Making This Dog Hunt: taming a see-thru mount on my 336

[NashvilleMike]

Well, I bought my first Marlin. It's a 30AW (a budget 336) in 30-30. It came with a beautiful Redfield 3x9 scope but it had.... ....Kwik Site see through scope mounts. Being a cheapskate at heart, I figured I'd try to sight it in from 25 to 100 yards, about maximum distance for a lot of our local deer woods.

Here's the 30AW:


Here's the first target. It was barely on the paper at 25 yards. The first two shots were at the bottom of the margin. Then I took a shot with the iron sights to see how well they were on. That was the shot to the right in the 2 ring. That looked pretty good, so I set the hairs to where the iron sights seemed to be. The next shot was on top in the four ring. Then it got cranked down to the three ring, and finally I cranked it down to the two ring and took three shots:


I figured it might get squirrelly out to 100 yards with the scope up in the crow's nest, so wanted to drop it a bit. Again at 25 yards, I took one more, then cranked it down and took another two:


Then I moved it out to 50 yards and started on the windage. I took three shots, cranked it, then two more:


The last target was at 100 yards. This would be the furthest I was going to bother with. The first shot was my fault, it hit high in the 4 ring. The next two hit in the 1 ring, about 3/4 inches center to center. Then I shot one down on the left in the two ring which I will blame on the barrel getting warm (yeah, right LOL, I probably pulled it down). That used up my LeverEvolution 160 grains. So, I took three more shots with my handloads (Hdy 170 gr fp's over some 3031) that my son's Winchester 94 is sighted in with. I shot them offhand. To my surprise, one landed on the two ring to the right, another clipped the "O" in the target's "Champion" logo and the third? Well, we'll never know where that one ended up:


Next week, I'm back to the range to shoot 30 rounds, ten rounds each at 50, 75 and 100, half offhand, half on my walking stick rest. My son and I are going to hunt in December, that will be at least ten range sessions. If the scope works out ok, I might not change to lower ring mounts until next year. I think the cheek rest helps. It got me a better cheek weld. Weld, heck, I could have fallen asleep on it.

It's a lot of work being a cheapskate.

[Jake]

Thats "breath taking" !

[JBledsoe]

.

In my opinion, See Thru sights never work well. They are a compromise no matter how I look at them. If I set my head/stock position to use the iron sights then I'm too low to use the scope correctly. If I build up the stock comb as you did, then I'm too high to use the iron sights. So I mount my scope as low as the scope permits and forget the iron sights. The scope is faster because I don't need to think which sight system I am using. Some people like the See-Thru, You may like it too.

Good Luck!

[Halwg]

Me thinks that you would save money getting a proper base and set of rings, and sighting in the rifle at 50 yards for a 150 yard zero. Sometimes being a "cheapskate" is the more costly option.

[lever addict]

Honestly the see thru mounts aren't too much worse than say a 3-9x40 mounted on a leupold base. Some see thrus are are higher than others though, but even with a low mount scope you are starting to loose your cheek weld. The only true cheek weld is with iron sights. It's a matter of preference just see what works for you. Me I like to mount them as low as it will go!

[Goat]

I hope that you have better luck with those see-thru mounts than I did. Years ago when I got my first scope everyone said put it in see-thru mounts because you can't get a moving deer in the scope or sometimes they're too close for a scope. Others said that you would always have the iron sights to fall back on when the scope failed. What I found was that I NEVER used the iron sights and a deer was never too close and I could get a moving deer in the scope easier than I could line up sights on a moving animal. Lastly, I had a lot of trouble keeping the rifle sighted in with those mounts and they were what appeared to be very rugged Redfields. The scope is a Leupold Vari X-III 2.5-8x that has given very good service every since I got rid of those awful see-thru mounts. I now refuse to use them on anything. Your experience may be different. Good luck!
Goat

[NashvilleMike]

Thanks for the ideas, gentlemen. Jake, I don't think I was breathing on the shots, just my normal jerking and flinching lever addict, that was one of the reasons why I thought I'd just give it a try. The scope won't go down much more than a half inch, and that would mean taking off the rear sight. If the see throughs don't do it for me this season, it's either another scope or just going back to iron sights. So far, though it's not costing any more to try. The cheek rest is an old one from my son's 94 that has a high offset scope mount. He's got a newer one with bullet loops. I'm not lobbying for these darn things unless they float my boat, which odds are against. The only pluses so far are that I have them, they're already on the rifle, and it's fairly sighted in. I'm not even that interested in acquiring the iron sights, other than the third shot (which I took to "sight" sight it rather than pull off the lever and try to bore sight it at the range), I never even used the iron sights. So unless I warm up to them they'll probably go next spring once I get a few more extra bucks. In the mean time, I'd like to get a few more extra bucks.

[Tommy Kelly]

I have never cared for the see thru mounts. In my opinion having the scope mounted so high messes with the trajectory of the bullets more. I have bought 10 marlins in the past few months and 4 of them had see thru mounts on them when I bought them. That was my first thing to do with them was to get the see thru's off and get the scopes mounted as close to the bbl level as possible. I put 3x9x40 scopes on all of them that had scopes and have 3 with peep sights. They are impressive to me. I never was good with open sights but the peep sights shoot right up there with the scoped guns.

[Augustus McRae]

This is only my personal opinion, but I HATE see through mounts. I realize you decided to try them out since you already had them, but they just make me cringe. I have my levers set up with either Williams peeps or 2 X 7 variables mounted as low as I can get them. Good luck with your venture.

Regards, Augustus

[Jake]

Sorry for the lack of communication, You'll find the definition of "breath taking" on a Seinfeld episode