These tips are by no means the only way to produce a tape, but it is the method I've used with good results.
Elevation Turret Tape When I made my first turret and wheel combination over a decade ago, my first inclination was to print the tape on a adhesive label material that I could then adhere to the elevation turret or sidewheel. I printed the tape using my ScopeKnob software onto paper as a temporary measure, cut the tape strip out and simply taped the two ends together so it produced a tight band. This allowed me to easily adjust the tape to where it needed to be.
Once at the range, I tried out my temporary tape and found I needed some range adjustments. The next week was much colder. I went to the range and found that my zero had moved by four clicks. I initially thought my tape had moved, but in the subsequent months, I discovered that large temperature variations changed my point of impact. Luckily it was easy to simply rotate the tape bad around on the turret.
The point of all this is that 15 years later, I am still using a band of the tape. I never adhered it to my turret. Once I get to the range, I take 20 stabilizing shots, and then shoot a few off the bench at the 55yard target. I then rotate my tape accordingly to match my current turret position which can will vary by up to six clicks, (1/8 MOA scope).
In order to make the tape more permanent, I take some 2" wide clear packing tape and laminate the printed surface. Cut your tape out, and then do this trick. Stick the end of the packing tape to the table surface and slide the turret tape underneath it printed side down. Stretch the tape tight and press it down. The stretch is important as you'll find out when you pull the tape out. You'll find that the printed tape will want to curl up. The tape will now nicely curl around your turret. Pull the two ends together and put a piece of tape on them. Your turret tape will not be snug enough not to move by itself, but still allow you to rotate the tape on the turret for on the range adjustments.
I have since printed my turret tape onto overhead projector film using a laser printer. This is a water proof solution, but the printed surface can be scratched off if you're not careful.
Yardage Tape There is no quick way to calibrated a yardage tape. It's going to take some work on your part. This is what I ended up to doing for my BSA 10-50x60 scope and six inch wheel combination that worked quite well. I first mounted my scope to a camera tripod to keep it steady. I bought a cheap 100 yard tape measure from Harbor Freight. Now I just kept moving back one yard at a time, focusing on a tree, and marking a line on the strip of paper I had taped to the sidewheel. I did this out to 60 yards.
At this point, you can transfer your marks to a more permanent solution and call it done. I however measured the distance from my 15 yard line to all the rest of the lines using a caliper and then plotted the data using Excel. The resulting curve should be smooth, but it's amazing how well your eye can see abborations to the line. Points that were obviously out of wack I manually moved on the graph. Excel automatically updates the value associated with the point. I took that new measurements and entered them into my ScopeKnob software to print out the yardage tape. I used the same laminating technique as with the elevation turrets outlined above. I made the tape a little narrower than the wheel so that when I put more cellophane over the lamintated tape, the edges would get stuck down.
I laminated the yardage tape the same way I did the turret tape. The tape was cut smaller than the width of the wheel so that when I taped it down, I had a 1/16" edge of tape going over the one side to hold it down.
