Why is the scope on my Dragunov not centered over the receiver?
Ever wonder why all Russian scopes sit off-center over the receiver of your rifle? It is not because the designers have a bias against left handed shooters. Actually, it’s because the original design of the Dragunov sniper rifle was to have a feature that allowed it to be loaded with stripper clips. The receiver cover originally was similar to the SKS design and had a slot to hold Moisin Nagant 5 round stripper clips. The scope had to be off to the side to allow space for this feature. When the stripper idea was scrapped the PSO scope and mount had already been designed. It was decided to retain the offset design and extra instructions were given to each soldier issued the SVD to adjust for windage when changing elevation settings. Because the scope doesn’t sight down the center of the bore a windage correction must be made each time the elevation is changed on the scope turret.
