Dead Simple 4-Shot Sight-In for Hunting Rifles
Here’s a simple procedure that lets you get a solid zero for a hunting rifle in just four shots. Of course you probably want to fire a few more rounds to confirm your zero before you head off to your hunting grounds, but this will let you get on-target with a minimum amount of time and ammo expended. (This assumes your scope is securely mounted, and the bases are not drastically out of alignment.)
1. First, remove the bolt and boresight the rifle. Adjust the position of the rifle so that, looking through the bore, you can see the center of the target with your eyes. Secure the rifle in the rests to maintain its position as boresighted. Then, without moving the rifle, center the reticle. That should get you on paper. With the rifle solidly secured in front and rear rests or sandbags, aim at the center of a target placed at your zeroing distance (50 or 100 yards). Confirm there are no obstructions in the barrel! Then load and fire one shot. Then, return the gun to the exact position it was when you pulled the trigger, with the cross-hair centered on the target as before.
2. Locate, in the scope, where your first bullet landed on the target. Now, while you grip the rifle firmly so it doesn’t move, have a friend adjust the turrets on your scope. While you look through the scope, have your friend turn the windage and elevation turrets until the cross-hairs, as viewed through the scope, bisect the first bullet hole on the target. In other words, you use the turrets to move the center of the reticle to the actual position of shot number one. Dial the crosshairs to the hole — don’t move the rifle.
3. After you’ve adjusted the turrets, now re-aim the rifle so the cross-hairs are, once again, positioned on the target center. Keep the rifle firmly supported by your rest or sandbag. Take the second shot. You should find that the bullet now strikes in the center of the target.
4. Take a third shot with the cross-hairs aligned in the center of the target to confirm your zero. Make minor modifications to the windage and elevation as necessary.
5. Now shoot the rifle from a field rest (shooting sticks, bipod, or rucksack) as you would use when actually hunting. Confirm that your zero is unchanged. You may need to make slight adjustments. Some rifles, particularly those with flexy fore-arms, exhibit a different POI (point of impact) when fired from a bipod or ruck vs. a sandbag rest.
If you recently cleaned your rifle, you may want to fire two or three fouling shots before you start this procedure. But keep in mind that you want to duplicate the typical cold bore conditions that you’ll experience during the hunt. If you set your zero after three fouling shots, then make sure the bore is in a similar condition when you actually go out hunting.
Similar Posts:
- Four-Shot Sight-In for Hunting Rifles
- Simple Zeroing Procedure Gets You Centered in 4 shots
- How to Zero A Hunting Rifle in Four Shots
- Sight-In Your Hunting Rifle with Just Four Shots
- How to Sight-In Your Hunting Rifle in Four Shots
Tags: Aim, Bore Sight, hunting, Sight-in, zero
Good advice, but I begin my boresighting at 50 yards maximum. If the scope is first-time installed, and unless the target paper is the size of a “barn door”, you may not even be on the paper, especially at 200 yds.
Average shooter, rifle and ammunition, which produces maybe 3+ MOA accuracy (group of ten or more shots), will lead to never-ending adjustment loop if zeroing is made by shooting just a shot or two.
Of course it’s advisable to get rough adjustments done by firing the least amount of shots. But confirming the actual zero should be done with a group of 10 shots or something… (if you really want to know what you’re capable of)
Otherwise you’re gonna fire next “group” of 2-3 shots next year, and blame your rifle for changed zero…
If your rifle is only capable of holding 3+MOA, you had better just leave it in the safe. And if 3 MOA is average, I must have some exceptional rifles as all will group just a hair over MOA or under. And most well under.
And I don’t think this system is supposed to replace practice or testing of the rifles accuracy potential. But more to get on paper and centered rather quickly. I have actually done this with my 17HMR and it worked quite well, as I was centered on paper in 3 rounds and put the next 10 in under 1/2″ at 50 yds.
fdshuster above makes an excellent point about starting at short range. For most rifles, the bullet trajectory first crosses the line of sight at around 40 yards. At longer ranges the method above will usually give a low shot. At longer ranges the crosshairs should be adjusted below the bore sight. For best future results, try this procedure with a rifle which is already sighted in, and make notes on the sight picture. Doing that, the procedure descibed here usually gets me within a couple of MOA on the first shot.
You’re wrong Josh, the procedure works perfectly as stated, at any range.
When you make POA = POI you are zero’d.
Tragectory is accounted for automatically with it.
If your POA doesn’t equal POI, then you ain’t hitting anything you’re AIMING at!
Well, when I say POA=POI=Zero, I mean at that zero range. Josh if this is what you mean’t, then forgive my correction please..
I have used this method many times…but making quarter inch adjustments on an inch grouping rifle can be an issue. In these cases. I find that after the first adjustment, that gets you close, using the center of a three shot group for determining the next adjustment is probably more practical. Also, it sometimes takes a shot for the scope to move to where you have adjusted it. This is very common, and if you don’t take it into account, you will waste a lot of time and ammunition.
The slickest zeroing that I have done lately was that of an external mount setup (with no clicks, and perfect tracking), on a frozen 36X Leupold. I bore sighted my 6PPC, at 100 yards, fired a shot, dialed the poa to the poi and the second shot overlapped the first, by half its diameter.