Did I use Scotchmo's bore to scope alignment mirror method correctly?

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Aimright

Aimright

Member
Jan 28, 2019
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AZ, United States
I just mounted new UTG 4-16 Bubble Leveler scope on my .22 MRod. I went out on my patio and set a mirror on the wall and sighted at 7 power and rotated my scope until I could see that the vertical retical bisected the barrel and scope crown as best as I can tell from my marginal eyes. So..I had to turn my scope clockwise a fair amount to make that happen. I know I should field test it to verify it is shooting correctly up and down a plumb line, but I was just surprised that I had to turn it that far, kind of hurts my OCD sense of having things level! In the pic below I think the gun is fairly level in my Leadsled and you can see how the scope turrets are angled down to the right. Did I do Scotchmo's method correctly and is this normal or typical, or do I have an alignment issue with my scope, scope mounts, barrel, breech, etc.

1578166388_6161969335e10e874414eb5.19805708_IMG_3339 - Copy.JPG

 
Did you mechanically center the reticle before doing the installation?

That's looks somewhat severe, at least from that angle. You would be better off posting a picture that looks directly from the front of the gun into the barrel and scope objective, also showing the turrets.

The ultimate test is that it hits exactly on the vertical reticle at both 10 yards and 25 yards.
 
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Did you mechanically center the reticle before doing the installation?

That's looks somewhat severe, at least from that angle. You would be better off posting a picture that looks directly from the front of the gun into the barrel and scope objective, also showing the turrets.

The ultimate test is that it hits exactly on the vertical reticle at both 10 yards and 25 yards.
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Yes that centering made it look a lot better! Still a little clockwise to the gun level, but much less severe and noticeable. I will field test it Monday and will do the 10 and 25 yard vertical reticle test as you suggest and tweak if necessary, trying to get my rig ready for a first attempt at a field target meet in a few weeks. Couple pictures below, the first (B&W) is taken through the scope looking at the mirror showing my reticle alignment with barrel and scope . I tweaked it slightly more after I took the photo. The second one is from my barrel back, the gun is sitting level, so you might be able to see a slight rotation angle with my turrets, my OCD is not too severe so I can live with that!



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after read scope mounting questions, all I do is scratch my head

scope are not hard to mount correctly period

you need a rifle stand, 2 bubbles, just the bubbles some tools and some common sense

and this goes to all the posters
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You also might want to consider this scope mounting tool
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Marflow and Sonny, you should search some of Scotchmo's posts on scope cant and mounting scopes, it was very enlightening to me. In a nutshell as nervoustrig said above, just leveling your scope to your gun assumes everything is perfect. I think my case proves that if I had just done that my barrel would not have been aligned to the scope, and I could have missed targets (cant errors) as a result.
 
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after read scope mounting questions, all I do is scratch my head

scope are not hard to mount correctly period

you need a rifle stand, 2 bubbles, just the bubbles some tools and some common sense

and this goes to all the posters
Click to expand...


You don't need bubble levels to mount a scope.

Bubbles levels work on gravity. You can use a bubble level to insure that you are holding the reticle vertical when shooting. That's when gravity matters.

Common sense is overrated. When time permits, logic yields better results.
 
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after read scope mounting questions, all I do is scratch my head

scope are not hard to mount correctly period

you need a rifle stand, 2 bubbles, just the bubbles some tools and some common sense

and this goes to all the posters
Click to expand...


You don't need bubble levels to mount a scope.

Bubbles levels work on gravity. You can use a bubble level to insure that you are holding the reticle vertical when shooting. That's when gravity matters.

Common sense is overrated. When time permits, logic yields better results.
Click to expand...

Exactly right.
 
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Something still looks askew as the vertical/windage is canted and not centered through the barrel, tube and stock. It cants left of the below the barrel items.

Are you certain that the rail is aligned with the center of the barrel? Something doesn't look right to me.

1578203307_11051740715e1178abccc452.15803845_Scope Align.PNG


mike

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After I took that pic I fiddled with it a little more, and probably aligned it a hair better but I did crop and rotate that pic so there may have been some photo distortion induced by that process. But...my hunch is that I am still a little off, and my plan is to redo the reticle centering to make sure I did not miscount and also remount the scope to make sure everything is in order there, and then do the mirror alignment again. 

There is subjectivity in this mirror test in determining how well you are bisecting the barrel and scope objective, and maybe I should have tried to mark my to turret or objective somehow to reduce that error. When I do it again, I may see if there is a simple way to mark the center of my scope objective to reduce that subjectivity. The UTG scope casing at the end of the objective is shaped (not flat like most scopes) so I am thinking maybe printing out a 56mm diameter circle with a dot in the middle and place it in against the lens to give me a better reference to center.


Hopefully this endeavor will get me in the near ballpark where my target test will just require minor adjustments, if any, along the verticle reticle. After reading several of Scotchmo’s posts and illustrations on the matter I am a disciple of his science and methodology, and hopefully I am applying it correctly. As often is the case with me, I just don’t know what I don’t know, and rely on some trial and error and help from the subject matter gurus here on the forum, I appreciate all of you for the help. 

Stay tuned....



 
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1578203307_11051740715e1178abccc452.15803845_Scope Align.PNG
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I wouldn't worry about what's happening below the bore-line. What only matters in the end is the vector between the bore center and scope center. Shoot it at 10 yards and 25 yards and then fine tune it.


With a Marauder, you can float the shroud/barrel inside the barrel band. Or, you can rotate the barrel band and have pressure against the shroud to "straighten" everything out. I tried it both ways when I was shooting a Marauder and settled on the floated shroud. I removed the o-ring in the band, made sure the rear shroud retainer was tight on the barrel. I squared up the back end of the shroud in my lathe and then hand tightened the shroud very tight against the front breech face. The end result was that it shot great and the scope only looked slightly rotated when the reticle was aligned with the bore.
 
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