NcStar® Laser Boresighter & My FNAR

A couple of years ago, I purchased a laser boresighter for my 243 rifle.  It was manufactured by NcStar and I got it from Sportsman's Guide.  Initially, I was very hesitant whether this little device would actually work.  Immediately after I got it, I put it in my rifle.  Sure enough, the point of aim of my scope was near (not exact) to where the laser dot projected at various yardages.  Then I put it in my son's rifle (keep in mind that he was 12 then and who knows what happens after I dropped him off at a deer stand).  It was significantly off.  That's when I decided we should go to the range.  Sure enough, his rifle was way off.  It just so happens that when I checked his rifle, it was after he took his second deer below.  He shot this 214 pound 8-point whitetail out of a box stand we built together at 175 yards.  I told him later, "Son, you don't know how lucky you were".

Why the story?  I think there is a lot of value in devices like this.  Clearly, you would not sight in your rifle using just one of these.  But if you drop, knock, or whatever your rifle, it would give you a little peace of mind knowing that it is not significantly off.  After we sighted in my son's rifle, both the laser and scope were fairly close. 

Since 243, 308 and 7mm-08  calibers are all covered by the same size boresighter, I decided I would use this to help me boresight my new FNAR rifle with the Zeiss Conquest 4.5-14x50mm scope.

I'm not sure about other boresighters since this is the only one I have owned, but one thing I did not like about this one is that after you put in the batteries, it is on until you take them out.  Really this is not a big deal while doing a quick check around the house, but it is not something you want to do over a bunch of leaves or grass while out in the field in case you drop one of the three batteries while trying to get them in place and in the right direction.

After putting the boresighter in my rifle, I set the scope crosshairs to be on the laser dot at about 36 yards.  36 yards is approximately where my first zero point shoudl be and this should get me on the paper (and hopefully very close).  It also happens to be the distance from my side door to my brick mail box.  I put the rifle on my roll around trash can, shimmed up the pistol grip with some Tupperware (had to run in twice to find the right height), and was able to take this shot with my camera while looking through the scope.  The photo is a little grainy because I had to crank up my ISO settings on the camera. 

 Afterwards, I set my target turrets to their zero positions.

I finally made it to the range.  The photo below shows how close the boresighter got me to being on zero.  The two holes on the card board to the left are my first two shots at 50 yards.  Cut me some slack on how far appart they were from each other.  It was a very windy day and my target was jumping around big time.  It didn't look too bad on elevation, but the windage was between 6" to 7" left.  I was a little surprised it was not closer.

Now it was time to examine the boresighter a little closer.  I took the bolt out of my Remington Model 788 243 rifle so I could rotate the boresighter easliy and then marked a 12 o'clock position on the boresighter with a pen.  I placed the rifle on a bipod and let the laser dot project on the wall 27' away.  I then taped a sheet of paper on the wall and marked the center of the dot.  Next I rotated the laser to 3, 6, 9 and 12 o'clock positions two more times and marked the center of the laser dot each time.  This ended up showing a maximum circular-ish scatter of dots of 0.72".  Also I noticed that the laser dot itself was not keeping a nice round shape.  Clearly, the 0.72" difference in 27' can be as much as 4" off at 50 yards.  Also, when you consider that the laser beam was hitting the edge of the barrel in some positions and causing the non-round dot, there must be an alignment issue with the boresighter.  The next photo shows my crude data.

I also tried to show the difference at the end of the barrel with this photo below.  I placed a sheet of paper over the barrel and you can see the outline of the barrel and the laser dot.  Clearly, the dot is not in the center.

Now that I know this, what am I going to do about it?  I'm going to have to think on this.

Scope Height - FNAR + Zeiss Conquest + Burris XTR Rings

So far, I have the Zeiss Conquest 4.5-14x50mm Scope mounted on the FNAR Rifle using medium height Burris XTR Xtreme Tactical Rings.  Now I need to determine what the centerline scope height is above the barrel centerline.  I will use the scope height in ballistics programs to calculate bullet trajectory and compare different ammo.

