Recently purchased a Ruger Predator 6mm Creedmore. Why? Because I got it for a song and don’t really have anything “long range” to my name. Therein lies the problem, besides setting up a couple hunting rifles with 3x9 scopes I have no idea what I’m doing regarding scopes.

I’ve read the scope thread, but still need help with a starting point. For those knowledgeable about this kind of thing, what would you suggest for a decent scope and ring/mount setup? Use will mostly be just punching paper with the remote possibility of using it to shoot a hog or two down in south Texas if I end up down there at the right time of year.

Budgets not unlimited, but at the same time I’m comfortable spending money where it makes sense on this.

Appreciate everyone’s input!

6mm Creedmore is a favorite of the over 1k crowd. With that being said, what range do you expect to shoot the most? I have a 6.5-20x50 on my long range stick. Maybe I should have bumped up to the 8.5-24 since it is a dedicated long range stick. The longest range I've been able to shoot was at 600m, and a full size silhouette was no problem. But for out to 1k it should be fine. Just need to find a range in NoVa (other than Quantico) that can support that.

Scope bases and rings is a big DO NOT go cheap on. I went with Badger on mine, and it has been almost 20 years and my scope has not budged at all.

Well here in the wide open expanses of KS I have access to some pretty long range prospects. That said I’m sure the 300-800 yard range will be what I’m shooting more regularly.

Look at Maven Optics. Quality glass at a good price point.

https://mavenbuilt.com/collections/riflescopes

In scope purchase questions, I often see shooters ask for scope recommendations with little thought on rifle use and optics preferences. Responses tend to go straight to specific scope models, before the rifle owner elaborates. IMO it's akin to going into a car dealer and asking the salesman "I need a car -- what do I want, what can you sell me?"

My comments from another scope thread a few days ago.....

You should consider a few things before you buy a new scope.
- MOA or milrad for angular adjustments. Both work just fine. Make certain your new scope has one or the other, but not both. This includes the elevation knob, windage knob, and reticle.

- Determine your desired type of reticle. Simple crosshairs, holdover, Christmas tree, mil or MOA subtensions for elevation & windage.

- Determine if you want to dial for different target distances or use the reticle. Determine if you want capped turrets or not.

- With a scope magnification of 10x or more, you will need adjustable parallax. If you plan to shoot at distances of 50 yards or less, you must consider the minimum parallax setting.

- Determine if you want first focal plane or second focal plane reticle. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. For higher magnification applications, IMO FFP has many advantages.

- Chose glass clarity over higher magnification.

- As a gun owner, don't buy Communist Chinese products.

- The type of shooting you do, your preferred target types, the precision you expect, whether you shoot at single or multiple targets, your target distances -- all should be factors in determining your scope.

MOA

Crosshairs

Dial for windage and elevation

Indifferent to capped turrets

FFP

With those qualities in mind, any thoughts? I just don’t know if I should be looking at spending possibly 3-4x the cost of the gun on a scope.

I keep looking at the Nightforce SHV 5-20x56, but I’ve never played with their stuff so I have no idea if this is a decent scope for the price range.

Not many of us here are the authority that fritz is, so his advice and insights are always among the first to consider.

Based on my own knowledge and experiences, though, a couple of additional comments:

As many people point out in these discussions, scopes calibrated in minutes of angle are just as usable as those calibrated in milliradians. I prefer the latter because I think and calculate in base 10 better than base 4, plus that’s the kind of scopes I’ve owned for decades and I don’t want to learn another system. But high end scopes calibrated in MOA are becoming more common for the American market all the time, and they do have advantages in a few ways.

If you’re going to get a scope suitable for long range shooting, finding one these days with a simple crosshair, uncalibrated reticle will probably be difficult. I haven’t checked to see if I’m right, but that’s my suspicion. The primary purpose of a first focal plane scope is so that the reticle calibrations remain accurate at all magnifications. If we don’t have a calibrated reticle, a FFP scope would actually be somewhat of a disadvantage because its reticle might become smaller or larger than optimum when changing magnification.

But keep in mind that any suitable scope for the purpose will have a crosshair reticle. They will just have additional calibration marks based on minutes of angle or milliradians. Some will leave a small gap or dot in the middle. And calibrated reticles offer a few advantages over the older plain crosshairs or even “duplex” versions. A lot of people will scoff at the old idea of estimating target range using calibrated reticles, but that is nevertheless something they make possible. More useful is that they make zeroing, holding off for elevation and windage, and correcting bullet impacts far easier and precise. For zeroing we can use the reticle as a “ruler” to correct our setting: measure that the center of our group is 0.3 mil left of the point of aim, and just dial the windage three 0.1 mil clicks right. The same principle is used for adjusting for points of impact in field conditions.

The “Christmas tree” reticles are useful if we’re correcting for both windage and elevation, but some people don’t like how they tend to obscure or at least confuse what’s below the center of the reticle. I recommend looking at the reticles available for the scopes you’re considering to get an idea of what you might prefer. If you have questions about reticles, many people have had experience with different types.

