BUSHNELL HDMR

[7mmfreak]

I posted my review of the Nightforce 5-25x56mm F1 BEAST in the smokeless section. Nobody complained but I realized I should have posted it here in the equipment section. I had to send the BEAST back since my T&E period with it was over. The next year will be a busy shooting year for me with the PRS series starting up in a couple of months and I am hoping my bullet making dies will show up any day now. I decided that while the BEAST was a great optic and Nightforce has two really good optics debuting this year (F1 ATACR models in 4-16x and 5-25x) I wanted to shoot something that is within most people's budgets. Instead of shooting on a T&E program I bought one of the Bushnell HDMR 3.5-21x50mm with H-59 reticle for my competition and bullet development work.

The Bushnell HDMR showed up at my house last week:




I spent several days trying to decide how to mount this scope. I wanted detachable mounts as I will shoot this as my sole optic this year between a number of guns. At first I considered the MagMount I used on the BEAST because it could be used on an AR platform or on any of my bolt guns. The issue with that mount is it sits 1.35" over the rail so it can interface with night optics (not important in my recreational time). That made it too tall to be comfortable with my sporter stocks. I decided it had to be mounted lower and with conventional rings because none of the mono-mounts would allow it to get low enough to work with the sporters. I took a set of feeler gauges and used them to gap the distance between the top of the base and the bottom of the scope tube (to which I added half the diameter of the tube) to determine the minimum ring height. The minimum height needed to ensure that the objective would clear my heaviest barrel (Krieger HV contour) and the magnification ring would clear the rear of the M-1913 rail ended up being .920". That left my only real choice as Vortex or Seekins. Seekins makes the Vortex Precision Matched Rings so really they are one and the same. I can't put Vortex Rings on a Bushnell scope so I went with Seekins. I also chose the 6/4 combo since this is a heavy scope with higher inertia than smaller, lighter optics. Hopefully these will help this sight stay put:




With the 6-screw ring up front I could not mount the scope far enough forward to obtain the proper eye-relief without the front ring partially hanging off the front of the base when using the Murphy Ti base. With the Badger (which has a little more real-estate) it worked fine:


With the rings reversed I could use them on either base and have 100% contact with the rail. In this configuration I torqued the cross-bolts to the prescribed 55 in-lbs and wiped down the bearing surfaces of the ring halves with denatured alcohol to ensure a non-slip surface with the scope tube:


I explained my normal mounting method when I wrote the thread on the Nightforce BEAST. I decided to try another method that is less subjective; I can ensure the gun is level but even using a plumb line I have to decide if the reticle is square. In the picture above I used the same feeler gauges I used to determine ring height to set the adjustment housing square with the base. I siliconed the ring cap-screws and tightened them snug with the feeler gauges in place until I was ready to apply final torque. I was able to pull them free with just slight resistance. I applied the prescribed 20 in-lbs and gave everything a final wipe down.

I can't say that this method is more or less square than the other method. I can say it removed my opinion of what was square in relation to the plum line. When I checked it by leveling the gun then checking against the water tower it looked straight to me. So, if you have to do any scope mounting without access to a plumb line then I think setting the adjustment housing square is a much more sure method than trying to use a level on the turrets.

All that is left is to test the optic to make sure that the adjustments track properly and that it will hold zero. I attached it to one of my match guns in .308 Win that is a solid performer and I have a lot of ammo for:


I have shot four of these over the past few years on guns I have worked on for friends and my partner shot one all last year while I was shooting the Nightforce scopes. I expect it will do well; they all have. Dollar for dollar I'm not sure there is a better deal going.

[deadeye]

very nice-will look for a follow up report after some usage.... keith-do have a question as I have not used the horus-can you explain the #'s 2,4,6,8,10 above the cross in windage?? I see it's value @ 1.25 mil tia! jeff

www.horusvision.com/download/horus_h59_reticle_technical_specs.pdf

[7mmfreak]

Those numbers are for the 12" drill. I'll PM you the details if you are interested.

[deadeye]

Dec 26, 2014 20:50:17 GMT -5 7mmfreak said:

Those numbers are for the 12" drill. I'll PM you the details if you are interested.

sure when you get time-curious as a cat/always willing to learn.

I see why you like the horus retical/ multiple precise measurements to go off for field work.