Since the scope comes with a 1" tube, then half the distance to the center of the tube is 1/2".  As a check, I did measure the tube diameter and it was on average about 1.003".  For what we are doing, 1/2" will be fine.

The next portion is the ring height.  Burris states them as 1/2" height rings and this is measured from the bottom of the arc for where the scope rests to the top portion of the rail attachment area.  After measuring the scope installed on the rail, the gap between the bottom of the scope tube to the top of the rail comes out to be 0.501".  Again, for what we are doing, 1/2" will be fine.

The last portion is the distance from the center of the barrel to the top of the rail.  This was a little more tricky and has the most room for error.  I put the gun on the floor with an empty cartridge most of the way in the chamber for reference and placed a scale lined up with the top of the rail.  Then I put my longest lens I have on my camera and got a chair out of the kitchen.  By standing on the chair and taking the photo, I could get a close up photo and have the camera a good distance from the rifle to minimize angle errors due to the perspective of the camera.  With this photo below, I was easily able to determine where the edge of the brass started with relation to the scale (notice I marked the photo with a vertical white line).  You can see in the photo it was 23/32" (0.72").  Now all I needed to do is measure the diameter of the brass (0.470") and add half of that (0.235").  Therefore the total height for this portion is 0.955".  Since I already know that the ballistics calculator I will be using only allows for one decimal place when inputting scope height, I went through all this effort just to round it to and even 1.0".

Again, all of this effort just to come to the final answer of a 2.0" scope height measured from the center of my barrel to the center of the scope tube.

For those of you who may or may not be struggling with me rounding the scope height, I'm going to show what a ballistics calculator outputs for both a 1.9" and 2.0" scope height.  There are many online calculators.  The one I'm using for now happens to be found at the Hornady web site.  The trajectory past my 200 yard zero are: 300 yds delta of 0.1", 600 yds delta of 0.2", 800 yds delta of 0.3", 1000 yds delta of 0.4".

Bottom Line: A great deal of accuracy is not required when determining this height for most shooters.

Ballistics Data for a Sight Height of 1.9"

Ballistics Data for a Sight Height of 2.0"

If you click here, you will see all the reviews related to this rifle. Believe me, there is much more. Also don't forget you can click on a photo and it will give you a high definition image so you can see more details.

Zeiss Conquest 4.5-14x50 MC Target Scope Review & Burris XTR Xtreme Tactical Rings Review on a FNAR Rifle

Zeiss Conquest Review, Zeiss Scope Review, Burris XTR Review, Burris Xtreme Tactical Rings Review
After purchasing my FNAR 7.62x51 (.308) Standard Rifle (check out my review when you get a chance), my next task was to find a scope that would meet my needs.  Since my rifle setup will probably drop more deer, hogs, coyotes and beavers, I wanted something that is clear and bright.  Bright was really important because I see more deer in the last moments of the day than any other, and hunting in a county that has antler restrictions, I don't want to miss that monster buck because I couldn't ID his rack.   The land I hunt can have many shots between 200 and 300 yards on a regular basis.  Also, I plan to go out west hunting and decided that I wanted a little more optical range than my existing hunting rifle (3-10).  Last, because of the longer shots, I wanted some type of features to account for bullet drop and parallax adjustments.

There were four scopes that I was considering:

1. Burris 3X-12X-50mm XTR Xtreme Tactical
2. Leupold VX-3 4.5-14x50mm Long Range
3. Swarovski Z5 3.5-18x44
4. Zeiss Conquest 4.5-14x50 MC Target

If money were not an issue, I would have selected the Swarovski.  But since I'm not a rich man, I had to wake myself up from that dream.  The next to fall was the Burris.  Not because of any technical issues, but because of all the negative posts out there on their customer service.  In my mind, if I were to sink hundreds of dollars into a scope and it had some type of issue, I would want a great customer service department to make things right.  I personally have not had any dealings with them, but I just didn't want to chance it on the scope.
 