As a last comment, read the specifications for Nightforce scopes carefully. The company site says that the SHV 5-20x56 has a second focal plane reticle. I made the same mistake myself recently when I ordered a 7-35×56mm ATACR because the prominent descriptions of scopes with first focal plane reticles include “FFP,” but it’s necessary to look at the spec table to see which ones have second focal plane reticles. Fortunately I was able to get my mistake corrected for just some extra money, but returning optics can sometimes be difficult to impossible.

OK, FFP and MOA -- that narrows things a bit.

I assume you don't want a Christmas tree reticle, and actually they're not too common with MOA setups. You will have subtensions along the reticle to measure/hold windage & elevation. Understand that there is a magnification sweet spot for practical use for all FFP reticles. An 8 or 10 times zoom sounds great in principal, but if the reticle thickness is great at full power, it likely becomes too thin at low power. Or if it's usable at low power, the reticle might be too thick at high power. I find that good reticle range is about 3x to 4x zoom.

If you're dialing, you won't want capped turrets -- at least for elevation. You will find holding windage better than dialing, in all but a few rare instances.

Nightforce SHV are good scopes, and a great value. I have an FFP SHV 4-14x. You might want more magnification for your stated target distances. I believe all other SHV models are SFP, so that may eliminate the 5-20x56. If you will be using your 6CM in a way similar to the way I use a 6CM, you will prefer a FFP optic.

Quality scopes aren't cheap. One can save money with Chinese glass, but in this day and age, China deserves no America money. If you can spring for about $1k, a number of fine optics become options.

Have you looked through or fondled any scopes? Anything you like or dislike so far?

quote:

Originally posted by SigM4:
MOA

Crosshairs

Dial for windage and elevation

Indifferent to capped turrets

FFP

With those qualities in mind, any thoughts? I just don’t know if I should be looking at spending possibly 3-4x the cost of the gun on a scope.

I keep looking at the Nightforce SHV 5-20x56, but I’ve never played with their stuff so I have no idea if this is a decent scope for the price range.

Respectfully, you should opt for an optic that at least has windage holds on the main crosshair line. Gravity stays the same all the time but wind can change in just a few seconds.

Dial your elevation but hold your wind, so if your wind hold is wrong, you can quickly correct by observing the splash and just holding more or less.


I prefer Christmas tree style reticles (for long range shooting) because if I miss, I have a reference point for where that bullet went and I can simply move point in the reticle to the target. But I understand that they aren't for everybody.


I have limited experience (just a few days) with Nightforce scopes. They were excellent but I had very limited time with them.

The Vortex PST Gen2 scopes are very feature rich with ok glass in the 1k price range. The Razor scopes are very feature ruch with very good glass in the 2k-3k price range.

March, Kahles, Swaro, Steiner, etc are all very well regarded but I have very limited experience or no experience with those brands aside from a Steiner T5xi 1-5 that was...ok. I sold it and bought another Razor.

quote:

Originally posted by IndianaBoy:
I prefer Christmas tree style reticles (for long range shooting) because if I miss, I have a reference point for where that bullet went and I can simply move point in the reticle to the target. But I understand that they aren't for everybody.

So this is an interesting thought that I hadn’t considered. I just looked at them and thought them too busy.

I have fallen down the rabbit hole with reticles and tried quite a few. I have finally settled on:
German No.1: Its fast when used for hunting guns but I would not use it out past 200 yards or so. Not all that common anymore.
Mil Dot: I find its a good all round, all range set up. For me, its easy to use and can be fast too.
MOAR: If I was going play in the ultra long range game, I would go with this. And spend the time and ammo to learn it with the chosen gun and ammo. NightForce has this reticle available.
Of course, it comes down to tailoring your scopes features and reticle to the gun, ammo and intended use so you get the most bang for the buck.

Well after spending way too much time researching this more I've come around to the fact that milrad and mildot reticles are probably more of what I'm after. sigfreund you make a good point about thinking in base 10, for my slow brain that's probably going to be an easier to understand factor than a base of 4.

As you note fritz I still think FFP is what I'm after as I intend to stretch the ranges at which I'm shooting as my ability and confidence grow.

Now to start the search with those criteria in mind.

As always I'm forever grateful for the group here and your willingness to indulge my stupid and often mislead ideas, and moreso putting me on the right track.

quote:

Originally posted by SigM4:
Well after spending way too much time researching this more I've come around to the fact that milrad and mildot reticles are probably more of what I'm after. sigfreund you make a good point about thinking in base 10, for my slow brain that's probably going to be an easier to understand factor than a base of 4.

I've shot both angular scope systems and I don't see what all the fuss is about. Both systems work. I see problems with both systems when shooters attempt to compare inches/centimeters at target distances of yards/meters into angular measurements. If one expects to shoot well with a FFP scope at targets of multiple distances, all measurements other than angular need to go away.