[7mmfreak]

Yeah, it is a great reticle once you get used to it. My first impression when I saw it the first time was it was too busy to work. Now, I won't shoot without on of the H-series reticles if I have my way. This is for the H-58 but the only differnce is the H-59 has a center dot instead of a solid crosshair and it has an additional mil or wind holds down the main grid. All the drills and formulas work the same way.

[7mmfreak]

The weather here is about to turn cold and rainy again so after knocking out some chores today I made a run for the range about an hour before dark this evening. The goal was to get the rifle zeroed quickly and to shoot a "Tall Target Test" to see how the adjustments were faring. I normally like to do this with windage also but I knew I wouldn't have time and honestly since I hold for wind with the reticle it didn't matter to me all that much. I drew the target it at the house with the knowledge that the benches to the targets on my range are actually 94 yards instead of 100yds. When I got to the range the target was hung using a level so that the leveled scope could track with the leveled target. The test was shot with a half-inch dot as the target. I fired three shots from each lot at 0, then dialed on 1 MRAD (3.438 MOA) increments, fired two shots, and repeated until I had 10 MRAD (34.38 MOA)dialed on.

I got the gun set up on the BR equipment and took a couple of pictures since the pictures on the workbench didn't turn out so hot due to lighting and color contrast:



Using the feeler gauges to determine a height of .920" for the rings was pretty spot on. I have just enough clearance for the magnification ring to clear the scope base and for the objective to clear a Krieger HV contour (Benchmark barrel though) and still use a lens cap:



Both elevation and windage turrets lock when in the down position:



Pulling up on the turrets unlocks them:



The parallax knob is firm but moves smoothly and the yardage markers are pretty close to where they need to be although you will always have to do some fine tuning:



I had two boxes of Federal Gold Medal Match .308 Win with 175gn SMK. Knowing that between zeroing and the test I would switch boxes I checked to see if I had matching lot numbers. I did not so I knew I would be switching lots during the test. I zeroed with one lot then checked it against the other lot. In the control target you can see the POI shift between the two lots. Lot 1 is marked with and "X" on each bullet hole while the three shot from Lot 2 are naked. I measured the POI shift so as to be able to calculate how it would affect the test when I switched lots. There was roughly .1 MRAD shift between the lots and it was all vertical to the 6 o'clock. Having established a control group with each lot of ammo I began the test by shooting at 1 and 2 MRAD:





On this portion of the target you can see where I calculated HI, LO, AVG, ES, and SD for the adjustments:







In all the scope tracks pretty well. None of the test showed exactly 1 MRAD of adjustment but all are closer than half of the .1 MRAD the scope can adjust. If you look at the calculations the ES for all adjustments is a hair over .1 MRAD, the average is 1.006 MRAD, and the SD is .037 MRAD. That is pretty close to perfect and it maintained it all the way to 10 MRAD which will take a 175gn SMK in a .308 Win to about 950 yards in this part of NC. For the price point I would say that is very good precision and accuracy.

[jims]

Good report.

[Jon]

great report watching with great interest! I've got a lot of learning to do about scopes amongst other things.

[rambler]

7mm, will you be using this on a smokeless gun as well?

[deadeye]

I think that scope is tracking as good as it gets imo~ I have not shot the likes of Schmidt & Bender or the U.S. Optics class though & probably never will with my thin wallet.

** nice write & anyone wishing to play long range needs to pay attention as this is excellent equipment proofing from a very precise trigger puller with a proven accurate gun **

again nice job!

[7mmfreak]

Jeff,

Thanks for the compliment. I haven't shot S&B since I worked for the range complex prior to joining the military and they were all customer guns. I had two of the USO scopes this year that belonged to guys I work with; both were LR-17 models, just different reticles. They are great scopes but both agree that if they were doing it again they would take a hard look at the Bushnell for the price point. If I make it to the KY match this year I'll see if I can bring a cross-section of glass for guys to look at.

Rambler,

I will use this scope and a Bushnell LRHS for all my shooting this year.

[7mmfreak]

I was cleaning up in the gun-room today and saw I had left a part of my set-up process incomplete. When I do not have a locking diopter I always use a paint pen to mark both the housing and the fast-focus portion of the eye-piece:

[jims]

Good idea.

