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'Tight' zoom ring on a scope


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A friend of mine has a Hawke Vantage 4-16 x 50 scope, and when using the zoom collar, all is well between 4-10 power, but from 10-16 it starts to get tight, making it harder to operate using fingers only. He got in touch with Hawke aftersales, and they asked him if, before zeroing the scope, had he made sure that the reticule was optically dead centre, as if not, it cause this problem. To be honest, neither of us have heard of this before, but like me, he always does this with all his scopes. The scope has now been sent back to Hawke under warranty (2 years old) for them to look at it.

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2 hours ago, steve_b_wales said:

A friend of mine has a Hawke Vantage 4-16 x 50 scope, and when using the zoom collar, all is well between 4-10 power, but from 10-16 it starts to get tight, making it harder to operate using fingers only. He got in touch with Hawke aftersales, and they asked him if, before zeroing the scope, had he made sure that the reticule was optically dead centre, as if not, it cause this problem. To be honest, neither of us have heard of this before, but like me, he always does this with all his scopes. The scope has now been sent back to Hawke under warranty (2 years old) for them to look at it.

It is optimal to get the scope aligned with the reticle centred ,minimising the amount of fine adjustment needed for zero. Rifle dovetails are not always machined true!!!! 

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13 minutes ago, matone said:

It is optimal to get the scope aligned with the reticle centred ,minimising the amount of fine adjustment needed for zero. Rifle dovetails are not always machined true!!!! 

How does that affect the zoom ring tension??

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Just now, Weihrauch17 said:

How does that affect the zoom ring tension??

If the inner workings are pushed towards their lateral limit l or r ,it can make them harder to move. The other possible causes would be a crushed tube due to over tightening of mount rings or bending caused by poor machining of dovetails....

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11 hours ago, matone said:

It is optimal to get the scope aligned with the reticle centred ,minimising the amount of fine adjustment needed for zero. Rifle dovetails are not always machined true!!!! 

True. All my scopes, at least, are centred before they are zeroed. 

Personally, I don't believe what was said about this affecting the zoom control.

Edited by steve_b_wales
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I had a scope that when you zoomed the reticle would tilt over as bit so not perfectly  plumb any more .it tilted  left and right when going up and down the zoom .there was a lose screw .if I tightened it too much the zoom became stiff  .

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