I went hunting the other day, and I saw the perfect squirrel around 75 yards away, so I thought this would be a no brainer shot with my FX Maverick VP .30cal and my ATN X-Sight 5 5-25x LRF Scope. My groups with the FX Hybrid slugs at 100 yards are just over an inch, so I was not too concerned about my ability to take this shot, so I took my time and let the slug fly for a certain heart/lung shot that I'm so fond of.
To my surprise, I was not awarded with the thwack I've heard countless times before, and the squirrel seemed not the least bothered by my attempt to take his life in exchange for a place on my dinner table. So, now
I'm second guessing myself. There is a slight breeze from east to west, so I decided to hold for wind 3 mil, and to my surprize and disgust, a brach just to the left of the squirrel's head exploded into splinters! That's it, I'm calling it for the day, as something is clearly wrong with my setup, but what was it?
- Did my new DonnyFL QD mount fail me in some way?
- Did I accidentally bump the barrel while I was maneuvering through the woods?
- Did my ATN Scope go belly up and not hold zero because of another bug I've uncovered?
ATN X-Sight 5 on the Maverick, with the X-Sight 4 and THOR 4 scopes in the foreground, all wearing ATN QD mounts.
After loading up the video of the shot in my video editing software, I conformed the 120fps footage to 24fps, and then added additional slo-mo effects to get this shot as slow as possible. Again, I am completely dumbfounded! How is it possible that I'm so far off on the horizontal (just under 5 inches by the looks of it), but my Ballistic Calculator has got the much harder horizontal axis exactly where it should be?
And then it hit me like a ton of bricks! I was awakened a few weeks ago with something walking on my roof in the middle of the night. Thinking this was either the Delta Force rappleing in because the country needs my help, or it was another pesky raccoon! With the sure money on a raccoon, I swapped out my ATN X-Sight 5 scope for my THOR 4 thermal scope on my Maverick. With no sight of a trash panda, I swapped the X-Sight 5 back in, and went to bed.
I am now convinced that the ATN QD mounts claim for return to zero are exaggerated, or are they really? What is considered proper performance for a QD mount that is true return to zero rated?
Can I expect 1/4 MOA repeatability at 100 yards with one of these pricy return to zero QD mounts like the Scalarworks or LaRue mounts below? Has anyone been able to achieve the repeatability levels I'm after with a QD mounted scope?
Or am I chasing a unicorn, and the only way to repeatably hit a 50 cent piece at 100 yards after detaching and reattaching my scopes with QD mounts is to do a zero afterwards?
Thanks so much for your time and input!!!