The two that remained were the Leupold and Zeiss and each time the wind changed direction, I would switch on which one to get.  In the end, I got the Zeiss from Opticplanet.com for $849.99.  It came down to me wanting the Target Turrets and not the CDS system from Leupold.  This review is not meant to be a showdown between scopes, but a review of my final selection, so here I go.

The photos below show what is in the box and the marking on the end of the box.  To be honest, I was a little surprised when I opened the box.  I'm notorious for purchasing cheap scopes and one of my favorites (NcStar) gets all fancy with a zippered bag.  Maybe I thought a Zeiss would have come in a felt bag like a bottle of Crown Royal.  Anyway, it doesn't matter because I wouldn't have used it.

In an attempt to not sound like a duffus, I'm going to tell you to beware when your order this scope.  I'm also going to make it all sound like Amazon.com's fault.  I ordered the scope from Amazon and got a great price.  When it arrived, it was not what I ordered.  The photo on Amazon showed the exact scope I wanted (target turrets), but the one that arrived had hunting turrets (basically just caps over the elevation and windage adjustments).  When I looked at the order details, sure enough, I ordered the hunting turrets according to the model number, but the photo fooled me.  Don't make the same bonehead mistake.  FYI, the one on Amazon was $100 cheaper.  In frustration, I went directly to Opticsplanet and ordered the correct one because I couldn't find it on Amazon and was getting impatient.

Since I already mounted the scope on my FNAR, it would be hard to show photos of the scope without also showing photos of the rings.  The rings I selected were the Burris XTR Xtreme Tactical Rings.  They come in four different heights.  These are extremely beefy rings and have the option to replace the cap with a picitany rail cap.  I decided to go with the picitany cap on the forward ring because I'm thinking of potentially mounting a red dot sight at that location.  I think that having a minimum 4.5x power scope limits my abilities for a quick shot at close ranges.

 

I was able to use the medium height rings for my setup.  I knew it was very close to not working out, but I was willing to take the risk because I wanted to keep the scope as close to the rifle as possible.  You can see in the photo below how close it was.  Considering eye relief on the scope, limited range of attachment for the forward ring on the scope, specific slots on the rail, and trying to clear the 50mm objective, there was a single sweet spot that allowed all this to work together.  In the end, I'm very pleased.

OK, back to the Zeiss Conquest review. The following in italics were taken directly from the Zeiss website.

•  Scope: Conquest 4.5-14x50 AO MC  
• Magnification: 4.5-14x 
• Effective Lens Diameter: 50 mm  
• Exit Pupil Diameter: 10.8-3.6 mm  
• Twilight Factor: 12.7/26.5  
• Field of View (ft/100 yards): 25.5-8.8 ft  
• Diopter Range: +2/-3 dpt  
• Eye Relief: 3.5 in  
• Parallax-Free (yds): 30 - ∞  
• Square Adjustment Range (in/100 yds): E68.0 W45.0  
• Adjustment per Click (in/100 yds): 1/4  
• Center Tube Diameter: 1 in  
• Eye Piece Tube Diameter: 41 mm  
• Objective Tube Diameter: 56 mm  
• Nitrogen Filled: yes  
• Reticle in Image Plane: 2  
• Length" 14.0 in  
• Weight" 19.75 oz 

My scope also comes with the Reticle 4 shown further below. Several other reticles are available, but at Opticplanet, they would have cost significantly more and I was really stretching my budget. My original choice would have been a duplex reticle, but this one is very similar.
 
I'm very please with the overall look of the scope on my FNAR.  You can also see I have added a Zeiss 50mm Sunshade along with a Butler Creek Flip-Open objective cover.
 

The power adjustment ring and the diopter adjustment have a firm smooth feel when you rotate them.

