Troubleshooting

[alamo5000]

I am building my 6 ARC, or rather I put it all together already. Today I fired the first shots to get it on paper.

It took me way more than normal to get it zeroed. I will fine tune it later.

I am using a Badger Ordnance 22MOA riser and a 15 MOA mount. The scope has an advertised elevation of 31 MIL but actual is over 32.

Even with the extra elevation in my riser and mount I only have a total of just over 11 mils of upward travel after I got it zeroed at 100 yards. That basically means if I were to just mount it straight on with no added elevation my turret would be maxed out just to zero. From the mechanical center of the optic that would be roughly 16 mils high at 100 yards.

My first plan is to remove the optic and put it on another gun. If it's repeating the same behavior then it's 100% the optic however I am not ruling out that my new upper might be the culprit. I'm definitely not ruling out me screwing something up.

Short of breaking everything down and starting over what are some good things to check before going down that road?

If I need to break it apart and start over it's not the end of the world but as I work on it I would like some ideas.

[bfoosh006]

What specific scope ?

I ask because , does it have a zero stop feature ?

[alamo5000]

What specific scope ?

I ask because , does it have a zero stop feature ?

It is the Vortex Strike Eagle 5-25. It does have a zero stop but I have not put it in there yet.

I don't want to jump to conclusions until I can verify. I just put the upper together a few days ago so I am not ruling out something that I did in that process.

Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to try different things to prove it one way or another.

[alamo5000]

Well that was pretty quick. Today I broke the upper down and inspected everything. I was intending to do that anyway at some point. I put the scope back on and confirmed zero.

After that I took the scope off of my Kidd 10/22 and put the suspect scope on it. With the Kidd I have a 20 MOA base and I am using a 15 MOA mount for a total of 35 MOA added elevation. That is in between 10-11 mils.

On the Kidd I had roughly 11 MILS of upward elevation after a 50 yard zero. If I were to put that optic on a straight mount without added elevation I would have pretty much zero internal elevation.

Definitely not the rifle. 100% scope. Now let's see how long it takes Vortex to get me back to square.

[BoilerUp]

If this happened to me, I'd first suspect that I put the riser on backwards. Maybe mount that scope with 0 MOA rings to confirm? But, yeah, I could see the scope being the likely issue but am confident Vortex will take care of you.

[alamo5000]

If this happened to me, I'd first suspect that I put the riser on backwards. Maybe mount that scope with 0 MOA rings to confirm? But, yeah, I could see the scope being the likely issue but am confident Vortex will take care of you.

I thought the same thing too but I confirmed and reconfirmed then ditched the riser and put it on another rifle...I was questioning everything. None the less it is what it is.

I bought the optic less than a month ago so I am just going to return it and buy another, hopefully with better results.

[Aragorn]

Vortex man...

I almost jumped in early to make a joke that it was the optic just because it was a vortex, then decided not to be snide.

But there you go, apparently Vortex IS the joke.

[alamo5000]

Vortex man...

I almost jumped in early to make a joke that it was the optic just because it was a vortex, then decided not to be snide.

But there you go, apparently Vortex IS the joke.

I have about 3 or 4 Vortex but I have never had any issue until now. Some f*ckwit in a Chinese factory was screwing off on the job.

Anyway that specific optic is already boxed up and I am returning it rather than trying to get warranty work on it. I don't know but I might buy a second copy because the overall features of it are pretty good for what I am doing. If I can find something similar I will definitely take a look. The overall construction and all that jive seemed ok for the price point.

We will see what I can find once I get my money back.

[alamo5000]

Vortex man...

I almost jumped in early to make a joke that it was the optic just because it was a vortex, then decided not to be snide.

But there you go, apparently Vortex IS the joke.

I am about to join you there. This is getting to be stupid. That said Vortex is supposedly making good so I am being patient (for now).

I sent the first optic back to the retailer and got a refund. I bought a second copy of the optic from a completely different seller thinking it was a one off.

Got the second optic and I had about 4 mils of upward adjustment and 28 mils down into the dirt. Again. Slight improvement over the first copy but still sucks.

I called Vortex first thing this morning. They are going to hand pick an optic and mount it on their range rifle. They will range certify both the zero is correct and that tracking is correct. They are going to send me that exact optic that gets tested so I will have a range certified/verified optic from Vortex pretty soon.

To their credit they are doing that and sending it out and paying for return shipment at no cost to me. Which that part is very impressive. They are even sending me the replacement optic before I send this one back to them.

Their front end third party manufacturer needs to get a stern talking to at the very least. I got two copies and both had the same issue. Hopefully the third copy will not have the same issue.

[BoilerUp]

I am about to join you there. This is getting to be stupid. That said Vortex is supposedly making good so I am being patient (for now).

I sent the first optic back to the retailer and got a refund. I bought a second copy of the optic from a completely different seller thinking it was a one off.

