Be sure of not only your target, but what’s behind it as well

So the Third Doctor came along in the series…yeah I’m not even going to try on this one. Speaking of television and movies, however, their grasp of physics is phenomenally bad. Granted, if reality worked the way it does in movies the world would be interesting, to say the least. You could just zoom and enhance any crappy security camera feed and have a perfect image of a criminal. If that fails, you could always create GUI interface using Visual Basic to track the killer’s IP address (translation: there is none. The phrase is pure gobbledygook). Beyond that, shooting guns would be even more fun than they are now!

You see, in movies, a bullet hits its target then stops (or propels the bad guy back 20 feet). That would be so much fun seeing the steel target go flying off into the distance! Reality, however, is really boring. The bullet isn’t going to hit the target with any more force than you felt when you fired it in the first place. On top of that, the bullet isn’t going to just stop when it hits…depending on various factors that is.

You know how cops always take cover behind car doors in movies? Nope. Even hollow point bullets are going to punch right through. They’ve even tested it with doors that were made back in the day when cars were actually made of metal and no dice. It still provided little protection.

What I’m getting at is that a bullet is probably going to go much farther than you expect it to. There are “factors” involved, mind you, but there are too many to reliably predict the outcomes. Things like the kind of bullet used (FMJ vs. Hollow Points), caliber, distance, bonding, material and more will affect just how far the bullet goes when passing through things. Hollow points are made to expand and actually reduce penetration but they don’t always expand the way they’re supposed to at which point they’re really no different from a FMJ round.

This is ultimately one of the reasons why Rule Number 3 is important. While it would be difficult…if not impossible to calculate the trajectory of a bullet when Thuggo is kicking in your front door, this rule still applies in a large number of situations. As stated before, every rule after Rule Number 1 exists solely to reduce the damage caused from breaking Rule Number 1. If you’ve skipped Rule 1 but are still following Rule 2, that’s a good start but just because you’re not pointing it at your cat doesn’t mean you don’t have someone in your laser’s path. A 9mm FMJ round can pass through a surprising amount of drywall and wood before it stops and I don’t think your neighbor would appreciate the new peephole you just installed in his/her living room wall.

This rule is also important for hunters. If you miss that deer you’re aiming at, your .308 round can go a loooooooong way before it stops. At shooting ranges, even indoor ranges with their backstops, you should still be aware of where you’re pointing. Pointing too high up can lead to all kinds of trouble as the bullet could go over the berm (if outdoor) or through the ceiling (which often aren’t as solidly reinforced as the backstop).

Rule number three isn’t just about what’s behind your target, however. It says to be sure of the target itself. How many stories do we hear about someone shooting into a darkened door at night only to find out they shot their spouse or roommate? If you can’t positively identify your target, you don’t shoot at your target. Period. End of story. This is why many are a bit wary of the illuminated sights on some pistols. The thought is if it’s too dark to clearly see the sights on your gun then you probably can’t identify your target either. I’ll be honest, I can’t really find a way of arguing with that logic. Granted, there are other reasons for glow sights but that’s another article.

The ideal method when you can’t positively ID your target is to take cover and make them identify themselves. That whole “shoot first and ask questions later” thing only works in movies. The reality is, there are legal repercussions about that one. Again, at the range, make sure you’re aiming at the right target. I’ve actually had someone start punching holes in my paper before. Talk about embarrassing. That’s the shooting range equivalent of throwing a bowling ball down the wrong lane.

Rule Three, in the end, is all about paying attention. Tunnel vision is always a bad thing and being aware of your surroundings along with your target will not only make you a safer shooter, but it could also clue you in to other threats in the immediate area. Keep your head on a swivel, friends.

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Rule Number 2: Loaded or unloaded, never point the gun at anything you don’t want killed or destroyed

When the Doctor Who series started in 1963, the very first Doctor was an old and grumpy dude and wasn’t very likable. Then the Second Doctor came along, played by Patrick Troughton, and suddenly the character became fun and much more pleasant. The second safety rule…has nothing to do with that, really. In fact, this is a terrible analogy. Forget I said anything here. Let’s start over.