The parallax adjustment knob is adjustable from 30 yards to infinity (markings on the knob show 30, 50, 100, 200, 400, 800 and infinity).  In the photo below, it is set at 50 yards.  Under normal hunting situations, I will set this at approximately 100 yards, which is the normal value for fixed parallax scopes.  I'm sure if I'm doing some long range shooting, I will tweak as required.

The body of the scope has marks showing where you would readjust your turrets when going back to your zero.  After you sight in your rifle, you remove the turret caps and reset them to where the "0" mark on the cap lines up with the reference mark on the scope body.  Each mark on the turret cap represents a 1/4" MOA adjustment (1 click).  Therefore the numbers represent whole MOA adjustments.  One full turn of the knob represents 18 MOA.

The sunshade can be mounted by unscrewing the objective bell lip protector, screwing in the sunshade (very similar to how a camera lens works) and then screwing back on the lip protector.  As you can see, I added a Butler Creek Flip-Open Objective Cover.  The size of the cover is the 39 OBJ (2.220" or 56.4 mm) and if fit like a glove.  You can see that there is still a little more room for me to push it on further, bit since it was very tight at that point, I decided to not cover the markings on the sunshade.  If it works loose at the range, I will shove it down all the way.  I did not mount a cover on the eye piece because I wear bifocals and for some reason I tweak the diopter setting more than I should.

Each turret cap has an o-ring under the attachment screw.  This prevents moisture and dust from getting down inside the adjustment area.

O-rings also are located on the adjuster knob and the main body of the windage turret.  You can actually feel pressure build up under the windage cap when you replace the cap.  This is due to the tight seal and indicates that no moisture or dust will ever get inside this area.  The Zeiss Owner's Manual has this to say about the sealing of the turret area: "Proper sealing is also guaranteed when the screw caps of the windage and elevation adjustments have been removed.  However, always make sure the caps and sealing rings are firmly seated."

The turret caps engage the adjuster knob with the series of teeth.

This series of photos is intended to show the brightness and clarity of the scope at different powers.  I'm not sure if these will be the final photos for the post because I need to make sure my depth of field settings on my camera were not changing the way you would see it if you were looking directly through the scope with your eyes.  You can notice the short depth of field in the 14x photo.  Also, I had the parallax adjusted to 50 yards, which was the approximate distance to the tree.  This may also be contributing to the depth of field.  Further investigation shows the parallax adjustment does change the depth of field that objects are in focus.  In this case, the parallax was set to 50 yard (the tree was about 50 yards away), and other objects farther in the background were no longer in focus.

4.5x

8x

14x

FNAR Review - What's In The Box - The Rest

The remaining items for "what's in the box" are the lock, owner's manual and case. Well, the lock is the lock (no big deal). The owner's manual seems to be in sufficient detail to understand the features, the inserts and the shims for the gun. I have not disassembled the rifle yet, but the instructions seem to be good enough to do the task. I'm actually saving that task for a different post. You can download a copy of the owner's manual from the FNH sight at this link.  So now the gun case is the last item to talk about.

I know this is nit picking, but why wouldn't you provide the gun in a case that is big enough for the rifle with a scope installed and it not seem like it is all jammed inside. The photo below shows that it will fit, but that is not what I'm going to use for a $2400 system (rifle, mounts, & scope).  I'm sure I will use the case for many years, but instead of taking "the ultimate rifle" out of a case which says "FN Herstal" on the outside while at the gun range, I will take out some other lesser rifle. To me, that seems like a missed advertising opportunity for FNH.  Now, if you consider that my only real issue with what you get when you buy a FNAR is the case, I think that says alot about the rifle.  So far, my excitement is only building and I can not wait until I hit the range.

FYI: For those of you who will notice, the Zeiss Conquest 4.5-14 x 50mm Scope will be the feature of one of my next reviews.

You can see all of my posts on my FNAR rifle by going to my Summary Page.  Also, don't forget you can click on a photo and it will give you a high definition image so you can see more details.