Rifle Scope Maintenance and Care

Much like the rifle itself, the scope is also fundamentally important and needs to be taken care of. The scope is one of the most expensive parts of the rifle and if you are paying that much for an accessory, it must be handled with care. However, if you don’t know what you are doing, it can be really easy to mess up the scope and you will need a professional to help you fix it.

Understanding the fundamentals of optics can be daunting and by going into all of the details might confuse you. To simplify the process, we have done some in-depth research to ensure that you need not worry about all the nitty-gritty details. In this article, you will learn exactly what it takes to maintain your scope.

Rifle Scope Maintenance Tips and Tricks

While it might be hard at first, once you understand these tips, you should not have any troubles maintaining your scope. If you have just bought a new scope, or you have been longing to clean or fix the scope, here are the most important tips and tricks to keep in mind:

1. Finding the problem:

One of the biggest illusions that many people live under is that scopes are maintenance free. Yes, you know the gun needs cleaning, but if you really expect your scope to last you a lifetime, it also needs to be maintained. One of the biggest questions many people ask is where must this maintenance take place.

To find the area of maintenance, you simply need to dismount the scope and you can look through it. If it does not look as clear as it was when you first bought it, the scope needs to be cleaned. There can be multiple issues that include the repair of any broken parts as well and you need to remove the scope first to find the problem.

1. Cleaning Your Lenses:

The duster is not only made for your tables and your valuable ornaments in the home. It can also play a vital part when it comes to your scope. Smaller brushes are an effective tool and they need to have soft bristles. This will only be to remove the dust from the scope without scratching the expensive optics on the lenses.

Dust particles can accumulate on the lenses and these need to be removed with care. Brushing the lens will loosen all of the dust that might be in hard to reach areas, but the addition of a soft cloth will ensure you can remove all of the dust. Gently remove the dust and ensure that the cloth does not have any oil traces that could be harmful to your lenses.

1. Cleaning The Outer Casing:

While it is possible to remove the outer casing on some of the advanced scopes, the cheaper scopes might not always enable you to remove the casing. Nevertheless, this is not a bad thing and you can sometimes get an excellent scope for a really affordable price.

The outer casing is one of the toughest parts to clean, but you have the benefit of most scopes being waterproof. Dust can accumulate on the outer casing and dirt might be stuck in hard-to-reach places around the rims. With a simple damp cloth, you can remove these and add a pin to reach the dirt in the groves, will simplify the process even further.

1. Scratches And Cracks In The Lenses:

Any avid hunter will tell you that this is one of their worst fears and fixing these will need a professional touch. Unfortunately, once the lenses have been damaged, it will affect the quality and the performance of the scope when used. Some people actually throw away the scope when this has happened and they cut their losses to buy a new one.

However, this is not always needed. Most gun shops will have optic professionals and these professionals will understand all of the bits and pieces of the lenses. This might be really expensive, but instead of spending another couple hundred dollars on a new scope, you might be able to have it fixed at a cheaper rate.

To avoid problems like these, we always recommend people to look at the durability aspect of the scope when buying it. The outer casing as we have mentioned is where most of the durability will lie and having a shockproof scope is one of the best investments you could make. The combination of aircraft aluminum and rubber will offer you the best possible durability.

Some of the more advanced combat optics does have batteries that will enable night vision and a couple of other features. When you are using one of these scopes, you need to take extra care. Some of the smaller portals where the batteries can be inserted might be susceptible to rust and this will cause massive problems.

You should remove the batteries whenever you are done with the scope and have it rest for the moisture to dry up a little. The moisture can also be removed with a heat source, but having it rest a little is the simplest way to ensure the moisture is fully cleared up and your scope is ready to be used the next time you go out at night.

Re-Zero Your Scope:

Once the maintenance aspect has been taken care off, you might find that you have made some changes to the scope. This means it needs to be zeroed once again for you to ensure accuracy. After doing some maintenance on the scope, we always recommend taking a trip to your local shooting range to see if the scope is still zeroed.

This is generally one of the easiest and fun parts and you will actually be shooting the rifle to ensure that it is zeroed. Always ensure the rifle is ready for your hunting trips.

Final Thoughts:

Doing maintenance on the scope is fundamentally important to the well-being and the longevity of the scope. We recommend you follow these tips to ensure that you can get the best out of your scope and the scope can actually last a lifetime. These tips are also not that expensive and they can avoid some additional costs.

We would like to thank you for reading this article and we would love you to share your opinion on the maintenance of scopes. Let us know if any of these tips have worked for you and if we might have missed any other tips you would recommend to beginners.