I am mad beyond description. I just went out and shot these groups. Either this thing is a piece of crap or the scope is or both. I am sick from all the time and money and mental energy I have put into this. I have no other scope to try. Everything costs a ton of money that I don't have. I shot some fouling shots first. They went everywhere. Then I shot a group with the usual 2 touching and the other off an inch +. That was the best group it shot today. (The second shot flew off. The first and third were touching). This group was 1-1/2 high. But then the groups started splaying out everywhere and low. All from the same sandbag rest. It was cold and windy, but this is crap. Why did the group start migrating low?
I had the exact same model of Vortex scope on another rifle. It did stupid screwy things that led me to believe something happened to that rifle. It responded to a different load for a bit, but never shot well. Then I finally took the scope off and replaced my old Nikon that had been on it before. The gun went back to shooting good. It does not seem possible that I could get two scopes that are bad. If that is the case, then vortex is really crap. The problem with this thing is that it is never the same. How can a bad scope shoot one load better than another? How can it shoot some seating depths better than another? But then, how can the whole thing change from day to day? Whenever I get something that looks promising, it shoots crap another day. It does not even keep the same pattern. I am using a solid sandbag rest. I was using a bipod. Took it off and tried using just sandbags today.
These pics are not in the order of the groups I shot. The shooting order is 1, 4, 2, 3.