Got the second optic and I had about 4 mils of upward adjustment and 28 mils down into the dirt. Again. Slight improvement over the first copy but still sucks.

I called Vortex first thing this morning. They are going to hand pick an optic and mount it on their range rifle. They will range certify both the zero is correct and that tracking is correct. They are going to send me that exact optic that gets tested so I will have a range certified/verified optic from Vortex pretty soon.

To their credit they are doing that and sending it out and paying for return shipment at no cost to me. Which that part is very impressive. They are even sending me the replacement optic before I send this one back to them.

Their front end third party manufacturer needs to get a stern talking to at the very least. I got two copies and both had the same issue. Hopefully the third copy will not have the same issue.

I want the job where every time my company screws up I get to go shoot a rifle and the company pays for the ammo

[alamo5000]

I want the job where every time my company screws up I get to go shoot a rifle and the company pays for the ammo

When all this is done I'm waiting to finally find out that someone milled the slope on my optic mount the wrong direction or some BS like that.

[Joelski]

I want the job where every time my company screws up I get to go shoot a rifle and the company pays for the ammo

Go see a Coast Guard recruiter. [:D]

[alamo5000]

Here is the latest update.

I called Vortex and told them what was going on. Right out of the gate they hand picked an optic and took it to their range to do a range certification of that optic. They sent it out as a replacement with no questions asked.

I got the new optic and straight out of the box I lost around 5 mils from their zero.

They sent me a signed target with a .33" group on it and the optic set to their zero.

I tried to zero with the riser and then out of curiosity I took the riser off and rezeroed. I lost about 1 mil of travel after removing a 22 MOA base.

All of the math points directly to a bad scope mount. So far I've tried three scopes on three rifles (if you include the one at Vortex) and the only commonality is the mount.

I've done the math and it works out that someone milled the cant the wrong direction on the mount.

I don't know if that's true just yet but it would be really embarrassing if it is. I have several more tests to run but this is the first time I've ever tried to test a mount.

Like I said though, two or three metrics all point that way.

1. Straight out of the box from Vortex after their range certification I lost say 5ish mils from a known zero that was obtained without any canted bases.

2. When I zeroed with the 22 MOA riser and 15 MOA mount I had roughly 12 Mils of up travel left. On paper that's 37 MOA of added elevation. When I removed the riser though I only lost just over a mil of travel.

If those two were effectively cancelling each other out you would get the results I got.

[alamo5000]

I will add that the first optic was definitely off. I only had 1 mil of elevation left on that one.

The second one in hindsight was probably fine, as is the current one.

I will do more tests soon to try and get to the bottom of this. As of right now all fingers point to the mount.

[Joelski]

Sounds like your mount lacks the elevation it claims to have? Not being Mr Obvious, I'm not the long range shooter any of you are, so I'm just trying to follow along. Am I tracking, or completely off base?

Also, have you tried another mount of known relative accuracy, with or whiteout elevation to see if the optic works as it should?

[alamo5000]

Sounds like your mount lacks the elevation it claims to have? Not being Mr Obvious, I'm not the long range shooter any of you are, so I'm just trying to follow along. Am I tracking, or completely off base?

Also, have you tried another mount of known relative accuracy, with or whiteout elevation to see if the optic works as it should?

I have not tried another mount. If I can get a hold of a 34 mm mount or rings it would solve a lot questions. I didn't want to run out and buy some mount just to test once.

As far as elevation goes the scope definitely has it. Total travel from up to down is advertised as 31mils but in reality it has more than that. Actual is a bit over 32mils from top to bottom.

When you zero it it should be around the 15 or 16 mil mark within about a mil. That is one of the things Vortex physically tested on the optic. On their gun it was like 3 or 4 moa (about 1 mil) from the optical center which is where it should be. That was with plain scope rings without any cant built in. But as soon as I put it on my rifle the zero goes to the 21 mil mark.

If you do the math 15 moa (the cant built into the scope) should be about 4.5 mils. So if they were zeroed at 15.5 mils with my mount I should be zeroed at about 11 mils.

The other test they did was a tracking test which means when you click the knob how do you know one mil is really one mil? They basically have a setup at a known distance with hash marks on a wall or pole or something at exactly the right places. If you dial up 10 mils and if your optic doesn't match up then something is wrong. The one they sent me passed all the tests they did, both tracking and zero.

Depending on where things line up I might not use the riser. I bought it on a whim because I had one on my 10/22 and at the time I hadn't picked out an optic yet. If I need it I can use it.

That said when I zeroed the optic with 22 MOA riser it should add about 6.5 mils so when I took it off you would think the point of zero would change by that amount. But it didn't. It only went down by a little over 1 mil.

Something is really weird going on here.

[alamo5000]

Well folks, I think I have verified the problem. Throughout the day today I was thinking about how I could test this mount.

