We were delighted to read this message from James in South Africa.
Hi guys. In November of last year I purchased a 4-16x50 Viper from you. I do a lot of vermin control hunting both during the day and at night. My main problem animals are wart-hog jackal and caracal. I use a 308win for this task. But due to the different animals I encounter I need to use several different bullet weights with different trajectories. (I will come back to this later).
When I replaced my old scope with the new Viper I took it to the range for a test run. I already had a consistent group of 12mm with the previous scope, so I didn’t expect it to improve but I knew it should at least stay the same. The group was slightly better and I put this down to the fact that the clarity on the Viper was simply better. I put the scope/rifle combo through its paces and was truly satisfied.
I took it on its first hunting trip the next day. Before I could get the opportunity to get a shot on an animal with the new scope, we had one of the most violent encounters I ever had with a concealed aard-vark borough. This can only be described as a collision. The driver had injuries to his neck and one of the other hunters had his rifle flung from his hunting rest, we found his rifle about 5m from the hunting bakkie. As for my 308 and Viper, they got a real thump from the cattle rails and the scope took the point of impact. So much so that there is now a permanent dent on the left/windage turret. Furthermore the scope turned in the scope rings. It was the first time I saw a scope turn inside the rings and that goes to show the force of the impact. My first thought was that my new scope is gone before I got to hunt with it. There is only so much that one can expect when it comes to durability and this event was in my opinion beyond the limits.
After I adjusted the scope to its correct position in the scope rings, I took it back to the shooting range. After a few shots I was very pleased to see that the impact on the scope had had no effect on the grouping. The scope was shooting true and I was very relieved and impressed. Take note I couldn’t use the mounts you gave me because it is not the type that my rifle use.