Every rule after Regla Número Uno (which is Spanish for Regel Nummer Eins, which is German for Rule Number One) is made under the assumption that you have ignored or skimped on the previous rules. They’re a fallback, in some regards. This is why I say that, with every rule ignored, your chances of an accident increase. After rule number one ALL the rules become about minimizing damage rather than preventing an accident altogether.

You’ll often hear a term that is in many ways associated with Rule #2: “Lasering”. One way you might hear it used  is “that person just lasered the whole room!” or “I was at a gun show and that dude kept lasering me. I finally went to a different booth.” This stems from an old trick that instructors use to help people follow Rule #2. Imagine a laser shooting out of the barrel of your gun. This is one of those sci-fi lasers where you can actually see the beam, mind you. You never want that beam to cross a person. This may result in some strange anglings of the gun sometimes and if you watch people who follow the rules religiously, you’ll see them quickly and instinctively turning and twisting their hands to make sure that laser never passes over so much as a person’s foot. This is what you need to get good at: picturing that laser and keeping it away from living things.

The reason for this is simple: if you have ignored Rule Number 1 or if you are at the range or even a self defense situation where you and the attacker aren’t the only people around, you are carrying a live and ready to fire gun. If a gun is fired, you ideally only want it pointed at things that need to have a bullet in them. While not ideal, firing a bullet accidentally at the ground is FAR better than in your buddy’s foot. A hole in your TV is better than a hole in a loved one. The easiest to follow Rule #2 is to keep your gun pointed at the ground as much as possible. True, concrete floors may cause a ricochet and wood floors probably won’t stop it at all but it’s a start. Once you’re conscious of where the barrel is pointing at all times, it becomes easier to keep people out of harm’s way.

Keep in mind, if you are in a situation where Rule Number 2 and its protections have come into play (aka “the gun just went off”…which is a huge lie), you’re in for a world of hurt. You have “done goofed” as is the popular internet vernacular at the moment. There will be some legal issues moving forward. In most cases, the cops will be involved. Often, it’s written off as an accident if no one was hurt or at risk (the third rule helps with this but that’s the next article). Some districts will levy a small fine. Others, you’re looking at jail time or a confiscation of your guns. This is another reason why the rules are important: they protect you from a legal standpoint as much as they protect you and other from a safety standpoint.

Start picturing that laser and keep it away from the living. Your pets, friends, kids and spouses will thank you for it.

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Rule #1: Treat every gun as though it were loaded.

If you’ve spent enough times around firearms, you should be able to recite this in your sleep. There is a reason why this is always rule number 1: It is the most important rule. This rule can prevent more accidents than any other rule on the list. The other rules on the list? Those are there to cover you in case you don’t follow this rule.

What does it really mean, though? What is involved in following rule number one?

First off, it means never taking someone else’s word when they say “don’t worry, it’s not loaded.” It doesn’t matter if it’s a gun store clerk or a cop, you check the gun yourself. If it’s a semi-auto, lock the slide back and look inside the gun. Make sure there isn’t a round lodged in the barrel. Same with revolvers, rifles and shotguns. Inspect the chamber itself. If you can angle the gun right to see inside, stick your finger inside and feel the chamber. Try to get your finger up the ramps and into the barrel itself. If you feel a hole, you’re good to go.

I say this because I once handled a gun where the cartridge was expanded. The brass had lodged itself into the chamber and the extractor could not pull it out. Had I not actually inspected the chamber itself, I would never have known that the gun with no magazine and had the slide cycled two or three times by people before I picked it up had a live round in it. Thank goodness everyone was also following rule #2…but that’s my next post. You should have seen the looks on everyone’s faces when I pointed it out. No one argued with me when I said “and that’s why we visually inspect the chamber as well”.

