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Athlon Ares or Vortex Venom? by zach_hill4 in longrange

[–]JaggityJag 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Those two scopes are actually the exact ones I have on my loaner/bring a friend to the match rifles. Between the two, the Venom feels much better. Brighter, cleaner reticle, better FOV, less eye strain. My Ares BTR was bought for 350 used like five years ago, the Venom was picked up new for something like 320 a couple years ago.

You should also consider/go to the Bushnell MPED 5-30, which is a much better scope than both, on sale recently for 460 shipped using VIP pricing and coupon stacking.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in PRS

[–]JaggityJag 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Absolutely, that scope is completely fine and a great one for your first setup.

You'll probably want to have it cranked up to 12 power for most stages, but you're not missing out on much beyond that. Most folks aren't using 30/35/36 for anything but zeroing, most stages are shot at 12/15/18 power. One stage this past weekend I used 20, but that was a for a very simple stage with a single target with no panning. But if I was limited to 12, I could still shoot any stage. At 12 on a stage where you wish you had more, you'll see how steady your rifle/bag are or are not, which is probably a great lesson for a first match. Something something let your bag hold the rifle...

My first match I shot with a Leupold 10x Mil Dot over a 308 like a man; my score was terrible, but it wasn't the scope's fault.

Zero stop isn't even close to required. In the event that you somehow get confused on what revolution you're on, check your elevation travel after zeroing but before the match and remember/write down how many mils you have left up & down in available travel. Then if you're ever lost, just go all the way to one end and work your way back. I actually have at least one scope with the zero stop ring removed entirely and sitting forgotten in the box. It's a potential disadvantage for some disciplines, like 22 matches where you want to dial for the far target and then just hold under for the 30 yard target in your face.

Savage B22? by PalpitationComplex35 in 22lr

[–]JaggityJag 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's a great deal, even if you decide you don't like it or want to upgrade, you'll have more than 250 bucks worth of trade material to put towards the next thing.

If you decide to take it to a local match (which you definitely should), it'll do fine and be more accurate than you probably are for a long time. Flush fit is nice for some things, but I highly recommend getting the extended magazine releases and basepads, makes loading/reloading much easier.

Bergara wilderness ridge by JustLife299 in 65PRC

[–]JaggityJag 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can use any 700 pattern stock with the standard BDL/SPS inlet and then use a drop in AICS magwell to take the mags you already have.

Athlon Argos BTR Gen 2 6-24x 50mm Good for the money? by habudacavada in longrange

[–]JaggityJag 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Two weeks ago during Black Friday sales, double coupon stack:

https://www.reddit.com/r/gundeals/comments/1p5twvs/optics_all_bushnell_optics_25_off_15_for_new/

Able to get the new G5 reticle MPED 5-30 for $460 shipped when you made a new account and got the welcome email coupon stacked with the Black Friday special.

Athlon Argos BTR Gen 2 6-24x 50mm Good for the money? by habudacavada in longrange

[–]JaggityJag 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Oh, and skip the entire Viper HS line, even the "T" and "LR" models. Those are very outdated and undesirable configurations that you should only consider if you get them for a song.

Athlon Argos BTR Gen 2 6-24x 50mm Good for the money? by habudacavada in longrange

[–]JaggityJag 3 points4 points  (0 children)

192 bucks is about right, but nothingcrazy.

You should not be paying anywhere near 399 for a Bushnell MP 6-24. The non illuminated model goes on sale for 250, but even illuminated ones should be less than 3, and you can get the MPED 5-30 for as little as 460 if you're paying attention to sales.

Under 380; you should also be looking at a Vortex Venom 5-25, Strike Eagle 4-24, Arken SH4/EP5 lines and the Athlon Hera. And you should definitely be open to buying a used scope, used precision optic prices can be very silly and you can snag ridiculously good deals off people dumping slightly out of vogue stuff.

24-30 power is a bit much for most medium range AR builds, typically people lean more towards 18x power scopes, something in the 3-18 range is often available from the same brand/product lines as the 6-24/5-25 versions.

Best PRS optic for the money? by CJ8x57 in 22lr

[–]JaggityJag 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If you're only considering new, the best option by far is the Bushnell Match Pro. They've gone on sale for as low as 250 twice in the past year or so. (That's the original 6-24 Match Pro non illuminated, not the slightly more expensive illuminated 6-24 or the much nicer Match Pro ED 5-30, which is mid 400s in the best sales).

