The Laughing Wolf

Docter Scopes

If you scroll down, you can still see the picture of the FN/Fictitious Fat Man Day gun below. Take a good look at the scope, as it is not what was on it when I bought it.

Now the rifle came with a fair scope, what was billed as an illuminated sniper scope. It was a fair scope, but not great and especially not great at 200 or more yards. I knew that portions of the problems with grouping were me, the shooter, but I also knew that part of them were the scope. How to figure out which was which?

Easy. Get a new scope. Now, I could not come close to affording the scope I really wanted, but in talking with my local gun pusher as a part of research, I was introduced to a new option: Docter scopes.

Docter is the former Zeiss-Jena of the former East Germany. The name says it all, and they do have the tradition, the experience, and the experience of doing well on the cheap. That seems to have been a requirement under any communist regime, but they have taken that limitation and run with it to produce some truly excellent scopes at very reasonable prices.

Now, I researched things on the net, talked to people, and then did the best test possible: I went and compared several scopes side-by-side in front of the gun pusher’s. While doing such won’t tell you diddly about accuracy, it will let you do a good evaluation of the optics. Odds are, that if the optics are good, the accuracy will be as well.

Hands-down, the Docter was the best scope. It even beat the Leopuld scopes in clarity, resolution, and brightness. Throw in that the Docter comes with a lot of extra features to “customize” it for the shooter, and it was almost a no-brainer. All of this, plus some testimonials from a variety of shooters, including members of law enforcement, and I took the plunge.

I had originally planned to do this in two parts, and go into all the trials and tribulations of getting it mounted and sighted, but will spare you. What I will do is say that I was using Black Hills 168 grain boat-tailed hollow point bullets, and worked my way up to 200 yards.

This picture is of my final five round group, put into a 5.5-inch Birchwood Casey Shoot N C target that was affixed to the head of a standard B-27 target. It was shot bench rest at 200 yards, and according to measurements made at the weapons pusher, it was less than a one inch grouping. Enough said, or shown in this case.

The shooter still has a long way to go, but the scope and the rifle are right on track. Send to the ammunition and gun fund on the right so I can get better.

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Posted by wolf1 at May 28, 2003 02:01 PM