I’ve also gone over another scenario a number of times: emptying/checking the gun then walking away from it. If the gun is ever out of your sight, check it again when you next pick it up. As stated in last week’s post, never trust your memory and never trust your “habits”. Ever heard the phrase “To err is human”? We are human. We err. We err a lot. Just do a Google search for “negligent discharge new story” to see how many times we err on a regular basis.

Also, just because you’re in a gun store doesn’t mean you can relax on the rules. At my local store, the clerks always check the gun before they hand it to a customer. Every time, they hand one to me, I inspect it myself. Not once have I ever gotten flak for it. If I’m ever in a store where someone does give me a hard time, I will set the gun on the counter, say “thanks but no thanks” and walk out because that’s not a store you want to do business with. If they encourage a customer to be unsafe, what other safety methods are they skipping. It’s those kinds of places you hear about a gun “going off” in a shop.

Ultimately, Rule 1 is about accepting responsibility for your own safety. The way you do that is to inspect, inspect, inspect. It doesn’t take long. I type between 80 and 100 words a minute. It takes less time to check a gun than it took me to write this sentence. You have no excuse not to. Keep in mind, once you’ve verified it’s unloaded, that doesn’t mean you can relax. Oh no, reader, we’re just getting started with the rules…

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A bullet’s path is not a straight line. I know most of you are saying “well, duh”. I think it’s safe to say that we all know a bullet will eventually hit the ground however the details concerning path of a fired bullet is not considered by most outside of the standard “know your target and what’s behind it” safety commandment. You know who does consider the path a bullet follows in great detail? Rifle shooters.

When you’re dealing with only a few yards, the drop of a bullet is negligible. Start traversing distances longer than 100 yards and bullet drop becomes a big deal. When you’re looking at shots near 1 mile, it’s not so much shooting the target as it is lobbing a bullet towards the target. The question is, how much do you lob said bullet? If only there was some way to know exactly or at least estimate how much you’re going to have to aim above the target so you can hopefully get that first shot on target.

The good news is, there is a way. The bad news is it involves some maths. Feel free to run screaming. I won’t blame you. As the great Jimmy Buffett once wrote: “Math Suks”. For those of you who wish to journey with me on a trigonometric adventure of algebraic bliss, buckle up.

First off, you’re going to need a bit of information before you start. The main one is going to be the muzzle velocity of the bullet. How do you figure that? Well, you could go spend some money on an chronograph and spend a great deal of time testing various ammo, recording the velocities and then averaging them and keeping them in a special journal. Personally, that sounds about as exciting to me as a root canal. The easier thing to do is to look up the ballistic information from your ammo’s manufacturer. All the major ones make the information available on their websites.

Then you’re going to need to know the bullet’s weight. This should be displayed prominently on the box/bag/case the ammo came in. It’ll usually say something like “[some number] grains”. Then, once you have all that information, plus a few standard items, you can plug the numbers into the following equation:

Bullet height H = Hi + V*sinΘ*t – ½g*t² 

where

• V = muzzle velocity
• Θ = angle above horizontal of the initial velocity
• Hi = Initial height
• t = time after firing, seconds
• g = gravitational acceleration

Now, this is going to give you a range of values that you can then plot out on a graph and…uhm…at least I think that’s what happens. Hang on…

Ok, I don’t have a graphing calculator on me. Uhm. Oh wait, my smartphone might have…nope. Alright, you know what? As much as I love science and neat looking equations and stuff, there’s no real point to doing it this way. There are countless ballistics calculators that do all the grunt work for you and you just have to plug in a couple of easily obtained information. No maths necessary.

One of my favorite online calculators is over at Hornady. There’s also numerous apps available for your phone that can make the calculations as well. So let’s back up a bit and go through this way.

First off, one of the things that confused the heck out of me when I first saw a ballistics chart was how it showed the bullet travelling upwards first then eventually dropping. My brain, having studied physics and such for so long, said “that doesn’t look right”. You see, bullets start to drop the moment they leave the barrel. Gravity: it’s not just a good idea, it’s the law. Now, the velocity of the bullet lessens the effect on gravity but it certainly doesn’t reverse the effect and cause the bullet to rise. What causes that is the difference in height between the barrel and the (properly zeroed) scope. So it’s going to rise up to the point that the scope is zeroed then start to fall as would be expected. Essentially, you’re kind of lobbing the bullet towards your target instead of that laser straight shot we all envision.