I'll compare MOA and mil measurements for a 6CM load of Hornady 108 ELDM, 3000 fps muzzle velocity, with air density altitude of 4000 feet. I'll assume there are 3 targets at 400, 550, and 650 yards -- and the shooter bounces between them. This is a very realistic situation for steel/precision/PRS type matches.

MOA drop, with drift for a 10 mph crosswind. Note that anyone with any real-world use of MOA systems rounds to .2 and .7 -- and drops the "5" in ".25" and ".75"
400 yards -- 5.2 drop, 2 drift
550 yards -- 9 drop, 3 drift
650 yards - 12 drop, 3.5 drift

mil drop, with drift for a 10mph crosswind
400 yards -- 1.5 drop, .6 drift
550 yards -- 2.7 drop, .8 drift
650 yards -- 3.5 drop, 1.0 drift

If one dials elevation by feel (not a good idea), with MOA there are 15 clicks up from 400 to 550, and 12 clicks up from 550 to 650. If one dials elevation by feel for mil (still not a good idea), there are 12 clicks up from 400 to 550, and 8 clicks up from 550 to 650.

I can pretty much guarantee from years of competition, that the "big boys" don't dial up or down elevation blind by more than a couple of clicks, or maybe three. There's too much chance of doing it wrong. We pull heads out of the scope, look at the elevation turret and dial the required number. It's just as easy to see 12 on the MOA turret as it is to see 3.5 on the mil turret.

OK, so you want to use the reticle, not dial elevation. With a good MOA reticle it's easy to pick out 5, 9, and 12. With a good mil reticle that isn't too busy, 1.5 and 2.7 and 3.5 are also easy to find.

Let's say you want to dial the middle target, then hold over/under the others. With MOA, I would dial 9 elevation, hold 4 under for the close target and hold 3 over for the far target. With mil, I would dial 2.7 elevation, hold 1.2 under for the the close target and hold .8 over for the far target.

There is a scale difference between MOA and mil -- mil numbers are smaller. I've shot ELR with MOA scopes where the elevations were 60+ and wind holds of 25+. I was shooting against guys with mil elevations of 20+ and wind holds of 7+. Neither system had an advantage over the other -- just different numbers on the turrets. Everyone looked at their turrets and spun to the desired value. Two complete revs on a MOA turret is really no different than two complete revs on a mil turret. We all held the wind to the limits of our reticles, and when that wasn't enough we dialed in additional windage.

It's best to ignore whether elevation/windage is decimal or quartile. You just go to the number you need -- that's why our reticles and turrets have numbers on them.

Not the expert that many here are as I am just a long range varmint hunter who gained most of his knowledge from trial and error, not a recommended way to go as I have spent a fair amount of change on scopes only to be disappointed and then more money trying other scopes. Three things I learned the hard way: 1. Don't rush your purchase and spend time looking through as many different scopes as possible. Try to see them out in the field or range as they will look different than in the shop but if the shop is your only option then go that route. Your eyes and face shape are different than others so a certain scope will look different to you than others so specific brands may be great for others but terrible for you. 2. Find the reticle that you are most comfortable with. A too complex reticle will confuse you and a too simple one will not do the job for you. Just about all scope makers publish diagrams of their reticles but nothing beats seeing the reticle through the scope. Decide on what you want that fits your style of shooting and then shop the different makes to find the one that is right for you. If you find that you have selected the wrong reticle most scope makers will change the reticle for a price. You can guess how I know this. 3. In long range shooting the farther out you go the harder it is to get a clear picture of your target and this is where the quality and clarity of the glass comes in. A high quality clear glass is the single biggest thing that drives price (other than Brand Name) but buy the best you are willing to pay for. If you can afford it try to get one with the new ED glass. As a side note you are going to run into mirage which is the heat waves obscuring your target and the better glass helps with it. Just some common sense things I had to learn the hard way, hope they help. Good luck with you search.

quote:

Originally posted by SIGfourme:
Look at Maven Optics. Quality glass at a good price point.

https://mavenbuilt.com/collections/riflescopes

Tp help with your selection, if you desire to try a Maven:

https://mavenbuilt.com/pages/faq





"Where are they built?


We use premium Japanese components for S, B, and RS Series optics. The S Series and B Series are assembled in a military standard (MIL-SPEC) facility in San Diego, and are then shipped to our headquarters in Lander, Wyoming where we inspect and test for quality assurance. The RS Series is assembled in Japan, and the C Series are assembled in the Philippines. Once assembled, they are shipped to our headquarters where each batch is sample-tested for quality assurance."

Where does your glass come from?


Because we sell direct to consumer, we’re not limited to the type of materials we can use. As a result, we use the best glass available in our optics. In our S, B, and RS Series optics, we utilize the best optical components available from Japan. In our C and CM Series, we use a combination of key Japanese components along with other optical elements from China, and the CS Series utilizes all Chinese components. In all of our optics we plan and build an overall optical system tuned to be the best performance available for the price."

I have poor eyesight, so quality glass in important for me.

Japanese glass is very good but can be heavier. US glass is also very good. NightForce is well made and can be less weight in some models.

Bill