More work fun this weekend sighting in the thermal scope along with the re-mounted glass scopes. Those following know that I recently two months ago got the AGM TC35-384 Rattler Thermal scope. Finally getting it setup and usable after a few technical issues.
There's the thru the scope view at 50 yards. Those are 8 inch and 4 inch metal plates on the left. Where the scope is are two paper targets on a wooden backboard. If you look closely, you can see the little glowing dot lower center, that is a drywall screw heated with a lighter (cooling quickly by time I walked back and got camera setup, weapon loaded, and ready to film. It's easier to see at higher zoom levels. The scope goes from 1x to 8x.
But let's step back a bit. Before we got there, we had to re-mount the glass scopes and level them (see my previous post). Now if you remember, I also added a 30MOA elevation shim to them so their previous settings are going to be WAY off. I was cranking that knob at least 30-40 clicks.
Before I started shooting, I used a laser boresighter. This handy little tool just slides into the end of the barrel, and shines a laser downrange. You simply go out to about 25 yards, shine the laser, then align your scope crosshairs to where the laser is.
It's never been exactly close enough to just use like that, but generally does a good job of at least getting me onto an 8x10 or 20x20 piece of paper so I can further tune from there. It pays for itself with the first box of ammo saved sighting in.
This is where the first shot was after using the laser boresighter. Not good enough for hunting or target shooting, but definitely a great starting point to start dialing it in. As you can see, about 3 1/2 inches low and 1 1/2 inches left at 7 o'clock position.
Made some adjustments, and now here was second shot. Not too bad, just a little further right.
Oops, got the right adjustment right on the next two shots, but seems to have gone low at 6 o'clock just under the white ring. I thought I had pulled the third shot, so took another just to be sure. Both pretty close, so one more adjustment and then dead center for the 5th shot. Not bad. Not wasting ammo with more today, these are custom handloads, and the rifle is capable of stacking them all in the one inch red circle, as we see here from my session last year when I did the load bracketing.
Now we pop that glass scope off, using the quick release mounts, and snap on the thermal scope instead. No boresighting with this one. I figured I would just leave the settings that I had zeroed for the AR platform .223 and see how close it would get on this Sako Bolt action .22-250.
Ignore the holes with circles on them, that was from previous .22 Rimfire sighting. For this one, I placed a drywall screw in the bullseye, then heated it up with a lighter. That became my aiming point (you'll see in the video). The first shot was the 7 o'clock low shot, the second shot was the 11 o'clock high shot (still getting used to how much the digital numbers in that scope affect the movement), and the third shot was the one at top of the bullseye over the screw. Then we were off to shoot some video of the paper and steel at longer distances using the scope cam. You saw the thermal view at 50 yards in the first pic.
Here we are at 100 yards. Those are 8 inch (20cm) circles and and 11 inch (28 cm) rectangle steel. Didn't have to heat them, just the difference in how cold they are highlights them nicely.
Here's that same 100 yard target zoomed in to 8x.
Now here we are at 150 Yards in the pic below.
And then again zoomed into 8x on that same 150 yard target below. That's an 8 inch circle on far left, a 11 inch rectangle 2nd, then you can barely make out the 4 inch circle, then another 8 inch circle on far right.
Now that you know the layout, here's a video in action. Sorry about no sound, I just learned the scope cam has no sound. That's a shame, cause it's always fun to hear the steel ring!
And then there is the aftermath, these are pretty high power .22-250 rounds (55grain Varmageddon at a little over 3,400 fps) , and they knocked the 150 yard targets half off their hangers! Guess I need some better hangers.
A few more tweaks, and 4 more rifles to go. As they say, "It's hard work but someone's got to do it."
No better way to spend a long weekend for me. I hope yours is happy as well.