So to use one of those calculators, you’re still going to need to know a few things before you start. There is, of course, the bullet grain and velocity. As stated before, this information is readily available online. Depending on the calculator, you might also need to know the “ballistic coefficient”. This is the ability of the round to overcome air resistance and, thanks to differences in bullet shape, is different for each bullet. Again, most manufacturers provide this number on their websites and sometimes the ammo boxes and it will be a number between 0.001 and 1.0. The last number we’ll need is the distance between the scope/sights and the barrel.

Plug those numbers into the calculator and you should be greeted with a table of numbers. Every calculator displays things a bit differently but ultimately, here is the information you’re going to find most valuable. At the range your scope is zeroed to, it’s going to have a 0 for the trajectory. This means that if your scope is zeroed at 100 yards, barring crosswind and such, your point of aim will be the point of impact. There is no bullet drop. Starting at regular intervals after that point, you’re going to see a negative trajectory. For example, say at 200 yards it shows a -4.2 for the trajectory. That means the bullet is going to drop 4.2 inches at that point. Eventually, you’re going to see a number that’s larger than you are tall. Unless you’re shooting off a cliff, that’s where the bullet is going to hit the ground.

Some calculators, like the Hornady calculator I mentioned, even shows you what adjustments you’ll have to make on your scope in order to get that “point of aim/point of impact” goodness at distances. I ran a .308 Win round through it using the ballistics data from the manufacturer. Let’s say I’m shooting at a target at 700 yards. According to the calculator, I would have make a 20.6 MOA adjustment to my scope in order to put the bullet on target. Knowing that number and how many “clicks” on your scope equates to 1 MOA, you can then set the scope accordingly. Handy information to be sure!

Keep in mind, the accuracy of the basic calculations is based off of certain “ideal” constants. Most calculators also have an advanced mode where you can enter in information like wind, altitude, temperature, and barometric pressure to really nail down some near exact numbers. The thing to ultimately remember is that these calculations, even if you enter all the information necessary, are still a “best case scenario”. They give you a starting point. It’s a relatively accurate starting point, mind you, but it’s still just a starting point. You still have to do your part. Nothing beats getting out there and shooting with this information so you can learn how your gun works compared to the calculations. In order words: get out there and practice.

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We spend countless amounts of money getting in shape. We spend hours at the gym grunting and sweating. We eat foods like kale and tofu. All of this so that we live longer with the added bonus of attracting a mate. With all this health junk we do, when was the last time you did push-ups with your brain? I mean, what does it matter that you can bench press a car if your mind goes? Believe it or not, exercising your brain is just as important and, frankly, far easier than exercising your body.

There are a lot of mental exercises you can do to sharpen alertness and concentration. These usually involve a computer and such but, as it turns out, shooting actually exercises a lot of those things as well. Granted, it depends on the kind of shooting but there are some things you can do at the range to give your brain a boost.

First off, skeet shooting is probably one of the best shooting sports for your brain. Let’s take a look at the process. Your brain has to find the clay, focus on it and then figure out its trajectory. Then, it has to process the angle of the gun based off of the feedback from your hands and arms (remember, looking at the gun is bad when you’re shooting clays). These are the mental equivalent of cardio. It doesn’t really build muscle but it keeps things healthy. You burn a bunch mental calories so that you have that Oreo Cookie without guilt, metaphorically speaking of course. Keep in mind, no amount of mental conditioning will let you get through the Twilight movies with no lasting effects.

But what if you want giant, sexy biceps on your mind? You’re going to have to spend some time with the free weights. Believe it or not (or believe it because it’s true), learning new things is a great way to improve your mind. Now, going out and reading a book on quantum physics is never a bad thing but learning a new motor skill will actually create new neural pathways inside your brain. So learning to shoot a rifle or learning to shoot 3 gun will do wonders. What if I told you, however, that there’s an even easier thing you can do?