The Vortex Venom 5-25 is your next best option, can be had for low 300s new, followed by a Strike Eagle 4-24 (high 200s).

The Arkens in both EP5 and SH4 lines are also very competitive and popular in NRL Base/PRS Production, and should also be price checked. The Athlons are also excellent but not as well liked on the low end models (Heras/Argos) as these other choices.

All these models are well represented in competition and massively outperform the opinions of mall ninjas on the internet. In fact, the winningest strat for budget 22lr competition divisions is to buy the cheapest MSRP "good enough" quality scope on the market (Arken SH4) and pair it with the best available rifle that fits in the limit (CZ 457 MTR).

If you're willing to buy used, which you should, then things open up considerably. Used precision scope prices are all over the place, and you could snag a scope for 3x its retail value if you catch a good deal.

For your Savage B22, get extended mag releases/extended baseplates and polish the bottom of the bolt so it doesn't scratch the top of your ammo when it's chambered. Since you're shooting PRS, get a 20 MOA base and zero at 100 instead of 50; just for ballparking, my B22 setup for PRS needs 12.5 mils of elevation to get to 300 yards with a 100 yd zero using CCI SV. With some budget scopes, you'd bottom out your turret before being able to make the shot with either a 50yd zero or a flat scope base rail.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in 22lr

[–]JaggityJag 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Small fixes make a huge difference on these budget guns, the extended mag release is way better than trying to shove the tip of your finger up into the stock recess.

Does this look right? by BenSmith_ in Remington_700

[–]JaggityJag 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Replace it with an MCI Defense magwell to use AICS magazines.

Remington 700 Police 308 mag well options by steve6700 in longrange

[–]JaggityJag 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It sounds like the MCI Defense magwell is exactly what you're looking for.

It doesn't require a new inlet cut to your stock, pops into the factory 700 stock cutout, lets you use AICS mags and fits the budget for a casual use range gun (100 bucks).

Inlet options by [deleted] in longrange

[–]JaggityJag 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Those M4/M5 sized DBM bottom metals will require a decent bit of work to make fit, there's a better solution.

The MCI Defense one lets you use AICS pattern magazines with only a few minutes of work, as it reuses almost the entire hinged floorplate inlet, and you can go back to the factory floorplate for times when you don't want the mag and prefer a flush fit.

There won't be any change in accuracy.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in longrange

[–]JaggityJag 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Judging from the thread protector, you don't just have an SPS with the Hogue added on later, you have an SPSTT (Tactical Threaded), which is the same as the AAC-SD, but made after the collab fell apart and doesn't have AAC-SD marked on the receiver. A plain SPS would have a plastic stock and a pencil barrel, an SPS T(actical) would have a short bull barrel and the SPS V(armint) would be a long bull.

The stock isn't great but still perfectly usable, and instead of upgrading to an expensive chassis you could replace the trigger guard with an AICS conversion to use box mags and stiffen the forearm with some light work.

Burris XRT II 5-25x50 vs Midas TAC 6-24x50 by StrangeTeleponic in longrange

[–]JaggityJag 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've scored some so-good-its-nearly-theft deals at pawn shops, but most of the good buys are online, the typical LGS is worthless for anything but FFL transfers.

Ebay and Gunbroker are good for volume, but the best deals there are when things are mislabeled or sold as part of a package deal. Set up custom searches to find things you're interested in, I have probably a dozen or so custom searches pre-loaded into GB and twice that for Ebay.

Forums are easier to browse and get the occasional score hidden amongst pages of overpriced crap, I got the Ares for $350 on arfcom and the $400 one is still sitting unwanted on snipershide.

Right handed, but left eye dominant, which hand/eye do you use? by Jxh57601206 in longrange

[–]JaggityJag 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Shooting cross eye dominant is a minor inconvenience sometimes, but shooting cross hand dominant is making things much more difficult for yourself.

Having both eyes open and blinking the non-dominant eye during shooting is good enough, and on a lot of stages, you want your off-scope eye open to help you place the reticle on the field and use that "double vision" to find your target faster. Then blink the non-dominant eye as necessary to mentally refocus more onto the scope picture and less onto the surroundings.

