Scope doctor needed.

Man-o-woods

Well-Known Member
Hello peeps
Is there such a thing a a scope doctor.
I have a Zeiss terra 3x 39-50 scope fitted to my rifle. I purchased the rifle with it already fitted. I went to the range to zero it a few weeks ago and managed to get an acceptable zero but unfortunately ran out of vertical adjustment. How ever I then realised that I hadn’t Centred the cross hairs so arranged a second visit to the range to sort it out.
Centred the cross hairs and went about finding zero but again hit the vertical limit but noted that it appeared to have a couple of teeth missing from the cogs as it skipped a couple of notches.
So I’m looking for recommendation’s for scope repairs close to Aldershot.
 
By what your saying the scope cost you nothing, if it was me, I would look for a second hand one , plenty out there, if you weigh up the costs and hassle of getting it repaired against another scope ,surely must be the way to go.
 
Hang on. You sound like you've got it wrong a bit.
You don't just center the scope. You then bore sight the rifle on a distant object by looking down the bore. Then, without moving the rifle look through the centered scope and see how far off it is.
Then you have to adjust the mounting to get the two close. You will be shooting close to center of adjustment ranges.
Had you done that you would of seen the issue before wasting ammo.
 
Hang on. You sound like you've got it wrong a bit.
You don't just center the scope. You then bore sight the rifle on a distant object by looking down the bore. Then, without moving the rifle look through the centered scope and see how far off it is.
Then you have to adjust the mounting to get the two close. You will be shooting close to center of adjustment ranges.
Had you done that you would have seen the issue before wasting ammo.
“But the guy in the shop said it was all zeroed ready to go!”
 
This was all done on a range with a respected instructor. So I believe we did it all correctly.
Yes it was zeroed when I purchased it.
Having not owned a rifle before and not having experience in zeroing a rifle I took it upon myself to contract the services of a professional instructor to coach me.
This was when we first found that although zeroed it was at the top of its elevation adjustment. I used the gun in the field on a couple of occasions to good effect but was concerned about the lack of future adjustment. So booked another session with the instructor where we centred the + cross hairs and went through the zeroing process again and again we ran out of elevation only this time I noticed while adjusting elevation that the dial was on occasion skipping.
It was after that I spoke to Zeiss.
So wee are where we are and I think we followed the correct procedure.
 
Ok, so I'll likely get lambasted for saying this but if you cant get a repair or new scope there is another crude but effective option to raise the point of aim and get some elevation back: place shims of thin aluminium (yes, I made mine from a cut up drinks can) between the front ring and the scope tube to raise the scope relative to the rifle and therefore the POA.....I did this to a good but banged-up scope on my .22lr (it was that or bin it..) and its been fine for 5 years now.
Apologies to all the pro shooters who would never stoop this low, but my choices were limited at the time and it worked a treat.
 
Ok, so I'll likely get lambasted for saying this but if you cant get a repair or new scope there is another crude but effective option to raise the point of aim and get some elevation back: place shims of thin aluminium (yes, I made mine from a cut up drinks can) between the front ring and the scope tube to raise the scope relative to the rifle and therefore the POA.....I did this to a good but banged-up scope on my .22lr (it was that or bin it..) and its been fine for 5 years now.
Apologies to all the pro shooters who would never stoop this low, but my choices were limited at the time and it worked a treat.
A standard hack.
I should think we've all done that (or similar) at some point 👍
No lambasting needed!
 
Ok, so I'll likely get lambasted for saying this but if you cant get a repair or new scope there is another crude but effective option to raise the point of aim and get some elevation back: place shims of thin aluminium (yes, I made mine from a cut up drinks can) between the front ring and the scope tube to raise the scope relative to the rifle and therefore the POA.....I did this to a good but banged-up scope on my .22lr (it was that or bin it..) and its been fine for 5 years now.
Apologies to all the pro shooters who would never stoop this low, but my choices were limited at the time and it worked a treat.

If the scope was shimmed as described by you, and then zeroed to shoot where it is pointing at when needed, assuming it holds zero as the OP Man-o-woods suggests, there should be no problem thereafter, as it seems there neither was before the tinkering.

Some of us have scopes which have either never been altered or only by a click or two — usually the horizontal adjustment — since the ‘zero’ was first set. Assuming a load is arrived at that is suitable for the task intended, the shimmed scope would have plenty of adjustment available; should the zero coincide with the broken teeth of the adjuster, a slightly thicker or thinner shim could be used to take the problem part of the adjustment wheel out of the equation. For a cheaper scope, this might be the simplest, quickest and most economically practical option.
 
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