Learn to shoot with your other hand. That’s it. Studies have shown that learning to do things with your weak hand has an amazing number of benefits. First off, they’ve found it causes an overall increase in creativity. Because the right side of the brain is what handles our creative side, using your left hand can actually stimulates that part of the brain. According to the studies, it also works for people who are already left handed due to the fact that both sides of the brain are activated when using a non-dominant hand as opposed to only having one side working overtime when you use your dominant hand.

The benefits go beyond that, however. Getting proficient with the opposite hand actually increases the size of the part of the brain that connects the two hemispheres. We’re talking a physical increase in size here. There are some experts that believe this increase in communication between the hemispheres can actually lead to increases in intelligence.

Now, I’m not going to sit here and say that using your weak hand to shoot will make you smarter. I’ll leave that to actual scientists. What I will say is that using your weak hand to do tasks has surprising benefits and you can exercise that part beyond just shooting. Try brushing your teeth with your opposite hand or forget convention and switch which hand you use for the fork and knife. Your brain will thank you. Remember: Smart is the new sexy. Work out that brain!

Image used courtesy of Wikipedia

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I think people fail to appreciate how easy it is to buy handgun ammo. I’m not referring to ammo inventory levels, mind you, I’m talking about picking out the right ammo for your gun. If you have a .45ACP pistol, you go out and buy a box of .45ACP ammo. At the same time, with few exceptions, it’s easy to tell the size of the round by the caliber alone. A .45 is bigger than a .40 and that’s bigger than a .380 and so on. Sometimes there can be a little confusion with the ammo that uses the metric system (hello, 9mm) but beyond that, it’s pretty straightforward. Things get a bit odd in the terms of shotgun ammo as the smaller the gauge, the bigger the round but it’s an easy rule of thumb to remember. When it comes to rifle ammo, however, It’s like they’re just trolling us.

You’ve got 5.56 which is what your average AR-15 uses but that’s the same size as a .223 but the two aren’t exactly interchangeable because 5.56 is a hotter round so you can use .223 in a 5.56 but not the other way around. You’ve got the .308 Winchester which is almost the same as the 7.62×51 round but not exactly the same but still interchangeable but not exactly interchangeable. The 7.62×51 is nothing like the 7.62x54R or the or the 7.62×39 rounds.

In fact, there are so many different ways of describing a rifle cartridge that, even though there are a couple of rules of thumb, there are so many exceptions to the rule that it’s kind of pointless. It’s the firearm equivalent of “I before E except after C”. They don’t even really teach that in schools anymore because there are more exceptions to that rule than there are words that adhere to it.

Let’s try to narrow it down a bit.

Imperial Sizing

This is exactly like handgun ammo in that’s it’s the width of the bullet in inches. So a .308 bullet is .308 inches in diameter or just over a quarter of an inch. These are the easiest sizes to picture in your mind, at least in terms of the bullets themselves. Imperial sizes, unfortunately, feel the need to muddy up the relatively uncomplicated waters. More on that in a moment.

Metric Sizes

Things get a bit funkier when you start dealing with the metric style. In the grand scheme of things, much like the metric system in general, it’s actually a much easier way to measure and describe cartridges. Let’s look at the 7.62×51 round. First off, the name isn’t a multiplication equation. Believe it or not, I heard a clerk at a store tell this to a buyer once. I’ll never forget it when I heard him say “you just multiply the numbers together and that’s the size of the bullet”. I noped the heck out of that store with haste. Here’s the way it works. The thing before the “x” is the diameter of the bullet itself in millimeters. In this case, the bullet is 7.62mm across. The stuff behind the “x” is the length of the casing, in this case (case…get it?) it’s 51mm long. So I can quickly see that a 7.62×51 round has the same size bullet but longer case than the 7.62×39 round. Boom, done. Crystal clear.

