Dave Barham finds a scope that matches the potential of his rifle

Is it normal to shoot your way through tins of pellets, just so that you can attach the hose and fill the rifle up again? I know that might sound a bit weird, but that’s exactly what I found myself doing immediately after upgrading to a 7-litre cylinder filling solution last month. I think the novelty of being able to fill my rifle in a matter of seconds, rather than a few minutes, had a strange effect on my psyche! I was getting as much satisfaction from filling the rifle as I was from shooting it.

I spent countless hours in my garden, destroying paper targets on a makeshift range, but all that shooting soon exposed a problem I hadn’t previously considered.

Time for an upgrade

At the time of my mass paper-killing spree I had a BSA EMD 3-9 x 40WR scope fitted to the rail, which is the standard magnification scope I have been using for nearly 30 years. However, it soon dawned on me after walking up and down the garden some 100 or more times, that due to the increased accuracy of my new PCP rifle, I really needed a tad more magnification – so I could actually see what was going on 30 yards away.

Don’t get me wrong, it was great exercise, but did I really need to walk down to the targets after every four or five shots to see exactly where my pellets were going?

It’s easy to see where the first half a dozen shots go on a new target, but once you start putting 10, 20 or 30 shots into the same area, it becomes nigh on impossible with a standard magnification scope.

The thought of buying a ‘spotting scope’

did cross my mind, for a nanosecond, but I thought, ‘what’s the point, I might as well just upgrade to a higher magnification scope instead’.

A little bit of research

Having decided it was time I entered the world of ‘big zoom’, I popped on-line to see what scopes other shooters were using. What a minefield it is out there in Internet land! So many opinions, and so many scopes to choose from.

My budget was limited, very limited, what with Christmas bearing down upon me at a rate of knots, so I thought I’d quickly research what folk were saying about BSA scopes.

I was rather pleased to note that a lot of shooters, and shooting websites, were praising the optics from BSA, with many comments about the mil dots being crystal clear and close together, so I took a look at what they had to offer.

After very little research (it was a matter of seconds) I saw the BSA EMD624x50AO scope advertised for less than £90 – sold!

Should have done more research!

Just 24-hours later, I had a shiny new waterproof, fogproof, lightweight 6-24x50 scope sitting on my dining room table. I quickly took the existing scope off my BSA R10 in order to get my new baby fitted, but then my heart sank. The objective lens diameter on my original scope was 40mm, this new one is 50mm. What a plonker! I needed to order new ‘high’ mounts in order for the scope to be fitted, but another 24 hours, and my bank balance £10 lighter, I received the new two-piece BSA high mounts and could get to work.

I thought it might be interesting for some of you to see how I attached the new mounts and scope, so I got the studio lights out and shot it step by step.

Needless to say, I’m more than impressed with what I actually got for my money – a superb scope and mounts for less than £100! Now I’m ready to get back out into the field. Scoping up rabbits and pigeons with this new piece of kit is going to be a doddle.

As you will see, I also had trouble with the scope caps, which was soon rectified with a Stanley knife!