mhannah1;
George Hill did a good job explaining his method and covered some good points. Here is another similar procedure I use.
The steadier the rest is, the better and faster results you will get. A steady shooting bench with a rifle front rest and rear rest, work the best, but if not available there are alternatives, like the prone position using sand bags for the front and a good shooting shoulder position for the rear. You are looking for consistant stability each time you fire and attempting to elimenante the humun factor as much as possible.
For most guns that have a scope mounted about 3/4" high (most common) set your target at 25 yards. Follow George's suggestion and fire one good shot (big paper will help here also, as you first expereinced it is difficult to make an adjustment if you can't print on the paper). Make adjustments on one plane at a time, windage then elevation or elevation then windage.
For example, you shoot at 25 yards holding dead center and bullet impact is 3" high and 5" right. If the shoot was good (meaning the shooter did not jerk the trigger or push it off), I would then adjust the windage in the direction of LEFT 80 clicks (assuming the scope afjustments were in 1/4" MOA. Then I would shoot another round. If the second round is within 1" of 12 O'Clock, I would then adjust the elevation in the down direction 48 clicks. You need to adjust and shoot until you are within 1" of center in any direction, ideally dead center.
In most centerfire calibers this should put you about 2" high at 100 yards and about dead zero again at 200 yards. As you know, 25 yards is not a good test for a 100 or 200 yard zero and beyond. You now need to take the target out to 100 yards and make fine adjustment to get your zero reliable.
When you start fine adjustments at 100, you are better off shooting a three shoot group before making any adjustments. If you are not getting a good group at that range it is going to be difficult to establish a reliable and fine tuned zero. Your gun should hold 3" groups at 100 yards and many do 1.5 - 2" groups. A few do MOA, but those are normally the one's that have had some accuracy work perfromed.
One other little hint I would like to pass on. Most scope adjustment mechanisms are one-sided screw adjustments with a spring load from the opposite side. Sometimes you can make an adjustment and the crosshair will not actually move or not move the entire adjustment. I rap my knuckle againt the housing to jar the crosshair mount to seat into the new adjustment before I shoot the next round.
OK, and one more thing, the less expensive scopes do not always follow the adjustment scale as perfectly as do the higher quality models, so 4 clicks on a 1/4" MOA adjustment might not give you exactly 1" at 100 yards.
I'm sure you are aware of all this, but I hope it helps....
Best Regards.....
"Train to Defend, Train to Survive, Train to Win"