Leupold CDS?

Anyone have any experience with these scopes? Thinking about a VX-2 CDS 3-9x40 just for hunting white tail, its going to go on a Rem 700 ADL 30-06. My brother said I should get something with more power is it worth it to spend the extra money now?

The CDS scope is a decent scope. It allows you to dial your elevation in MOA, which is what I recommend once you have a proven load for your rifle. I don't recommend the custom turret stuff. I have several 3-9 scopes, and I don't feel I am at any disadvantage in the field. I keep my hunting scopes set on about 3-4 power anyway when hunting. On 3-4x, I can quickly get on target on a moving coyote or whatever is needed. If you are dialed all the way up on a 14x scope, it will slow you down and you may not have time to shoot a moving coyote.

Hunting whitetail how far?

I would shoot a group at 300 yards with your current set up. If you shoot a 3 shot 3" group you have a valid need for the CDS and a more powerful scope. If you shoot a 5-6" group, it wont matter. Then you would just get a good Leupold 3.5-10 about $500. All the scope you will need for close running shots or a solid rested shot at 300 yards. farther than that, In my opinion you would need a rifle which would shoot the 3", 300 yard group.

I think a 150 grain bullet sighted in to hit 2.5-3" high at 100 yards, should give you a "point blank" hold on the kill zone of a broad side whitetail, hog, axis, coyote, etc. out to 300 yards, Chad and JG can correct me.

I guess what I'm saying is you have a great "hunting" rifle and no need for a CDS dial


make sense??

I've got two Leupold CDS scopes, both of which still have the coupon for the CDS dial still in the box. In theory they sound great, but through personal experience and OCD I have come to the conclusion that the chances that that dial will be spot on is slim. There are so many variables that come in to play at long distance. Atmospherics and elevation in particular. That dial may be spot on for whichever conditions you choose, but may be off by a fair margin if you hunt out of state. Especially if your dial is set for Texas (closer to sea level), and you head for the high country out West. The data you send to Leupold also has to be exact. Crap in, crap out. If you use the muzzle velocity printed on the box of your factory ammo, chances are your dial will be off past 300 yds or so. Not trying to downplay the effectiveness of the CDS dial, but just trying to convey the importance of good data. If you decide to go this route, make sure you true the data on the range before you count on it for a hunt. As stated earlier, the distance you plan on shooting has more to do with this conversation than anything else. If your shots are inside of 300 yds, follow Buzzsaw's advise.

I think the dial would be very accurate, or reasonable, if you had a pet load that you chrono yourself and you use
a stable powder and never change up the bullet model or weight. But I probably have 3 pet loads/bullets per caliber.

I have no scope on my gun atm I bought the gun as a combo which worked fine for my first hunt. The scope recently broke so I need something new. The only thing that makes me feel less confident with a scope is having to make a long rage shot above 200 and having no idea how where to hold or making those adjustments since I'm to knowledgeable about moa or mils. There are just so many options when I walk into a sporting goods store i just don't know what to get.

I would get a fine duplex scope, like a 3-9 vx3. Then zero it at 200y and calculate the range to the top of the bottom post. It will probably be 275-325 yards or something, then don't shoot (any animal) beyond that. We can help you with the calculation after you settle on a caliber and scope.

Which is exactly the way you set them up....chrono not optional. I have six of the CDS equipped VX3's and VX6's, and they work extremely well, and are easy to set up correctly. If you change loads, just get a CDS dial (zero stop is fool proof) made up in MOA, chrono the load, make your dope sheet, and you're set.

Do you even know what CDS is? I'm guessing not since you're recommending a CDS but not the custom turret.

I use a CDS VX3 on my AR308 and it does great out to 450yds. If you know how to bracket the animal with your crosshairs then you can easily range the animal with the power selector ring/range finder.

Or, you can just zero 2in high at 100yds like someone else mentioned, and aim dead nuts on out to 300.

I just bumped a thread that bares on this conversation that comes up quite often.

FYI, if a guy has a custom yardage dial made by Leupy, then changes the load and wants another dial but doesn't want to pay $60 for it, try these out.....they work great and are cheap and durable:

http://customturretsystems.com/

love me some BDC turrets

I thought that if you don't know your velocity(chronographed), BC and SD of your bullets, then you are just pissing in the wind using a CDS turret. Is that correct?

That is correct booradley.

Pretty much.

