If you own a rifle and have hunting as a passion and hobby, then only you know the true significance of having a riflescope. Gun store owners have this well-known habit of judging a novice hunter by his selection of a riflescope. You just need to know how do riflescope adjustment.
Doesn’t matter how expensive or up to date your rifle is, the minute you grab for a cheap riflescope or don’t pay attention to it at all, the owners have a quiet laugh and mark you as a rookie.
You need to know about riflescope adjustment, you can make with it if you want to put your rifle to good use. To help you out, here’s our guide on rifles cope adjustment for dummies.
What Is a Riflescope and What Does It Do?
A riflescope is called a “weapon sight” by the shooters. You attach it on top of the rifle and use it to aim at your target—the better the riflescope, the better the aim and the bigger its range. In the engineering language, it is a miniature telescope that will assist you to shoot your target with more precision.
There are many varieties of riflescopes that are available in the market right now. There is no easy guide for you to follow in choosing the best one among them all. This is because, first of all, no two guns or rifles are the same. It depends entirely on your purpose.
If you are the one who loves to do target practicing in a gun range, then there is one kind of the scope for that purpose only. Or if you like to go deer hunting, then you need a completely different one.
Not only this, but the choice of the best short-range scope riflescope for you will depend on your budget, lighting conditions, target size, weight limitations, distance range, weather conditions, etc.
Rifle scope Adjustments
If you want to use a riflescope, then you must know about the riflescope adjustment; or otherwise, it will not be fruitful for you. These riflescope adjustments are what that helps you to move your riflescope left, right, up, and down for more accuracy. It is done by a set of dials called the turrets that are situated on the scope.
By adjusting these turrets, you can set the sight for your target in the way that matches your comfort zone and get ready to do some shoot. So below are the three different rifles scope adjustments for dummies who are still new to this game.
Windage
More commonly known as MOA, which is the abbreviation for Minutes of Angles. This adjustment is usually made by turning the turret that is on the top of the scope. This adjustment determines the horizontal direction of the bullet.
You can control how left or right the bullet travels within the wind, and you can do so by turning the knob more towards the left or right. The unit of measure of windage is inches. As you turn the turret, you will hear some clicks.
Each of that clicks represents on MOA, which means that the bullet direction has changed 1.047 inches or 100 yards to the left or right. There is another unit of measurement for windage, and that is MRAD, but this is rarely used and measures that same as MOA. Here you can check the best scope for 100 yards.
Elevation
There is a turret that modifies the height of the scope on top of the rifle, and that is called an elevation adjustment. This dial works in similar ways, like the windage dial. However, it dictates the angle of the bullet in the vertical direction.
The dial even looks like the windage turret in some models, and the mechanism is the same. The more you turn in your desired direction, the more craved path the bullet will take. Usually, the turret to control elevation is placed on top of the scope and has markings of “U” or “D” beside it, which indicates up or down.
Just like windage turret, you will hear clicks when you tune the turret, and each of the clicks means your scope moved ¼ or ½ or 1 inch up or down, depending on the type of scope you have. The measurements should be mentioned in the manual.
Parallax
This adjustment came about just a few years ago and is gaining huge popularity in a short time. Now shooters specifically ask for this function and are becoming a common function in almost every riflescope.
The main purpose of the parallax adjustment is to identify errors that may occur when the target image and the reticle are on different focal planes and correct them accordingly.
And this means that sometimes when the range is long, or the object is moving. The image of the target may not align with the same optical plane of the reticle of your scope. So it can mess up your aim. To eliminate that, this new feature has been introduced.
Sometimes people hardly notice the errors as the effect can be very minor. But having this adjustment feature ensures accuracy and precision at all times, so why miss out? There is no clear indication or appearance of the parallax turret, unlike the other adjustments.
So it is crucial you read and understand the manual to make the rifle scope adjustment up and down. You have to keep on trying until the target image is not moving. Which means that finally they are on the same plane and you can make your aim and be sure not to miss it.
Conclusion
Now you know why having a riflescope and, more importantly, know about its adjustment and how to use it properly in different situations takes your hunting game to the next level.
Play around with the adjustments if you are a beginner. It can give you that hand to hand feel, and you finally understand the angles and the dials. If you are done with that, there is only one thing left to do now. Take that riflescope out to the wild and start hunting!