How to tell scope problem from rifle problem, without buying another scope?
Yesterday I took my new Handi rifle to the range, 500 S&W to take advantage of Indiana's new hunting rules. A Leupold scope was securely mounted. This scope came off another gun where it has been working just fine. Ammo was Hornady 300 gr SST (about 2250fps) and Hornady 350 XTP JHP (at estimated 2100). So it does have substantial recoil, somewhat more than 3 inch slug loads. Accuracy was very poor, with some groups larger than 8 moa. One of the loads gave me two groups of about 1.5 " at 100 yds, but switching to the other load it wasn't even on the paper, meaning it was some 18 inches or more from the first load. I suspect but don't know those too better groups were flukes. Moving to 50 yards and back to the intermittantly sucessful 350 grain load, it printed a two inch group at 50 yards. Not encouraging. The 300 grain pointy number put one on paper at 50 and a second off the paper, requiring it to plop at least 7 inches from the first (at 50 yards). Rifle seems tight and normal.
I could chase this problem forever, at $3.00 a shot to change scopes, then loads, etc. I won't tool up to handload until I know it will shoot.
Any wisdom will be gratefully accepted. I suspect there is a simple way to determing scope vs rifle problem.
Many thanks
Yesterday I took my new Handi rifle to the range, 500 S&W to take advantage of Indiana's new hunting rules. A Leupold scope was securely mounted. This scope came off another gun where it has been working just fine. Ammo was Hornady 300 gr SST (about 2250fps) and Hornady 350 XTP JHP (at estimated 2100). So it does have substantial recoil, somewhat more than 3 inch slug loads. Accuracy was very poor, with some groups larger than 8 moa. One of the loads gave me two groups of about 1.5 " at 100 yds, but switching to the other load it wasn't even on the paper, meaning it was some 18 inches or more from the first load. I suspect but don't know those too better groups were flukes. Moving to 50 yards and back to the intermittantly sucessful 350 grain load, it printed a two inch group at 50 yards. Not encouraging. The 300 grain pointy number put one on paper at 50 and a second off the paper, requiring it to plop at least 7 inches from the first (at 50 yards). Rifle seems tight and normal.
I could chase this problem forever, at $3.00 a shot to change scopes, then loads, etc. I won't tool up to handload until I know it will shoot.
Any wisdom will be gratefully accepted. I suspect there is a simple way to determing scope vs rifle problem.
Many thanks