A long list of centerfire cartridges, zeroed at 100 yards have the same corrections at 200, and 300 yards. Beyond that, things start to spread out a bit. The point of the CDS is to shoot farther than the 300 yard line a whole bunch of people can reliably pull off without it. So yes, you need to know BC, MV and bullet weight for it to work. Same as you do for a normally labeled MOA or Mil scope. The difference is with those, you can relabel the corrections without too much fuss, as opposed to looking at a "custom made" turret Leupold made for you, then mailed to you, that isn't exactly correct.

I think a CDS scope would be a fine idea, but a fellow would need to verify where the bullet strike is at various distances shown on the dial. And, it really helps to have a RF when you do go hunting. If you have a bullet that left the muzzle at 3000 fps, and is sighted in at 200, drop will be only about 7 inches at 300. But that drop triples at 400 yards. I wouldn't trust the CDS dial without doing a good bit of shooting to know that it's correct or close to correct at distance.

While I don't personally use a CDS turret I have set-up a few for friends rifles and they work fine with-in the given parameters. I chrono the ammo then give Leuopld the BC/Temp(50F)/Altitude of hunting area and the data has been spot on. Now for extreme precision they are not the BEST method but for game the size of deer they have been quite good. Had a friend make 3 one shot kills in one afternoon a javalina at 550 then back to back Aoudads 620/640yds

This is the obvious protocol, just as much as a guy with a mil/mil setup should do. No difference. IF I give Leupy the right info, my CDS dials have been very accurate on 7RMag's and 7-08's.

I know exactly what it is. The model, or name of the model of the scope he is looking at is the VX-2 3-9x40mm CDS (Link HERE ). The function of the scope as it comes from the factory has the turrets in MOA. This set up is what I recommend, keeping the turrets as is in MOA to dial for elevation.

The part I do not recommend is the custom turret, which is when you send off your ballistic data to Leupold and have a "custom" turret made to (what you think is your ballistics data) and erases the MOA marks on the turret. With these so called custom turrets, you simply dial to number 4 or 5 for a 400 or 500 yard shot. I have had MULTIPLE customers curse this system after their rifles will not shoot exactly where they want it to at 400 yards and out. They are in different environmental conditions than what the turret was set up for, and impact high or low because of the change in conditions.

So yes, I know exactly what I said. This is the difference between just shooting to get close and precision shooting. I'm an advocate for precision shooting, not just getting it close. The "custom turret" (which I think is the biggest oxymoron- (in case you didn't know, means a combination of words that have opposite or very different meanings)) often takes a precise rifle with good ammo, and creates a weak link for precision shooting out beyond 300 yards. If you re-read what I wrote, I think it will make more sense to you now.

Chad, just curious, how much personal experience do you have with a CDS setup that has been properly chrono'ed, etc?

What specifically do you want to know? There's lots to go over on that topic. The main issue I have seen is shooters being off target beyond 400 yards. Off enough to have a miss or make a bad shot at that distance. And a CDS or whatever marketing lingo is used for each scope mfg that offers a custom turret option (Swarovski, Nikon, Leupold, NF, Huskemaw, and many others offer this)

For example, the customer that got the most angry was about a year or so ago when shooting at 500 yards. I did the ammo on his rifle with a known bullet, velocity, and proven BC. I had his data down perfect with a custom load for his rifle. He submits his data to get the "custom turret" out to 600 yards, I think. He went to the range at Top Gun, and was printing exactly 9" low on paper at 500 yards with a confirmed, dead on zero. He called all mad that he was 9" low, and that the ammo was off, or something wasn't right. I asked him what the specifics were on his "custom turret". He gave them to me and I ran the numbers in 2 different ways- the environmentals of his turret and the current conditions he was shooting in. I came up with 8.2" difference, and he was seeing 9" on the target at 500 yards. Now, this is a high end custom rifle with custom ammo dialed in to this gun with a high end scope, so it shot very well. So good that you can shoot a tight group at 500 yards to measure with. You take a perfect system (system meaning rifle, scope and ammo) and add in a weak link of a custom turret that is only good to 1 shooting condition the turret was designed in. When the conditions change, so does the drop of the bullet. I had previously explained this custom turret to him before he ordered it, and I re-mentioned it to him when he called all angry. His response was, "Then why do I have this turret", and my reply was that's a good question. He took off the custom turret, and put back on the original turret and learned MOA! That's the answer. This is the difference between getting close and precision shooting.

Now, if you want a custom turret to dial out 200 or 300 yards, sure, that will work and you will be "close enough" in most conditions to still make a good clean kill. There is not enough environmental change to cause a large enough difference in drop to make a bad shot or a miss. But when you get out past 400 yards, it makes all the difference in the world!

