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A couple of the items that I "discovered" at the SHOT Show in New Orleans in January, 2001 have to do with riflescopes. The Spot Sight is a laser device intended to help with checking the zero on your scopes, and it works equally well for boresighting scopes. Warne's Maxima series quick detachable scope mounts are all-steel, compatible with Weaver mounts, well-designed, and competitively priced.
The Spot Sight
While ambling down one of the SHOT Show's many aisles, I noticed a fellow sitting in front of a booth, holding a rifle with a thingamajig hanging out the end. The sign on the booth said Spot Sight. I stopped to ask him what he had and how it worked. After a short demo, I thanked him, picked up some printed info about it, and moved on. Within a couple of days of cogitating about all the great products I'd seen at the Show, I really started seeing some great advantages to this product, and promptly contacted the company about getting ahold of one of them for testing.
According to the company (Triune Marketing, L.L.C.), the Spot Sight was developed primarily as a device to check a scope's zero, conceived when its inventor's son was the victim of a nasty practical "joke" during a competitive shooting match. It has become much more than a simple scope-checker, though... it works very well as a boresighter, too.
The Spot Sight is quite easy to use. To boresight a scope (on a rifle that hasn't been sighted in, of course) first make absolutely certain that the rifle is not loaded (I like to keep the action open and I even remove the bolt on bolt-action guns). Simply align the painted red dot with the number 5, which represents the center of the vertical scale, and slip it into your bore, with the red dot aligned with the top center of the rifle's barrel.
Hold the rifle to your shoulder in the shooting position, and point the rifle at a wall, tree, or any other fixed object (never a person, of course! Laser radiation can cause eye damage) approximately twenty feet away. Looking through the scope, you should see the red laser dot on the object you're aiming at. Now all you do is adjust your scope's crosshairs so the red laser dot appears at the aiming point -- in most scopes, the intersection of the horizontal and vertical crosshairs. While manually boresighting a bolt-action rifle is feasible, this is a much easier and more precise method.
Your
scope is now boresighted. Using this method, I boresighted two different scopes
on one of my rifles to within four to six inches at 100 yards -- which is really
excellent boresighting. Most of the time, boresighting is so inaccurate that
initial sight-in should start as close as 25 yards to make sure you're hitting
paper. I also used it to successfully boresight a couple of friends' rifles,
as well. Your experience may vary somewhat, depending on the height of your
scope above the rifle's bore, but with standard rings you should have no problem,
and even high rings shouldn't present much trouble, if any.
After that long, bumpy ride to the hunt camp with your rifle case bouncing about, you might have some doubts about your scope's zero. Checking that is as easy to do as boresighting, though it involves a little more fine-tuning of the Spot Sight.
With your scope sighted in, the rifle unloaded and the action open/bolt removed, set the Spot Sight to 5 as discussed earlier, slip it into the bore with the red dot aligned with the top of the barrel, and take a look through the scope at an object about twenty feet away. Should the red laser dot appear to the right or left of the vertical crosshair, remove the Spot Sight, twist it to the right or left (changing the setting at the painted red dot), and try again. Once the laser dot is aligned with the vertical crosshair, you can then determine the distance for checking your scope's zero.
If the red laser dot is above the horizontal crosshair, walk slowly towards the object, looking through the scope. Similarly, if the dot is below the horizontal crosshair, walk slowly away from the object. When the dot aligns with your aiming point, stop. Determine the distance from you to the object you were shining the laser on, and record it.
Record the dial setting (the red painted dot in relation to the numbered scale), and you're done. Anytime you wish, you can check zero by resetting the red dot to the proper number (about 4 3/4 for my .222), inserting the Spot Sight into your muzzle, standing the proper distance from a reference object (eighteen feet, in my case), and taking a look through the scope. If your scope's zero is good, the red laser dot will appear at your aiming point, just as it did when you set it as outlined above.
Another handy feature of the Spot Sight is that it allows you to determine if your scope and barrel are truly parallel. Instructions on how to do this are included, and are easy to follow.
I found that the Spot Sight performed as advertised, quite satisfactorily. I did have a little trouble keeping it turned on, since the model I have depends on the copper arbor and a magnetic insert to provide continuity and act as a switch. I had some trouble keeping the laser shining bright in a couple of rifles. I've been told that this problem has been solved, and that the company has taken my comments to heart and provided a separate switch to turn the laser on or off, which will eliminate that problem.
The copper (or perhaps bronze?) spring-loaded arbor is a boon in and of itself, in that it will not harm your rifle's bore, and will fit most any rifle, from .22 caliber on up. It will work in up to 12-gauge barrels, but it's a pretty loose fit in my scattergun, and isn't quite as easy to use in such a big bore. Care must be taken not to bend the arbor, as this is a precision instrument and the soft metal of the arbor (used because it won't harm your gun's bore) is easily malleable by its nature. Also, a bent arbor partially voids your warranty, according to the paperwork I received with my unit. A sturdy plastic tube is included, which acts as a case and protects the Spot Sight when it's not in use.
The only problem I had with the Spot Sight was in attempting to use it on a rifle in .338 Winchester Magnum, fitted with an aftermarket muzzle brake. The larger inside diameter (ID) of the brake caused the Spot Sight to sag a bit, rather than maintaining true alignment with the bore. This could be cured by the use of a shim or spacer of some kind, to make up the half-difference between the groove diameter of the barrel and the ID of the brake.
The Spot Sight is quite well-made and takes one CR123A three-volt battery. It includes a simple, handy, little bore cleaning tool, also, which consists of a weight on a string, with a cloth patch at the end. Just drop the weight through your bore, grab it, and pull the patch through.
I used the Spot Sight in conjunction with a set of Warne Maxima quick-detachable scope mounts, and I am quite pleased with both products. The Spot Sight provides excellent boresighting, as well as a quick, easy, and accurate way to check your zero upon switching or replacing scopes.
Folks interested in learning more about Spot Sight, or purchasing one, can do so using the following contact information:
Bill Darwin
424 King Street
Selma, AL 36701
888-651-3201
Next page - Warne Maxima Scope Mounts
-Russ Chastain
