For most of my life, I've preferred having scopes mounted as low as possible while still clearing the barrel. That gives me a solid cheek weld on traditional straight combed hunting rifles. Since needing progressive lenses, I find many of those set ups difficult to shoot. The low mounted scope forces me to look through the upper "corner" of the lens which is not particularly well focused on progressive lenses. Rifles with adjustable cheek risers work better as they allow for a more upright head position with the scope a bit higher.

Anyone else run into this problem? I can't stand strap on cheek pieces, so not going there. I'd trade the traditional stocked rifles for others first.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: MNSIG,

An interesting question that I’ve been considering recently.

I fortunately don’t have the vision issues, but cheek pressure and head position are factors I’ve been working on. For most of my shooting life I thought that having the scope mounted as low as possible and a firm stock weld (as it used to be called rather than the current “cheek weld”) were best. I still believe that that may be best for some purposes with some rifles, but it’s not always true.

The issue of stock weld pressure is something I became very aware of after I started shooting my precision 22LR rifles a lot and striving for maximum accuracy on small targets.* I found that light/minimum cheek pressure on the stock helped minimize vertical stringing that was evidently due to inconsistencies when the pressure was greater. Although the traditional guidance has always been to have a firm stock weld when shooting a shotgun or powerful rifle to minimize recoil “slap,” I’ve reduced my cheek pressure on my centerfire rifles as well and I believe that’s helped my accuracy.

I also recently ran across a YouTube video by a man who recommends mounting scopes higher than has been commonly recommended. One reason is the light cheek pressure thing: if the scope is higher, we’ll automatically put less pressure on the stock. But he also believes a higher scope mount that allows us to have our head in a more natural upright position is beneficial. Although I haven’t experimented with that concept much yet myself, it’s something I intend to try and see if it helps me, especially in the prone position that is so difficult for me these days.

One thing I have changed is how I shoot my Tikka CTR rifle in 308 Winchester. The stock of the rifle has a shallow riser attachment, but otherwise it’s somewhat similar to a common straight comb hunting stock. After mounting a 2-10× Leupold scope about as low as was possible, I found that the scope was still too high for my usual shooting method, and ended up with a strap-on (no jokes, please ) cheek riser. That worked okay, but was an inconvenience. After seeing the comments about the advantage of a high scope mount, I tried shooting the rifle with light cheek pressure without the riser, and it works fine for me. It was just a matter of not doing what I’d always done with rifles like that.

As a last comment about high scope mounts, another thing I believed for a very long time was that mounting the scope lower would minimize point of impact errors caused by canting the rifle left or right rather than holding it straight up/down.

Some time ago, however, the MDT company people conducted an experiment with a rifle whose scope was mounted a ridiculously high distance above the receiver. What the experiment seemed to show was that, counterintuitively to me, scope height had no effect on POI shift with any degree of cant. And of course, if we’re worried about cant, we should have a level on our rifle to deal with the problem.

* Since I received my Tikka T1x 22LR rifle in July, I’ve fired well over 3000 rounds with it, and my marksmanship shooting standing with a tripod support has improved significantly.

Offset scope rings may help:
https://www.randolphmachine.com/rings.html

quote:

Originally posted by sunburn:
Offset scope rings may help:

Fascinating. I never knew that such things existed.
It’s always good to consider all (reasonable) possibilities, but according to accounts about military rifles whose design required mounting scope sights offset from the vertical line of the bore caused their own problems. Not much, perhaps, but something to be aware of as a possibility.

I discovered the same problem with progressive lenses. The area I needed to see through is right on the edge of the central lens area, and a very slight mis-positioning of my head causes all sorts of grief. I found that using a pair of Croakies, adjusted to keep my glasses firmly positioned on my face helped some. But ultimately I had another pair of shooting glasses made with just the distance correction and that worked better.

On my AR rifles all of my scope mounts are tall.
Most scopes put the scopes center 1.5" above the rail.
I use 1.93" mounts and my progressives play much nicer with them and I don't struggle as much keeping a solid sight picture.
My earmuffs clear the stock better and my neck isn't kinked as bad as well.

My bolt guns have normal mounts and it's definitely a challenge wearing progressives.
I have single vison prescription for shooting glasses, don't really need anything for close up, just the end of my arm and beyond.

One of the examples is my Sako 85. Great rifle, but I've never even fired it. Between the proprietary mounting system and the flat comb, it just doesn't work for me. I've seen hardware that can be installed to add adjustment to the comb, but it looks like cutting that section of stock perfectly straight and level might be a challenge.

quote:

Originally posted by MNSIG:
One of the examples is my Sako 85.

I am curious what you are referring to. Is the stock comb too high or too low?

FWIW and without knowing the answer, there are evidently adapters that permit attaching a Picatinny rail to the 85 receiver and which would raise the mounting base.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
I am curious what you are referring to. Is the stock comb too high or too low?

Too low. I would need to raise it to get my head up where the scope sits and be lined up in the center of my lenses.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:

quote:

Originally posted by sunburn:
Offset scope rings may help:

Fascinating. I never knew that such things existed.
It’s always good to consider all (reasonable) possibilities, but according to accounts about military rifles whose design required mounting scope sights offset from the vertical line of the bore caused their own problems. Not much, perhaps, but something to be aware of as a possibility.

I would think that would be really problematic to use. You'd have a horizontal zero distance in addition to and different from your elevation zero. The windage correction would sometimes be additive to actual wind drift and sometimes offset it to varying degrees.

quote:

Originally posted by MNSIG:
I would think that would be really problematic to use. You'd have a horizontal zero distance in addition to and different from your elevation zero. The windage correction would sometimes be additive to actual wind drift and sometimes offset it to varying degrees.

Yep. Lateral offset of the sights to the bore is not a good idea. Not good at all.
****

I "sorta kinda learned" to shoot for accuracy from a bench, at a local range. Rifle support was initially sandbags, then plastic front block support, then a bipod. I was instructed to put significant downward cheek weld support on the buttstock of an AR-15 to keep it from jumping, and thus increase accuracy. It sorta kinda worked from a bench, but led to significant challenges when I began formal precision rifle courses from some of the best instructors in the country. I regularly need to relearn that a light cheek weld works best for me. This fall I struggled to maintain vertical accuracy in a steel-target field match. I removed the stock pads from my precision bolt actions, which effectively makes for a higher scope mount. I am now using a lighter cheek weld (less cheek pressure on the stock), and I am shooting better -- much less vertical dispersion at the target.