When I shoot a competition, and we shoot 1000 yards first thing in the morning, my drop will be different than when we shoot the same target at 4 or 5 pm in the afternoon. The temp heats up, the pressure generally rises, the density altitude changes, and your drop will change. So you "calculate" your drop and make your adjustment in the scope. I don't guess, I don't dial to a 10 on my scope and hope I hit the target at 1000 yards. If you have a turret with nothing but a number of 3, 4, 5, or 6 on it, how do you know what correction to make to account for the difference in shooting conditions from what the turret was made for vs the current conditions you are shooting in. If you don't understand moa or mils, you sure won't be able to account for this difference. Again, this is the difference between getting close and precision shooting.

Chad is right. CDS and BDC will get you close on deer sized (or pig or coyote sized) animals, but I think it's real value is the distance gap between 300 and 400 yards. Inside 300, a knowledgable shot won't need CDS or BDC. From 300 to 400, if you know the distance and you know your rifles ballistics, you're still Ok. Past 400, the drop becomes significant if we consider inches of drop per 50 yards of increased distance. Inside 400 yards, it really doesn't matter that much for a hunter unless you are hunting chipmunks.

If a fellow wants true precision in shooting at long distances, CDS won't match up to turrets. I know that to be the case, and many folks on this forum know that I normally speak in favor of BDC. And it wasn't long ago that I considered buying a CDS equipped Leupold scope, but decided against it. Inside 300, I don't need it, and I no longer shoot at deer beyond that. But, I sure do shoot coyotes and pigs at distances to 400, and in the non-turreted scopes I have BDC that'll put me on at 400, but I don't trust BDC out past that.

When hunting, what I really need is a distance measurement. How far off is that darn coyote?

To summarize, BDC and CDS have value, but the value decreases as shooting distance increases.

Chad, I asked you how much personal, hands on shooting experience you had with a CDS dial, that's all, as I was just curious. Thanks for the feedback though. I find it interesting the differences in other's experience and mine, which is why I asked. For instance, I have a tack driving HCR 7mag that loves 150 BT's @ 3100' and 160 AB's @ 3015'. Both wear VX6's and are sighted in at 200 yds. I've got app 200 rds through each, and have dialed everyting from300-900, in between, back and forth, etc and have never had a hiccup. When the wind cooperates it is like cheating. I also have 3 7-08's that wear 3.5-10x40 VX3's that can do the same thing out to 600yds with 140 AB's running 2800'. Mine are purely hunting guns, not tactical stuff.

I have also had the opportunity to watch T Hodnett's "pupils", some the most decorated snipers in the world, shoot up in the TX Panhandle. I've been hunting up there for 20 years. They obviously use mils, Horus reticles, etc, but they miss occasionally too, especially the first shot. Don't let them shoot twice though under the same conditions.....I've watched them shoot prarie dogs @ 1000 meters several times.

Maybe I should have mentioned that the reason I didn't buy that CDS equipped scope is that I decided to go with turrets instead. The principle is about the same, but I thought that the turrets gave more flexibility when changing bullets and loads. No doubt that CDS would have worked fine for my needs.

Yes. The custom turrets can work when the shooting conditions are the same as what it was developed for. I personally, do not use a custom turret system, for the lack of precision I lose using them. I have 5 Nightforce scopes, and 3 are mils, and 2 are MOA. I'm slowly converting them over to mils. And everybody misses once in a while!!! Some just miss more than others!!!

Gotcha. I'm very interested in a mil/mil setup myself, but need to get more educated on the subject. I like a couple of those SWFA offerings.

I have a VX6 with the CDS and it works for what it is but it's a 2-300 yard scope like chad has said , i only got it because i got a really good deal on it and it's pretty dang clear.

Road trip east bound.

A VX6 is a 330 yd scope without a CDS dial.....MPBR.

Not to beat this to death but under certain circumstances CDS can be effective and the biggest problem I see with it as well as BDC are folks who don't understand the limitations of each.
I have helped friends who I know the CDS is NOT suitable at all for their hunting rigs. They may be in Laredo one week then New Mexico the next with the same rifle.
Happened last week I helped a friend sight in and Chrono his 6.5 Creed for an Antelope hunt in New Mexico and programmed the G7 rangefinder with his dope.
Here is the picture he sent me Saturday. Thats a Model 7 that Derrick at Horizons tricked out with a Nightforce on top.



But I also mentioned in an earlier post above another friend who has a place in Alpine and the rifle stays at that ranch at 5000ft elevation and he uses one ammo/load and CDS works fine on big game animals.