OT Scout Rifle

E

ernesto

Joined
Feb 1, 2004
Messages
49
Hi everybody,
I know this isn't a gun forum but a lot of forumites are gun enthusiasts and I would appreciate some input.
I'm setting up a Ruger M77 .308 on the compact, scout rifle concept.
Now here's my problem. All forward mount scout scopes I find are fixed power & I would prefer a variable power. Therfore I'm leaning toward a handgun scope. Do you think this is workable? Has anyone tried something simular?
The recommended eye relief is 7-15". The scope I'm looking at has a relief of 11-21". Seems to fall within range. So what do you think?
 
Try before you buy, if you can. Find a store that sells a proper scope and ask to look through it. Vary the distance. Sometimes the eye relief is technically as advertised, but really only useful through 1-2" of the promised range.

It should work. Make sure that you're buying a quality scope. It will tolerate the vibrations better and the eye relief will probably be more forgiving. Cheap scopes are rarely worth the headache.

Are there any gun shows near you? If so, find "the scope guy". Most shows have at least one. See if he has any used turkey scopes that he could part with.

It's none of my business, but why do you prefer variable power for this? Scout rifles are one of the few applications where variable power really has no benefits but retains all the usual drawbacks.
 
I can't see why it wouldn't work. Heck, Scout Rifles were done with handgun scopes for quite a few years before the idea caught on enough for Leupold and Burris to designate scopes toward that specific purpose.
 
The key elements are the eye-relief distance, and the diameter of the view, from Jeff Cooper's initial descriptions. The scope on a scout rifle was really to be an easy-acquistion targeting device, not really a telescope.

Things have changed quite a bit, including that outrageously priced ?Steyr? scout.

The fundamentals are: forward mount, easy acquisition, .30 cal. or so, light weight and durable...if I recall correctly.

The problem with a variable is that there are more things to go wrong. Now, I don't expect that you are going to perform "scout" duties as Cooper envisioned them, but a good knock on the scope and you have problems.

I don't know what the extended eye-relief would do to the sighting picture of a variable scope. Would there be distortion, or would it be hard to fix a sight picture, and would the weight be prohibitive?

dunno.

Fun project. Be nice if you could experiment without investing in a scope, just to see if it worked.

Be well and safe.


(Edit: I made my scout-type many years ago, using a Bushnell Phantom 1.3x20 scope. Not ideal, but it was what I had. The gunsmith who mounted it used a Bushnell Phantom scope mount. When my kids knocked the rifle over and broke the scope, I found that the mount itself served very well as a rear sight, once I put the front blade back on (I had taken it off for some reason.)

Again, I was just screwing around, but it worked a charm. I've since gotten another 1.3x Phantom, for price, not necessarily high quality.

I found this on eBay...maybe you can see that the mount could serve as a peep sight of sorts.

I am of the opinion that a rifle should be usable even if you smash your scope.)

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=66828&item=7166429692&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW
 
ernesto said:
Hi everybody,
I know this isn't a gun forum but a lot of forumites are gun enthusiasts and I would appreciate some input.
I'm setting up a Ruger M77 .308 on the compact, scout rifle concept.
Now here's my problem. All forward mount scout scopes I find are fixed power & I would prefer a variable power. Therfore I'm leaning toward a handgun scope. Do you think this is workable? Has anyone tried something simular?
The recommended eye relief is 7-15". The scope I'm looking at has a relief of 11-21". Seems to fall within range. So what do you think?
Click to expand...

I put together a Polish Mosin-Nagant M44 with a Nc Star 4X32 LER(long eye relief) handgun scope and it works like a charm.Here's a link to help start your project:
http://p077.ezboard.com/fparallaxscurioandrelicfirearmsforumsfrm85
Darrell's Scout Mount Page & Forum

Milsurpshooter.Net
Curio or Relic & Military Surplus
Collector's and Shooter's Forums

I found the scope here:
http://www.crankyfarmer.com/
 
I don't hunt enough to have ever gotten into the advantages of a variable I guess. I like fixed power scopes because of their simplicity and strength, and for that matter would prefer to use iron sights or a receiver sight for everything if I could. There is something much more satisfying in hitting your target without using a scope. Of the four scopes I own, two are fixed 4X's, one is a fixed 6X, and one is a Trijicon ACOG fixed 4x32. Everything else has either a receiver sight or just the iron sights that came with the gun.

