You have found the most perfect way to load the most beautiful, flat-flying rifle rounds ever. You are proud to pull out your ammo boxes with hand-made labels depicting the bullet weight, powder and date made. Your statistics are great with this ammunition and someone at the range tells you that you should graduate from using a 1×4 optic to a 1×6. You order it, you place the mount on your rifle and mount the scope on the coffee table in your living room while watching “John Wick.” To be sure the optic is on tight, you stand on your tippy toes and turn the screws on the rings one…. more …time, while nearly breaking your front teeth.

The next day dawns, and you feel like a 12 year old, running to the range to zero your new optic, and you pull out your box of beautiful bullets, and you shoot and you’re zeroed dead-on at 200 yards, or you think you did because you were making the steel plate go “ping” every time you fired the trigger.

This works for a while and one day, you’re at a match shooting paper: you throw the bullet low at short range. At 200 yards, you are shocked to hear the RO tell you that your rounds were all over the place. You go with your best pal who confirms your fears. The first rifle shot hit left of the target, then right, then the next went low, and then high. Your buddy frowns over the scope wondering if you learned to shoot out of a Cracker Jack box. She confirms that this wide, blooming group happened without your ever having made any apparent adjustment or mistake in aim, or trigger control.

Suddenly, you begin to doubt your beautiful bullets. But those bullets could be made from the most pristine, once-fired, presorted brass – forsaking the stuff scrounged from the bays after a match – and still, something is not right.

But remember what your buddy asked you, as the two of you walked somberly downrange to pull your ugly targets from the boards so she could shoot six dead center shots 15 minutes later that made you sick with envy? She asked you, “Did you follow the directions on how to mount your optic?” Suddenly, your range sister is now in the group with all of the other women who have nagged or shamed you in your life, and the vision of yourself, mounting both your scope mount and scope with a phillips head screwdriver, your face bathed in the blue light from the “gun-fu” movie, flashes in your mind. But you fib.

“Yes I followed those instructions.” You remain inconsolable because your shooting buddy couldn’t possibly know what she was talking about. You have been mounted your own scopes all of your adult life. Something must be wrong with your ammunition, so you gauge it and check it and still, no answers.

The truth is, there is much more to mounting a scope than most shooters realize. First, save your beautiful ammunition by never fibbing to your shooting sister. And please: do not mount your scope on the coffee table while watching gun shows on television. Follow instructions. The manufacturers know their products. A slight cant that is barely discernable can make your bullet off by several inches at 300 yards.

Second rule: don’t be cheap. Buy once, cry once also applies to the mounts and rings for your scope. Set the eye relief in accordance with the manufacturer’s recommendation. Level your scope with scope levels. The cross hairs need to be level to the horizon. Getting this right takes more than guess work you relied on because you were too impatient to read the directions. Your eyeballs, staring across the top of optic in the blue light of the boob tube is not going to ensure a good level. Even if your scope looks canted, your level, not the naked eyeball, is the last truth teller. Right-handed shooters might think the scope is leaning left, and left-handed shooters will think they see a slant to the right.

Use a torque wrench because it, not you, can tell you when the ring screws are tight enough. You are worried too much about the scope flying off the gun and hitting you in the head to be technically proficient on torque pressure by feel. Over tightening can damage your scope and is a common cause of rounds that won’t group on targets. If you crimp your tube by standing on your tippy toes to get maximum tightness, you have just ruined your optic.

BEFORE YOU LOCK UP THE THREADS WITH THREAD LOCKER, READ THE MANUFACTURER’S SPECIFICATIONS.

Do you enjoy reloading? Are you tired of overpriced low quality brass? Visit Capital Cartridge and be amazed at our offers, and then remount your scope, and go tell your shooting sister what you have done.