Everything Else

Then you have stuff like the .30-06. It’s named that because it’s a .30 caliber round that was introduced in 1906. Some of these are just…you just have to go with it.

Now Let’s Screw Up a Good Thing

Remember how I said that the imperial system muddies the waters? A better term would be “shot themselves in the foot”. Some say it’s marketing but, personally, I think it’s partially due to ego as well. That’s why we have things like the .308 Winchester and the .308 Marlin Express or the .338 Winchester Magnum and the .338 Lapua Magnum. None of those are compatible with each other. At the same time, based on the name alone, you would never know that the .308 Winchester has a slightly longer case than the .308 Marlin unless you spent some time on Wikipedia or compared the two side by side in the store. With all the Winchesters, Marlins, Savage, Remingtons, Swifts, Fireballs, Hornets, Krag, Springfields, Blackouts and SOCOMS that follow imperial rounds, it’s a wonder why more people don’t say “forget it, I’m buying a shotgun”.

So the Official Gun Noob Rule of Thumb Is…

There are a large number of rifle cartridges that are interchangeable. There are also many that are interchangeable with very specific rules. Finally, there are an absurd about that are so similarly named that you would swear they’re interchangeable but they’re dangerously not in any way, shape or form. So the best thing to do is stick with the size that is stamped on the side of your rifle and don’t swap things out unless you are 1000% certain you can. Doing otherwise can cause severe injury to yourself and others nearby.

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A rifle without a scope is just a long pistol. Look, I’m tired at the moment and that’s about a profound as it’s going to get. While you’ll probably never see that phrase on a motivational poster, it’s arguably accurate. While there are some people that can shoot amazing distances with a pistol and some people regularly shoot rifles out to 1,000 yards with no scope, those of us who are human have a limit to how far we can shoot with iron sights. A scope, in this case, makes all the difference in the world.

As with all things in retail, there are choices to be made. This is, again, one of those situation where you do get what you pay for. As the price goes up, the quality scales as well. With just a bit of fiddling at a store, it’s hard to imagine a $1000 scope being much better than a $100 option but once you get into the field, the difference is monumental. It ultimately comes down to 2 things: optic quality and durability.

If you look at how optical lenses are made, you’ll see that it’s a surprisingly manual and extensive process. It’s safe to say that if they’re making lenses for a $100 device, they may cut a few corners. Perhaps the glass won’t be as high of a quality or they’ll lower the standards during polishing. When you’re in bright sunlight at 100 yards or more, those corners will show themselves. First off, the distortion will be worse. It’ll be very hard to make out details. Think of it like the resolution of a camera. You’ll be able to see more detail, zoom and work more with a 12 megapixel image as opposed to a 1 megapixel photo.

The durability part comes down to the build quality. The firing of any gun produces a very violent set of actions on the gun itself and you want something that can stand up to it. A cheaper scope can be shaken apart, depending on the caliber. There’s also the case of the crosshairs inside. When you have that gun zeroed out, the recoil of a rifle can actually knock the crosshairs out of alignment. You’ll hear reviewers and such referring to a scope “holding zero” sometimes. That’s what they’re talking about here and it’s a pretty important thing. You don’t want to waste ammo realigning your sights every 10 shots, do you?

To be honest, if you’re only ever going to be shooting at 100-200 yards, the optical quality isn’t the biggest deal in the world. The durability is more important for about 90% of the things people will be using a rifle for. Those people who shoot long range competitions and such will benefit from the higher quality optics than your hobbyist hunters will. That being said, there will come a point of diminishing returns on the price.

The average rule of thumb is that you want to spend at least have of the cost of a rifle towards buying a scope. That means if you bought a $750 rifle, for example, you’d want to put at least a $375 scope on it. It’s not a perfect rule, mind you, but it puts you in ballpark quality to match your rifle’s quality. Unless you’re really going to be doing some high-end stuff with your rifle, I would go much above the $800 range. That’s just me though. If you’ve got the money and you want to spend it, go right ahead. Keep in mind, this is a bare minimum to spend on the scope. There are some that say you should spend the same amount and a few that will say you should spend more. Like I said before, however, it’s a ballpark rule of thumb for price vs quality.