Norm
 
Thanks for the replies everyone. It seems I'm headed in the right direction. I plan on using this rifle for hunting. A ghost ring for backup sounds ideal. However first I'll need to have a front post soldiered on or a dovetail cut in the barrel. The area I plan on hunting is a thick 25-30sq. mile swamp. Very heavy undergrowth. So yes a 2x-20 to 32 mm scope is adequate.
However I come across clearcuts, burnovers, bottlenecks & hammocks that could run from 50 to 100 or more yards across.
So I would like to have the extra power in reserve. Just in case.
BTW the scope I'm considering is a Burris HandGun Scope 2x-7x-32mm.
 
I honestly wouldn't be too concerned about the ability to dial up the magnification at ranges up to 150 meters. The longest hunting shot of my life (173 yards) I took just after discovering my 2-8x was stuck at 2x. No problem.

Be sure you're happy with the reticle on the scope you've chosen. At least one expensive brand of scout scope has such a thick reticle it's really only suited for closer-range quick work.

John
 
How are you mounting that scope? Normally it goes on the receiver, perhaps on the barrel; but, that far forward you may be getting alot of vibration. Check to make sure that your selected scope and scope mount can handle that kind of pounding.

n2s
 
I think that you will find that for hunting purposes, a fixed power scope has advantages over a variable for the scout. Cooper discusses the scout somewhat in The Book of the Rifle and in Cooper's Commentary, and one thing that impressed me was his emphasis on handiness, and how the rifle scope and sling are supposed to work together as a system. One point that he made is that too much power in a scope is detrimental to good holding and making a timely shot. It exaggerates wobble and causes the shooter to draw out the time between sighting the game and making the shot. I would love to build a scout rifle, if I had the money, but the scope is one thing I would not compromise on, I would get the Leupold and mount it as close to the receiver ring as possible and as close to the mean of the eye relief as I could. (The 2-7 is going to have an eye relief about 6 inches longer than the scout.) I just have the feeling that the farther you diverge from the scout design that Copper developed, the less handy the rifle is going to be. Cooper has reported that at Gunsite shooters with scouts were very competitive at all ranges against higher powered scopes, and I thing the ranges are pretty long out there.

Whatever you do, have fun building and shooting it.
 
Believe me when I say I'm not trying to screw up your fun; God knows I've experimented enough with lots of 'concepts'. I tried the scout concept 15-20 years ago when my vision was terrific....but, I found it not as handy as I had hoped, certainly not any better or quicker than with the scope mounted in the normal place. What did work for me was to acquire a shorter rifle, a Ruger 77 RSI in .270, on which I mounted a 2X Leupold with a post and crosshair. Several friends made dire predictions about using a .270 with a short barrel (noise, loss of velocity and energy), but it has become my favorite deer rifle....and I too hunt the swamps and beaver dams...What ever you do, enjoy it.
 
I mounted a handgun scope on a Mauser 96 and it worked fine. It was a fixed power. I don't know why you want the variable. More weight and complication, and within the Scout format, difficult to see why you'd need a higher magnification, though of course that is always nice.

Good Shooting!


munk
 
I'm in agreement with the fixed power crowd here. Even on my bigger weapons, I almost always use fixed power. Less expensive, less prone to trouble, less weight, and I wasn't using anything other than maximum magnification anyway...
 
I'm in the process of doing the same thing with a Ruger M77 Mk II Compact in .308 (it's brutal to shoot, but it sure is easy to carry!).

I was thinking of using a variable power pistol scope, but now I am leaning toward the new Aimpoint Comp M3. It has a 2MOA red dot, plenty fine for this gun, and battery life is now into the years. If the electronics go belly up, the tube can be used as a ghost ring in a pinch.

I know I can hit with red dots on IPSC metric targets out to 240 yards consistently with an AR, so it should be fine for a scout-type rifle. A little magnification would be nice, but on the other hand, magnification makes wobble worse, so I can actually get better hits (offhand) with less as long as I can see the target.
 
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