This past weekend I saw the biggest buck I have ever seen in a feeder before. I decided I was gonna drop this bad boy! Long story short, I wound up wounding the buck and it ended up with him running away with an injured leg. I know that my shot felt good and it should have been on target. I don’t know what happened. I decided to shoot at a paper plate 100 yards away and see what was going on. My first two shots didn’t even hit the plate. It hit the board that the plate was on 7 inches low! I had already sighted the gun in at 100 yards before the season started and shot a deer 2 weeks prior. I don’t understand how the gun got off that much in such a short amount of time. Everything is tight, nothing loose. It hasn’t been thrown around or dropped or anything like that. Do I just have a junk scope or what? It’s a vortex crossfire 3x9x40.

What is your exact set up? Rings, bases, rifle, caliber, etc?

By chance, was it these bases?

Everyone has their likes and dislikes when it comes to scopes. I can’t stand the Crossfire, think they are a POS. It is also my opinion the Vortex warranty has to be used WAY too often.

Yep.

It is a Mossberg patriot 270. I’m not sure if the rings or bases. It is the scope that came with the gun. I have shot it before with 1-2 inch groupings at 100 yards. But all of a sudden now it won’t shoot consistently in the same place. It’s all over, high low. Left and right. I’m not talking about an inch or so, cause that would be fine. I’m talking 6-7 inches high or low, and 2-3 inches left or right.

You have to verify if all screws are tight before blaming the scope.

This right here.

Couple years ago I missed the biggest buck of my life. 120yd shot with my Blackout. No problem usually. After missing went to the range like you with a paper plate. Was missing 8 inches high at 100. Looked everything over and found my screws were loose on my rings. Tightened them up and presto! back to normal.

You have a torque wrench?

A similar issue happened to me many years ago when I "upgraded" the scope and rings on a tack driving Remington 788. I was cussing the scope for days and was finally pulling it off to put my old scope back on when I found I had a cracked ring. Replaced the rings and all was well again.

Check the action screws too. We just went through this with my brother's Patriot. He couldn't get it to stay on paper at 100 yards. He brought it over so I could level and remount the scope and torque all the screws. The front action screw was so loose that i could turn it with my fingers. I torqued it down to spec and the bolt wouldn't open. The screw was about 5 threads too long. After I filed it down and got everything put back together, it still shot over 2 MOA.

It has become policy for me to ask my customers if they would like for me to check torque on ALL of the screws in the rifle, base, or rings. No one has turned me down. I have seen the action screws cause trouble, the base screws cause trouble, and the ring screws cause trouble. When any one of them come loose, the rifle puts bullets in erratic places. If one of mine starts shooting poorly, that is the first thing I do, check torque. If everything is torqued to spec, then the only other thing it can be is a barrel that needs cleaning. This is all, of course, discounting a shot out barrel, which does happen to me from time to time, but I know when to expect it.

fishingdude, something is causing your random groups. You will need to check all the items that people are talking about above. Action screws, rings, bases, etc. Once you do this, shoot it again. I would also have a second scope handy in case it could be the scope causing the issue. But when groups go from 1-2 inches to all over the place, there's a reason. Could it be the scope, yes. But you have to check everything else first.

I had a base screw back out after 17 years. Made my rifle that had always been on, suddenly have huge groups. Went ahead and upgraded rings and bases after that. It's on again.

If you send it in, Vortex will test the scope for free and repair or replace if needed. I had to do that on a scope that was grouping minute of hub cap. Got a new scope sent back to me within a week.

Yup. ^^Those are crap.

Wow! Lots of good advice. I didn’t think to check the action screw. I dropped it off at a local gun shop to see if they could figure out what was going on., I’ll have to ask them if anything was loose. Thanks for all the advice!

What did you find out?

It sure sounds like that scope won't hold zero..

So what did the gunsmith find out

I am not an expert by any means but I've been shooting for 32 years. Been shooting centerfire rifles for 19 years and almost always tried to use the cheapest thing I could get by on.

One thing I learned for sure- a bundled scope in a cheap combo will ALWAYS fail, 100% of the time, regardless of the brand. From Bushnell and Nikon to Nikko Sterling, and now Vortex. Whatever it is, it's gonna give out. Yeah it could be the rings, too. They go cheap on those as well. But you just can't expect a bundled scope to last.

Bundled scopes are a cheap, for now deal at a bargain price. There's a reason it usually cost more for a given model of rifle with good open sights than it does with a scope. And meanwhile people see it and think "wow it comes with a free scope".

Factory bore sighted is the biggest lie in gun marketing today. 99% of the time you'd be lucky to be on paper with a "factory lazer boresighted" gun. I can get within 6" of the bull just eye balling it down the bore at 100 yards every time. And I am just a regular dude that gave it a try, not an expert by any means.

These days I always buy the most quality I can afford and 99.9% of the time I buy used so I can recoup my initial investment.

Optics are often worth buying new, you never know when you are gonna get someone else's scope that quit tracking or etc. So if you go used on a scope buy "like new" from someone you trust that you're gonna see again. Or buy absolute top quality used stuff after you meet face to face and inspect- or just buy new but still the best quality you can afford.

My 2 cents, for what they are worth.

Haven't read the whole thread, but the more experience I get with rifles, the more I have begun blaming the base/rings for POI issues rather than the scope itself. It's definitely the first thing I check. I used to have all sorts of wandering zero issues before I got decent base/rings on all of my equipment. Now those have pretty much gone away, even on guns with cheap scopes.

I know this won't help your situation now. But a guy I know that guides a bunch requires all hunters to shoot a 2" steel target at the beginning of every weekend. Doesn't matter who you are, or if you just sighted your gun in. Spending another $1-2 has helped him avoid some seriously upset hunters. He just got someone to cut him two 2" AR500 targets and is a quick check, helps with hunter's confidence as well.

can someone list the torque specs for the bases and rings ?

They vary by manufacturer. I always torque my rings to the scope manufacturer's specs (15-20 in/lbs for my Vortex scopes) and my base clamps to the ring manufacturer's specs.

Try the Leupold one piece base and blue loctite torqued to 60 inch pounds and rings torqued to 15 inch pounds. That's what works for me. I don't use those two piece bases anymore.