule when you run out of adjustment?

Later,

Kirk

Some people do use the reticle, but a lot of people get special scope bases beyond the 30 moa ones. 40 -60-70 -80 moa are doable. Just make sure you can zero it lol

Yea that's the plan just have to decide on what scope, figure out how much elevation I will have then get a base with enough MOA that I can zero it and have a little left over just in case. I'd like to put an ATACR on the rifle but I've got more lint in my deep pockets than money and really am doing my best not to crack the CC out as it seems rather hard to put up once the seal is broke on it lol I've talked to Ken Farrell and he can cut me a base to what I want just have to figure that out once I figure out a scope.

Later,

Kirk

You might not care about this or it might not be the type of scope you are looking for but the swfa 3-15 tactical has 140 moa and they arent as expensive but they work. I dont know about the magnification though, maybe they make one with more mag.

That's what I was actually thinking of going with BUT they discontinued the 3-15 MOA SFP I called them the other day. I've got the 5-20HD on my 243 and love the scope but being a FFP the longer ranges the reticle gets in the way. I'm thinking they will come out with something else to replace but not sure? I've still got some things to do like trigger, finish the stock, blah blah but the hard part is done so it's getting closer. Yea pretty much the only scopes really out there that have much elevation are the NF scopes and well since I built the rifle honestly I don't have a bunch in it and while I'm sure the NF is worth every penny this single dude with too many hobbies has to be careful!

Later,

Kirk

If the rifle is only for long range use, put a rail that equals half the total adjustment. 110 Moa, 55moa or even more. Worst case scenario you might have a 500 yd zero, but that shouldn't matter for 2500yd gun

ATACR is my first go too for distance. usually with a 20-40 MOA base I get anywhere from 80-100 MOA in the scope to use. I have used plenty of other scopes that have 60-80 MOA in them and used the new Burris Signature XTR rings that let you add and subtract whatever you need for the most part. I used to have a WSM set up for LONG range it seemed to become a little too erratic for my liking at anything over 1900 yards. But I wasn't pushing it as hard as I could have.

That's the scope I've been looking at but just having a hard time turning loose of the change to get it! I've spoken with Ken Farrell and he will cut me a base to whatever +MOA I need as I really like to zero at 100 yards as well as get all the adjustment from the scope I can. I find it odd that my SWFA scopes have close to 145MOA but the so called long range scopes run out around the 80MOA I have one of the 5-20HD SWFA scopes and really like it but it wouldn't be good for the ELR type shooting as it's a FFP.

This is my first try at anything over 1400 yards so I built a 300WM as there is a mess of info and well it's an economical way to get there..... and I had a reamer but either way I go it looks like I'll have to get into the reticle to get out to my goal of 2500. Thanks for the replies fella's I appreciate the advice as some of this is new to me. Later,

Kirk

The only issue with having a base cut special is sometimes it doesn't add up like it should - an 80 MOA scope should have 40 MOA up if it's perfect but sometimes that doesn't happen so if you throw a 40MOA rail on that you may lose the 100 yard zero (which I like too)
That's why the XTR burris rings work since you can adjust on the fly.

Just throwing it out there

The only rifle to hit the cold bore target as well as mess the paint up on all of the targets during the two days of qualifying at the KO2M was a Vortex Razor 4.5-27x56 FFP sitting on top of a 80 moa rail as far as I know.

Cheers

Oh I'd for sure leave some "Oh crap" in the base lol say I had a 100MOA scope while I"d love to have the full 50MOA I'd make it a 40MOA cause as you said things don't always work out like planned!

I really doubt a Vortex scope will be on this rifle, nothing against them but I feel there are better choices for this project..... I bet ya with an 80MOA base he wasn't zeroed at 100 yards ;-) I don't think that scope has much more than 90MOA adjustment total.

The Sightron S3 6-24x has 100 MOA, it is on my edge

Not saying they are bad scopes just not sure about them, biggest concern is that most all elr rifles I see are sporting nightforce so there's got to be a reason!

My end goal is to one day get to 2500 yards and running the numbers for the load I've found that works well so far I would need 127 MOA to get there and it's looking like I'll have to get into the reticle to get there so I'd guess I need at least 30 MOA in the reticle or have to zero out further.

Ksmirk said:

Oh I'd for sure leave some "Oh crap" in the base lol say I had a 100MOA scope while I"d love to have the full 50MOA I'd make it a 40MOA cause as you said things don't always work out like planned!

I really doubt a Vortex scope will be on this rifle, nothing against them but I feel there are better choices for this project..... I bet ya with an 80MOA base he wasn't zeroed at 100 yards ;-) I don't think that scope has much more than 90MOA adjustment total.

Click to expand...

Ksmirk

You have a good plan coming together and yes you have your favs as far as scopes of choice, nothing wrong with that. If you are focused on a ELR rifle, set up the rail to get the most you can out of your scope. It ain't bad to try to avoid any moving parts possible unless you really trust the system.

The rifle mentioned above was running a Razor Gen II 4.5-27x56 MRAD scope not moa thus allowing a full 28.5 mils of travel versus what a moa was capable within the three revs on the turret. With the 80 moa rail, the 28.5 adjustability and the use of the reticle we were able to aim dial and shoot anything from 100 yards to past 3000 yards in seconds. So yes in all reality we could be shooting at 2500 yards at your place and on command use our ballistics programs dial down aim using the hash mark in the reticle and hit the common 1" aiming dots stuck to a 2x4 board laying horizontal at 100 yards.

FFP can be a benefit in ELR shooting when dialing down because of mirage or seeing more of the target under recoil this allows corrections to be called and made easy due to the Mils or moa hash marks always staying the same size in reference to the reticle and target face no matter what power level your panning up or down on from target to target

Good luck, put together a solid system and have a blast shooting ELR

Pictures 375 Snipetac at KO2M & shooter

Cheers
JH