Scope height, cheek weld and eye relief

[406pat]

I'll be a bit contrary here, I'm a big fan of mickey mousing... with big caveats! Try a cheap slip on pad, try some cheap high rings from Wal-Mart, try a duct tape cheek rest. All of these things are very low-cost-low risk ways of figuring out what works. Once you get the constraints right with the cheap crap, you can replace it with quality items that you are confident will work. I've made the mistake of buying a nice thing that I like and looks great, but doesn't quite fit. I've spent more time getting bad results from good equipment that doesn't fit trying to adapt to it than I care to admit.
Assuming a base level of functionality and reliability, fit is typically more important than quality.
I also disagree that scope height doesn't impact eye relief. The rifle and shooter are an interdependent system, change one thing and it impacts everything. Raise the scope up, now your cheek is floating. Raise the cheek up and your head angle has to be more upright, or the butt of the rifle has to be lower in your shoulder. If your head is more upright with your cheek in the same place your eye is further away from the scope.
Finally, if this is for hunting and field work, be careful increasing LOP. My general rule of thumb for a hunting gun is to go with the shortest LOP that works for prone, sitting, or braced standing. I missed a chance at a bull elk in the timber because the butt of my rifle hung up on my coat when I tried to bring it up while stalking. I had that rifle dialed in and fitted perfectly... for prone off a bipod in a t-shirt!

 

[Shane Lindsey]

Not sure how much "short" your eye relief is, but I fight this with a Zeiss V4 in Talleys. Just enough that when on 16x I cannot pull the rifle into my shoulder like I prefer.
You may need to measure your rings and see if someone makes one just a bit taller without going to the next height. This would allow for clearance in the back. Not all "lows" are "lows".

Greetings from VA...I am in Fxburg.

 

[MFGRVA]

In no particular order...

I'm going to try the slip-on pad first, no question about that. Easy to try, easy to revert from. I can source higher rings to give them a shot if the pad doesn't show promise. I have a cheek rest in a box somewhere that I can try if needed.

Right now, I'm moving my head back slightly from where it naturally lands on the stock in order to get the needed eye relief, which makes me think that a slightly longer LOP is a reasonable fix to explore - since my cheek weld comes after I've shouldered the rifle. (I have another rifle with a 3/4" longer LOP that fits like a glove, which in hindsight is probably as far as I really needed to look for the answer). Or, maybe I just have goofy positions and decades of bad habits. I am quite open to the idea that I'm going about it all wrong.

1000-1200 yard shots at steel are in the picture for this rifle, but they will be infrequent. Using Hornady's BC calculator, their 140gr ELD match load - but one example - should get me to 1000 with 9.57 MRAD of elevation (dead calm) but at 1200 I'd need 13.66 MRAD with the same load, which is more than the available 11 of internal adjustment in either direction. Hence the inclusion of the 20MOA rail. With the low rings I currently have on board, any rail is likely to get in the way of the eyepiece being able to move further forward. Addressing that will mean raising the scope, modifying the rail or going to an new mounting system (or scope) altogether.

I'm setting the scope's fore-aft position based on eye relief at 15x, prone. Setting it there because with all else being equal, altering my position in prone is less desirable to me than in any other position. 15x should give me the least relief - and on a 1000-1200 yard shot, I'm almost certainly going to be at 12-15x magnification and prone or otherwise well-supported.

Thanks again all for the input so far. Glad I'm figuring this all out now rather than just a few weeks before firearms season opens.

 

[archangel485]

I had a rifle end up with the scope JUST above the barrel, I haven't measured the gap but somewhere in the 1/16" range. Close enough that sliding a lens cap on doesn't work. Ever since then I just buy high rings from Seekins rather than trying to guess the perfect height. Then if my cheek weld is too low I raise the stock. So my opinion would be buy higher rings then raise your cheek weld somehow, which there are lots of ways to do that.

I recently (like last week) did a homemade solution. I cut about a 6" piece off the end of an old shovel handle, cut that in half, cut a groove down the middle so it would ride on top of the stock, drilled a couple of holes and put nails in them to be used as pins. Then I covered it with a piece of leather and wrapped it in parachute cord. I got the idea from Ryan Cleckner on one of his youtube videos. Lots of other options out there, like the slip on that you mentioned. Pic attached if interested. Definitely not refined in the looks category but does a great job, is removable and most importantly took me very little time with stuff I had laying around the house.

Edit: Also allows you to buy scopes with larger objectives if desired.

 

[MFGRVA]

This weekend will see plenty of experimenting with the rifle, for sure. Dug out my old ITC cheek riser after work, have the slip-on recoil pad and an am likely to take along an older 1" scope and a few different set of rings that I have, if I decide to go there just to see what happens. (the PST is the only 30mm glass I have at this point, no alternate rings for it currently).

I'm starting the journey with this rifle in late May/early June by design - can't hunt large game with modern firearms here until mid-November which gives me all kinds of time to dial in the set up and get good and comfortable with it (perhaps a few coyotes will have to assist in the process) before then.

 

[Buck Fever]

Since you are tall, adding LOP is the simplest solution.

Cutting the rail for clearance is the least reversible option.

Higher rings is something I would try to avoid.

The downside of adding LOP is you have to hold the weight of the rifle further from the body.

The downside of cutting the rail is that you have to make sure you don't cut in to your mounting screw area and you will have to paint or blue the cut area.

The downside of high rings is that the height above axis will change your ballistic calculations and might make it harder to fit in a case.

I would probably wind up cutting the rail and adding a spacer to make up the rest.

 

[dok7mm]

Going out on a limb here, but have you adjusted the eye piece to focus the reticle. I've seen people skip this step. It's most likely the lop, so just guessing.

 

[Canhunter35]

One other thing, when ur laying prone, put the butt of the rifle closer to your collarbone than the pocket of your shoulder, this might increase the gap between ur eye and scope

 

[misterc01]

Quite by accident I solved this same sort of problem when I got a little off my shoulder pocket and bruised the heck out of my arm. Analyzing it, I got a limb saver under shirt pad, and it moved my LOP back just bit and bingo - it all came together. On another rifle, raiding the scope height solved by cheek weld, head position issues.

 

[Holycity73]

Lower rail, higher rings. Same problem I ran into on a rifle a few years ago. Problem is solved with just that

 

[MFGRVA]

I'm not ruling out anything at this point... I'm simply going to start working through it at the farm this weekend. A slight increase in LOP is the quickest and easiest to test, so that'll be up first. I may hate it with the slip-on pad, I may be pleased - or indifferent. Super hard to know for sure sitting in the house with snap caps.

Thanks everyone for suggestions/sanity checks.

 

[hzy1369]

Same gun in 300 I do not like to HS Precision stock so I put it in a Magpul Hunter which I do like Adjustable LOP and replaceable cheek rises. Plus I can add bottom metal and have a removable mag's so I don't have to fight around my rail to load it.

 

[MFGRVA]

As mentioned, I got out yesterday and put a fair number of rounds downrange. While the jury is still out on the Pachmayr slip-on pad, I have ordered a set of higher rings (for a couple of reasons).

Not exactly what I had expected to conclude, but I suppose that's why we fling stuff at the wall to see what sticks.

 

[KY_Windage]

As mentioned, I got out yesterday and put a fair number of rounds downrange. While the jury is still out on the Pachmayr slip-on pad, I have ordered a set of higher rings (for a couple of reasons).

Not exactly what I had expected to conclude, but I suppose that's why we fling stuff at the wall to see what sticks.

Okay, since that is what I suggested, by all means let us know how badly they messed you up.