Leveling a scope

I tried one of the 'far east' clones and that was a bust, got the Arisaka. MUCH better. Use it here, plus some levels and also a plumb, and a G-Sight laser cartridge, boy it's satisfying to get this task done right. Even have a couple of real torque wrenches now. Tools can add up, but the satisfaction lasts a lot longer than the memory of the price paid.
 
Wheeler and a plumb line has worked great for me so far. There maybe a more accurate method that’s recommended for elr stuff, but I haven’t ran into a need under 500 yards
 
The arisaka is a clear knock off of the Spuhr. I used the spuhr one with their mount with satisfactory results. Then again 2 bubble levels has always worked for me. If you wanna get fancy hang a plumb bob at 100 yards to get it good. I just don't see scope leveling as something that needs specialized tools.
 
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All you need is this, a string and a plumb bob,

EXD ENGINEERING VERTICAL RETICLE INSTRUMENT | Brownells

Adjustable, self-aligning V-blocks with integral spirit level makes zeroing your scope faster and far more accurate. Enhances final scope accuracy by squaring ...
www.brownells.com
 
This is far as I get once I have eye relief set. I level the upper in the bags, and then level the optic. Bore sighted on the president of the HOA’s house.
Don’t hate me, you’d do it too if no one was looking. He’s actually a great guy and I was only aiming at his garage.

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Tim said:
I thought it was t’other way round?
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I read an article long ago about spuhr and Hakan saying his was first but that his is only designed to work with his mounts or something of the sorts. I will have to see if I can dig it up.
 
All you need is feeler gauges. Using the top of the turret cap not good practice IMO.

Pic rail flatness can vary a bit (0.04-45 over 2").

When building a rifle, I keep the muzzle vertical in relation to horiztonal plane. Barrels bore are shape like a bananas. When the bolt action (in this case) is assembled with the bend in the barrel (at the muzzle) is kept veritcal and the scope level, the barrel is putting the least amount of input left or right on the bullet. If you do a tracking test at distance (200 yards) you can see the impacts go up and out vs going straight up. I hope this makes sense, I'm not terribly good at explaing things at times.

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I always thought that feeler gauges were the way for us common folk to do it.

Some of those doodads look pretty neat though.
 
The only thing I've ever used was a level for the bolt race ways to get the receiver level. Then I use a string with a weight hung on a wall. I have seen many budget scopes and some expensive ones, where the elevation line of the reticle was canted on the plumb line but the tracking was perfect. This test needs to be done if you are going to twist on the turrets.
 
You can use a plumb and a flashlight to project the reticle on to a wall of space is limited.

Sent from my moto z4 using Tapatalk
 
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With a quality optic brand, the device and logic is sound. Spuhr has this very thing built into the design of their one-piece mounts.

Now if you buy a brand of so so quality, you may not be able to utilize this method due to tolerances in their manufacturing.
 
Feeler gauges get your scope level to the rail, no need to level the rifle first, yes?

I tend to level the rifle based on the top of the receiver, then use a plumb line to level the scope. Then I diddle around for far too long tightening and loosening screws until I get the scope locked down.
 
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I need to pick up some feeler gauges. Tried to work on mounting one tonight and it’s too low for the Arisaka tool to work. 😢
 
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JimB said:
Feeler gauges get your scope level to the rail, no need to level the rifle first, yes?

I tend to level the rifle based on the top of the receiver, then use a plumb line to level the scope. Then I diddle around for far too long tightening and loosening screws until I get the scope locked down.
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I do out of habit. Receiver to rail to rings to scope can have a lot of tolerance
 
Climberman said:
What does the brain trust think about devices like arisaka scope leveler
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I've decided to come out from under my rock. This is insane. I've wasted a lot of time "leveling" scopes. I saw this thread just now, three months later, and bought a set of these tools. I just checked the scopes I've mounted in the past...looks like there's some daylight shining through under a few. Maybe 1-2% error in my mounting jobs. Just re-set and re-torqued these down. It'll be interesting to see how much difference it makes in my zeros.
 
I use the Wheeler scope leveling kit and it’s been very good for me, I wanted the one you linked above but I needed one ASAP a couple of years ago and Academy had the Wheeler in stock for local pickup so I snagged one, it’s extremely easy to use and I haven’t felt the need to look at anything else since it’s worked so well.

Click Me!!!
 
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