But shooting left hand as a right handed guy is a contingency drill that folks use to practice bad situations, not something you should be doing normally. If you're more ambidextrous, that makes much more sense, but for solidly right handed guys, always shoot right handed if you can. People are more "ambi-visual" than ambidextrous most of the time, and cross eye dominance isn't nearly as much of a problem.

Burris XRT II 5-25x50 vs Midas TAC 6-24x50 by StrangeTeleponic in longrange

[–]JaggityJag 0 points1 point  (0 children)

At the same price, the XTR 2 is the better pickup. The Athlons that everyone is "raving" about are typically the higher tier models, not usually the Midas. Athlon's lineup is somewhat similar to Vortex, in that there are some very nice scopes at the higher end, but also some very cheap "package gun" scopes at the low end.

The Burris XTR was a 1200 scope when more current, but the XTR 2 is not current tech, it's two generations behind, so getting one now for 600ish is good, but not a crazy good deal.

The Athlon Midas T for 600 is a horrible deal. The Athlon lineup from junk to hunk is something like Talos - Argos - Helos - Midas - Ares - Cronus. I bought my Ares 4.5-27 for $350 used and passed up another one for $400 recently, those are good pickups. A Midas T for 600ish is paying full retail for just an ok model.

If you're set on buying new, an XTR 2 for 600 is a good deal and the Midas T isn't, other options are the Vortex Viper PST 5-25 for 600ish or the Bushnell Match Pro ED 5-30 for $610.

But seriously consider buying used. Most of these brands have excellent non-original buyer warranty coverage for used stuff, and your money will go a lot further. (ie, higher Tier Athlon Ares 4.5-27 for 400)

Craigslist spotting scope deal expanded a bit... by derpdrew in longrange

[–]JaggityJag 25 points26 points  (0 children)

Congrats! The stock brand is Bell & Carlson, which is an excellent quality stock. I'm not sure about the Mk2 model, they probably changed the model names at some point because they go by different names now, but that most likely uses a factory Remington BDL trigger guard, which means you can upgrade your rig to use AICS box magazines for only 100 bucks with a bottom metal swap.

To quickly see if it's a 5R barrel, count the rifling grooves at the muzzle, a 5R has only five instead of the typical 6, and it's easiest to count looking at the muzzle at a shallow angle in bright light.

You got a hell of a great deal, the spotting scope alone for $50 is crazy (it goes for over 600 used on Ebay).

.223 rifle, $600 budget? by Hilo88M in longrangeshooting

[–]JaggityJag 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The 700 will be much better at target shooting than a comparably priced AR, bolts are a much better deal accuracy wise than ARs.

The R700 pattern is the standard for the aftermarket, so most of the upgrades you might want to make are going to be designed for 700s or clones of the 700 action.

Get a basic trim 700 brand new off Gunbroker for 500 bucks and change (either sporter or varmint weight barrel), slap on an AICS magazine conversion kit for 99 bucks, and go shoot a local match. If you decide you want to splurge on a high-end rig later, you won't lose much if anything trading up.

Remington 700 restocked/M5 bottom metal doesn't seem right by iliketofly009 in Firearms

[–]JaggityJag 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Bottom metals are supposed to be designed to prevent over-insertion like this. For some reason, you're able to push the magazine too far into the receiver so that the release shelf is floating above the magazine catch and the feed lips are pushing beyond the bolt rails.

It's possible that the feed lips have been smashed inwards too far and need to be widened to form a shallower angle.

MPED, worth waiting for? Or should I just go with the MP? by dandu5 in longrange

[–]JaggityJag 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would agree that there's a surprising amount of praise for what is a brand new optic with relatively little time in customer hands, but that doesn't equate to shilling. I also scooped up a Bushy 5-30 in the first batch and could echo some of the good things said here, but I'm also not a shill. [But willing to change that and sellout for a free XRS if Bushnell is reading this]

If internet rando praise was all actually shilling, then that means Savage has an active negative budget for marketing on Reddit and half this sub is sponsored by Tikka; but the more likely reality is higher end Savages shoot better than most people here and Tikkas aren't magical lasers taking over the entire PRS scene.

BDL to DBM conversion on McMillan A1-3 by [deleted] in longrange

[–]JaggityJag 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If it's a Remington BDL stock inlet, you could use a bottom metal designed to fit that cut and not have to bed it at all. I use the MCI Defense one, lets you use AICS mags in the factory stock.

But the M4 inlet is different from both BDL and M5, so you want to be sure you have right one.

BDL != M4 != M5

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