I had the optic on the rifle with a confirmed zero from this morning. I took the entire upper off of the lower and removed the bolt carrier group. Using shooting bags to stabilize the upper I bore sighted on a single light that is on the neighbors place across the street. Naturally the cross hairs and my bore sighting lined up perfectly because I had been shooting earlier that day.

I then removed the mount and optic and removed the optic from the mount and intentionally mounted it backwards. It's a cantilever mount so there is really no way to mistake that. Anyway I mounted it all up again (but backwards) and put it back on the gun. I bore sighted it again. After adjusting the optic to be on the same point as my bore I had approximately 19 mils of upward travel. That would put my zero with a flat mount/rings at around the 14.5 mil area which would line up perfectly with what Vortex got with that exact scope.

Since that is a single light bulb there was no mistaking it. There are no other street lights and other stuff to confuse it.

At this point I am 100% certain that someone machined this optic mount with the slope going the wrong direction. I can shoot it tomorrow like that (in the mount backwards) but I see no point in that.

Holy cow. That's crazy. That said if they hired a machine operator that wasn't also a shooter I could see how that could happen I guess. That said it's 100% obvious that no one double checked his work.

[BoilerUp]

Which mount do you have?

[alamo5000]

Which mount do you have?

Griffin SPRM 15MOA Cantilever

[BoilerUp]

Griffin SPRM 15MOA Cantilever

Interesting. Yeah, hard to get that backwards, but, hey, there is always someone...

7823

[alamo5000]

Interesting. Yeah, hard to get that backwards, but, hey, there is always someone...

7823


LOL!

I mounted mine just like that. It's sad but it works better that way than the other way around.

I'm waiting to hear back from Griffin. Hopefully it will be pain free, well as pain in the ass free as it can be going through 3 optics and all the back and forth there.

[mustangfreek]

I mean..it’s Chinese

I’ve learned my lesson with vortex.. Their cheap lines are..well cheaply made in China...

I only use the PST and above from them..no problems with any of that line..

Edit.. pic is backwards cause yards use the wrong scope/eye relief..

Maybe the mount is the problem? Backwards..lol?

[tact]

Griffin with another copy.....funny it’s all jacked up. Just buy the real thing and not have any problems. SPUHR not the Sperm...

[alamo5000]

Update:

Heard back from Griffin and they sent me a return label. They said they are going to inspect the optic mount to confirm my findings.

The mount has already been packaged up and mailed back to them.

[Joelski]

No chance the riser was backwards? Man, that would easily solve the problem!

[alamo5000]

No chance the riser was backwards? Man, that would easily solve the problem!

Zero chance. The problem was there when the riser was sitting on a desk in my house and I was out back shooting without it. The scope and all that stuff was tested on multiple rifles and was tested with and without the riser in place. The riser did help me diagnose the problem though.

One of the things that keyed me in was I zeroed the rifle with the riser in place. I had 12 ish mils of elevation left in the turret. I removed the riser completely and zeroed without the riser and had 11 mils left in the turret. I lost just over 1 mil without the riser. I should have lost over 6 mils. That tells me the cants of the riser and mount were offsetting each other. The difference between the riser and the scope mount was the only elevation gain I got using that configuration.

I can go over the math on it but the math all points to the mount. Which led me to keep on testing. When I mounted the scope just like in BoilerUp's picture I had all the correct elevation and it matched what Vortex got during their range certification. I did that without using the riser.

I also put a pair of calipers on it and confirmed that it isn't the problem. It's supposed to be higher in the back and lower in the front.

Another measure I did without the riser was measure from the bottom of the bell of the scope to the top of the rail. Mounted up 'correctly' with the cantilever to the front the bell was physically higher than when I turned it around backwards. That was measured with calipers as well. Canted scope mounts are supposed to be higher in the back like a dragster.

If Griffin comes back and says that's not the problem I will be amazed and purchase a different mount from somebody else.

It took me three scopes and a month to figure it all out but here we go.

Another thing that stood out to me is I put the scope on it's zero with just the mount. Without dialing anything and configuring the scope as in Boilerup's picture I gained 9 mils of elevation.

15MOA = 4.4mils

If you took the native zero that Vortex got and subtracted 4.4 mils that's my zero with just the scope mount and no riser. The reason I gained 9 mils was because the built in mechanical zero is what it is. You have to add and subtract from that base number.

[alamo5000]

Griffin confirmed the problem. They are replacing the mount.

[SINNER]

LMFAO

[alamo5000]

LMFAO

Agreed. It should have never happened.

I don't know if it was a malicious employee or someone that can run a machine but isn't into long range shooting.

Either way hopefully they introduce more QC and avoid embarrassing situations like this. It should have never made it into a box much less out the door.

I don't have any malicious intention towards them but in my opinion things have declined a bit as they have tried to grow. Before they were definitely my go to because you could order and not worry about what you are getting.

This and one other thing has me really looking at options when choices need to be made now.

[alamo5000]

SPUHR not the Sperm...

Agreed on the name. Their army humor needs to mellow out some if not a lot.