[airborneike]

Keith,

Excellent report. How fast did you send the 24 rounds downrange? Just curious...looks like the Benchmark barrel is doing the job.

The Horus reticle looks interesting and I have never had the opportunity to use one. How hard was the transition from the standard mil dot to get to the point where you became confident with the Horus?

+ 1 on Deadeye's comments

Mike

[7mmfreak]

Thanks, Mike. I'm running this one through the ringer a little more vigorously than I did the BEAST because it costs almost 30% of what the BEAST did and I am a skeptic.

I fired a total of 30 rounds. There was a big sheet of cardboard where I fired 5 rounds since the scope was unzeroed and I had boresighted it for windage only. I find it irritating to try and boresight for elevation in a tapered base because it is almost always wrong when I do it: case in point, just before I started shooting I dialed off 6 MRAD to account for the 20 MOA base and ended up back at at exactly 0. I loaded five into the mag, fired one, measured with the reticle,came up 6.1 MRAD and left 1.7 MRAD, shot a 3-shot group, measured again, came down .1 MRAD and right .1 MRAD, and fired the 5th round to confirm. Those 5 were fired in under 2 minutes.

I then walked down to the target board and pulled my zero target and took it to the truck to label it. Afer that I took 2 rounds from Lot 1, 2 rounds from Lot 2, and shot them at the orange dot. Again they were shot under two minutes. I don't have a fore-end stop on that front rest so I use a modified technique of either 2-fingers or 4-fingers measured from front of bag to either tip of fore-end or sling-swivel stud. I go 2 fingers for mild guns and 4 fingers for magnums and SML. So my process is load mag, bolt in round, place on safe, stand up and slide forearm to either 2 or 4 finger position, sit back down and establish NPA, read conditions, crush trigger, rinse and repeat. That is probably an anal retentive way of doing it but consistency is key for me. I'm not talented or lucky enough to do it any other way.

I took a short break to walk down and mark the bullet holes on the control group as noted above (X vs Naked). I walked back and the only difference for the rest of the rounds was I started the sequence by dialing on 1 MRAD prior to loading the gun. Both shots were taken back to back then I ran my watch for 2 minutes between strings. The last shot was taken with the same 2 minute wait the only difference was I dialed back to 0 and shot it into the control group. You may have a hard time seeing it but if you look at Lot 1's right impact it cut the bottom edge of that hole (there are 5-shots there between the two lots.

Sorry I had to tell a story to get the math but it was the easiest way for me to account for how I did things and how quickly. If I go buy strictly time intervals it was about 30 minutes. I was sharing the range and they doddled a little at the target boards and we made three trips down range so it probably took closer to 45 minutes total. That gun is a hammer.

[7mmfreak]

Oh, forgot the reticle. It is a fast and easy transition if you know the Mil-Dot. It is a Mil-Dot without your opinion of what fractions of a mil are. It looked really busy the first time I saw it but one day on the range sold me. I honestly don't think there is a better system. Unlike dials, there is no variation in what you will get over time. It is etched into the reticle and will always have the same subtensions from the day they made it to the day it dies on you. At 21x I have 8MRAD to work with which will cover 90% of all shots in the real world. If you need more you can dial it out a little and gain some elevation. Or, as we have proven in this test you could dial if you were so inclined. I'll bring it up when we start proofing bullets and let you shoot it. You'll probably be a fan.

[7mmfreak]

Mike,

I shot the gun again today because we had a big temperature drop. Remember the cold weather POI shift I struggled with the first month I had the chassis? It's gone. These are the Lot 2 ammo from the first test with the same zero:


They hit right at .2 MRAD low just like the other day and the temps were much lower like when I had the problem back in October. I narrowed the issue to a pair of screws that were supposed to be 14mm but the factory installed 16mm screws. They were just a shade too long and we're contacting the front receiver ring just aft of the lug. Now it is a dependable zero all the time. The barrel is phenominal; it's had 318 rounds down the tube since the last cleaning and averages between .3 and .6 just like it did in the Tall Target Test.

