Scope or Powder?

I had trouble with the Triumph a few weeks back. During a range session with my son, he could not get a group with the rifle. I thought maybe it was his shooting technique so I mentioned a few items that helped him in the past.

A week later, I decided to take his gun to the range to double check it's POI. I could not get a group with the rifle either using a known accurate load. I left thinking that his scope might have bit the dust. Another week later, I removed the scope and shot with the rifles iron sights. I am not the greatest open sights shooter but I determined it was not the rifle. I took the scope off the backup rifle and put it on the Triumph. My initial sight-in went ok, better than with the old scope but I had some flyers (not severe but off the mark some). My BH209 container was getting low (at least a yr if not 2 yrs old and I did empty a low container into that one) so I thought maybe I would try the new container I brought along. Good group and no more flyers. Huh.....didn't expect that. I looked into the bottom of the old container with a flashlight, there was powder dust in there, not a lot but some.

Did the dust cause me some headaches? Similar to what T7 loose powder can do? Will older BH209 powder shoot different?
I am not sure but I know I will not be emptying anymore low containers into new ones just in case the fine powder residue does affect shooting.


Today, I put the Triumph scope on the backup rifle and went to the range. The scope took 30+ clicks down and 30+ clicks left to get the zero I wanted (which made sense because the scope that went on the Triumph needed a lot of up and right clicks). The scope worked just fine, the fine tune adjustments I made seemed close to what they should have been at 100 yds.

Can a scope not like being set at a certain adjustment? If a scope can't hold it's zero at one setting, can it hold zero at a different setting after large adjustments?
I don't know enough about the internal workings of a scope to make a conclusion.


I do know that the rings and bases on the Triumph were not loose and I use blue loctite. I also know that the scope was not moving in the rings. I use small dabs of whiteout in strategic places to check for that.

BDH

I admire your preventive/troubleshooting techniques, especially the whiteout witness marks. I'm by no means an expert but as far as I understand the turret mechanism in many scopes the vertical and horizontal bars are often tightly strung wires that are pushed or pulled by the gears in the turret knobs when we make adjustments. It sounds like your Triumph might have had a mount alignment issue if you were 30 or so clicks off in both axes, as evidenced by how much you moved it in the opposite directions on the backup gun. I don't know what the max travel range is on your scope but I imagine near the limits, accuracy repeatability might begin to suffer. I had a scope that you could feel the tension building as you neared the travel limits. It wasn't nearly as repeatable out there as it was closer to the centers.

As for the powder, I think you hit the nail on the head. I finally got around to shooting this past weekend (first time this year :shock: ) and I was at the end of a jar of T7-same effect. Loaded with fresh powder and all was well again.

Be blessed

Its not the scope, its the mounts that are off a bit. Ive had 2 sets now that were like that. So Im slowly switching a lot of rifles to DNZ mounts. I had 2 sets of two piece mounts that were different heights Ran out of adjustment before it was zeroed, one was a factory mounted set. If not that, If you do a lot of shooting, it could be the breechplug needs replaced.