Before we go further, let’s talk about the terms and parts with a scope. One of the main words you’ll hear is the “objective” of the scope. This is just a fancy word that means “the big part of the scope that points at the target”. It’s where the light comes in. You have the crosshairs which are the bars inside of the scope that you use to actually point the rifle at your target. Then there are the turrets. These are where you adjust the crosshairs so that it lines up with the path the rifle shoots (the process being called “zeroing”). There are some other items you’ll find on occasion like flip up caps for protecting the lenses, parallax levers for dealing with parallax (that’s another article) and other “nice to have but not entirely necessary, depending” type of things.

When you see a scope being described on a box or label, you’ll see it expressed like so: 6-24×50 or 3-9×25 or 4×32. Ultimately it’s [Number]x[Number] or [Number]-[Number]x[Number]. You can relax, thought, because that’s not implying complex algebraic equations. The first number or set of numbers before the “x” is telling you how much it will magnify. So that 4×32 scope, for example, will magnify the target 4 times which means it will appear 4 times closer than it actually is. A target at 40 feet would appear to be 10 feet away. If there’s a range (like the 6-24 or 3-9), that means it’s a variable zoom and you can change the magnification anywhere between the first and second numbers. The second number (the one after the “x”) is the size of the objective in millimeters. So in our first example, the 6-24×50, it would be a scope that will give you magnification between 6 and 24 times and the objective of 50mm across.

So what should you look for? That’s not the right question. The first question you should be asking is “what are you planning on using it for?” You see, there really aren’t any “one size fits all” solutions for scopes. Each one is going to have a different purpose. While any scope can technically be used for any purpose, you’ll get better performance in the end using a scope meant for its intended purpose. So if you’re only ever planning on punching holes in paper at a range, a hunting scope isn’t going to be the best option. At the same time, I don’t know if I would use a tactical scope while deer hunting.

This all leads me to another rule of thumb: you want simple in the field and complex in a range. Believe it or not, if you plan on using it for hunting then you can go with a pretty simple scope. A standard crosshair is more than acceptable. You don’t want huge, exposed turrets because they can be snagged and damaged by trees and bushes as you move through the wilderness. That can either screw up your zeroing or even damage the scope altogether. At the same time, if you’re looking for those 1000+ yard shots, having a scope with big, sub-sub-sub MOA adjustment turrets and a reticle with bullet drop calculations and such built in is where you would want to go.

I should note that tactical scopes are a whole different beast and that would warrant a different article.

There is one last thing I need to mention and it’s by far the most important aspect of buying a scope: the mounts. You don’t want to duct tape your scope to your rifle. Skimping on the mounts is the equivalent of that. Let me put it another way, let’s say you bought a Ferrari 458 Italia. This is one of the finest cars on the road and, not only a showcase in engineering excellence but it can be argued that it’s also a work of pure art. Upon getting your 458 home, you immediately swap out the tires and wheels with a bunch of cheap, re-treaded spare tires you bought from Crazy Dave’s Discount Tire Hut and took it out to the race track. How well do you think that car would perform on those skinny, cheap tires? With the power and such of the 458, I would give it until maybe the third turn before those tires disintegrated and potentially wrecked the car.

The scope mounts are the same thing. Do not put a Ferrari on your rifle then put el-cheapo tires on it. The scope mounts will make sure that your scope stays in place when you shoot and this will ultimately help your accuracy. I actually saw, on a message board I frequent, someone that had a $1500 scope on his awesome rifle then had $15 scope mounts he bought from WalMart. They broke after a couple hours of shooting and that $1500 scope was destroyed in the process. Credit where it’s due, he was brave as heck to admit it publicly. The forum ripped him to shreds. It was brutal…and funny. With that in mind, I’m going to write this in all caps and even bold it to make sure you know I’m being serious: DON’T SKIMP ON THE MOUNTS.

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