[7mmfreak]

Today was the first sunny day we have had lately. It was about 46°F and winds were only about 6mph from my 5 o'clock. I wanted to do a Return to Zero Test and a Recoil-Proofing test with the HDMR:



For the Return to Zero test I left the HDMR on the .308 Winchester match rifle I did the initial testing with. I conducted the test with 5 rounds fired as quickly as the process allowed. I loaded and fired the cold bore, made note of impact, dialed on 10 MRAD of elevation then brought it back to zero, I went both left and right 5 MRAD and brought it back to zero. I followed the same process for each shot. Shift from Cold Bore to Center of Mass for entire group was .1MRAD and the total precision for the group was .588 MOA. I don't think you can ask for much better than that:


In an attempt to see how it holds up to recoil I swapped the HDMR over to the Green Beanie .451 Smokeless Muzzleloader to give it a thrashing:



I popped the HDMR off of the match gun and swapped it over to the muzzleloader. I made no sight correction to demonstrate the ability of the Horus H-59 reticle to provide feedback. Knowing I would end the test with the 300gn Match Hunter I loaded and fired one round at the Return to Zero target in the middle of the board. You can see the impact in the first picture; it is about 3 inches below and 6 inches left of the 300gn Match Hunter group in the lower left of the picture. I used the reticle to measure point of impact from point of aim; correction was 5.5 MRAD of elevation (UP) and 5.6 MRAD of windage (RIGHT). I have a surplus of the 250gn Ballistic Extremes that I used to shoot in my NULA M209 muzzleloader so I started with them. I knew they only shot fair in this gun so I knew we were on track when the produced their usual 1.5ish MOA. I then loaded and fired 3 of the 300gn Match Hunters which produced a solid .280 MOA and the POI was right where it should have been from the first shot correction. Accurate adjustments and consistent POI through SML recoil is a PASS:


With those two tests finished I can definitely say the Bushnell HDMR is as mechanically sound as anything I have used from Nightforce, Leupold, Vortex, US Optics, or Kahles. The only thing left to do is test the optical quality. I have ordered a Phone Skope adapter for the HDMR so I can post good pictures through the optic.

[Deleted]

Love the phone scope! I bought one for my redfield rampage. My hope was to use it out west hunting when I shot my deer but I didn't have time to set it up. Fun to use though you'll like it!

[7mmfreak]

Yeah, I agree. I have the adapter for my Leupold Spotting scope so if I am shooting alone I can re-play my shot and watch what actually happened if I don't have a friend spotting for me. When I start doing the bullet development for the new SML bullets I will capture all the long range work on video and post it. Have you shot with your Phone Skope attached to your riflescope? I intend to use it for still frames but if you have used it on a magnum or SML with success I might try it for my gun too.

[Deleted]

I haven't seen if it would fit on my rifle scope, I don't believe it will fit honestly. I think I will have to get a phone scope that will fit my rifle scope in order to do the rifle scope.

I want to do more videos at the range with the phone scope also just been to busy to get out. Along with I have been told if I do good enough videos and post on YouTube it could benefit me. Not sure how true it is but if anything it will be fun.

My redfield spotting scope works good and quality is pretty good for a $240 scope. Last time I was out I didn't set the scope up directly behind me do it looks like I'm shooting at a pretty hard angle.

[jims]

Those match hunters are amazing.

[7mmfreak]

Yes, they are a great bullets but I'd go broke if I shot the SML as much as I shoot my other rifles.

[7mmfreak]

It is much easier to take photos with the Phone Skope but I keep forgetting to order the adapter for the HDMR. It was really windy today and I was fighting the bipod and rear bag to get the gun to stay on target while I tried to get a picture with my phone. It all looked much more clear through the optic alone but even with my picture you can see the paster (about 3" diameter) to the 12 o'clock about 1MOA (the tail wind caused me to use less elevation by about .4MRAD than I normally need) and you can see the 1MOA X-ring on this 1000yds target. This was taken at about 14x so that I had the 11.2-11.4MRAD of elevation I needed with the reticle to make the shot with the 155gn OMT and 175gn OTM. The 190gn OTM only needed 10.2:

[Deleted]

How big is the target it has to be big to be seen at 1000 yards?

[bestill]

2mil x2 mil board so 72"x72"
And possibly40" circle target
These are my estimates?

[7mmfreak]

Yes, target board is 72"x72" with score rings as follows:
X ring 10"
10 ring 20"
9 ring 30"
8 ring 44" (last of the black rings)
7 ring 60"
6 area 72 x 72 square