Help with sighting in a scope
- Thread starter jd3020
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ChasingWhitetail91
New member
My .06 needed to be sighted in but being so close to season i didn't want to spook the deer by shooting. My dad has a friend with an in chamber bore sighter that he swears by. He claims you zero it in at fifty yards and your dead on up to 150 yards. Has anyone ever seen or used a boresighter that will live up to this claim or is it just talk. I had my .303 boresighted a couple years back, it was one that goes on the end, not in the chamber, and i wasn't even on paper so im a little skeptic.
Brian Pfleuger
Moderator Emeritus
You absolutely, positively can not properly zero a rifle with any kind of bore sighter without shooting the gun afterwords.
Impossible. Can't be done. You can get close, as in 8x11 paper at 50 yards but not close enough for ethical hunting.
There is no option but shooting the gun.
Don't worry about spooking deer. Walk outside and listen ( if you're anywhere near country). Nobody else is concerned. They're scaring your deer already.
Impossible. Can't be done. You can get close, as in 8x11 paper at 50 yards but not close enough for ethical hunting.
There is no option but shooting the gun.
Don't worry about spooking deer. Walk outside and listen ( if you're anywhere near country). Nobody else is concerned. They're scaring your deer already.
My opinion of boresighting tools is that they are worthless. It takes a certain amount of mechanical aptitude to ensure that the device is properly installed. If a person has trouble figuring out how to adjust a scope, why add the extra burden of making them learn to use a boresighting gizmo. Also the static bore axis is not always aligned with the direction the bullet is going when it leaves the muzzle.
For bolt guns it is easy, set the gun on a stable rest and adjust so the crosshairs line up with the same far-away object you see through the bore. (When moving the crosshairs to a fixed point, the adjustment labels will be backwards). Then take it to 25 yards and shoot. Adjust so you are an inch or so low. Then more out to 100 and shoot a group. If you were centered at 25 you will be at or above the top of the paper at 100. For the "getting on paper stage" you only need to take one shot before adjusting. But for actually centering on the POA, you need to shoot a group and take the average.
About mounting the scope 90 degrees to one side; it will not make any difference except that the labels on the turrets will be wrong. Up becomes left and right becomes up.
For bolt guns it is easy, set the gun on a stable rest and adjust so the crosshairs line up with the same far-away object you see through the bore. (When moving the crosshairs to a fixed point, the adjustment labels will be backwards). Then take it to 25 yards and shoot. Adjust so you are an inch or so low. Then more out to 100 and shoot a group. If you were centered at 25 you will be at or above the top of the paper at 100. For the "getting on paper stage" you only need to take one shot before adjusting. But for actually centering on the POA, you need to shoot a group and take the average.
About mounting the scope 90 degrees to one side; it will not make any difference except that the labels on the turrets will be wrong. Up becomes left and right becomes up.
They are not worthless. You do need to be aware of their limitations.
I use them and find it easy to take a scope from one rifle and use it on another with minimal effort.
I have ordered a base with integral rear sight and a red ot sight for a Buckmark. This gun belongs to a friend.
When that all gets here next Friday, it will be a piece of cake to remove the plastic sight base, install the new one and use the laser bore sighter to align the rear sight.
Then install the red dot sight and do the same thing for it.
Then it will be off to the range to tweak. . .and it won't take much to finish the job.
Some like them and some hate them. It depends on what you expect from them.
I would never just sight in with a boresighter but I am sure a fan of them.
I have Crimson Trace sights on three guns and the laser bore sighter is really easy to use to get the spot registered to the point for the range you want to use.
ChasingWhitetail91
New member
Im bringing it out to shoot a couple times at a range just in case, but this guy has three 06's he used the boresight on and says there all dead on at 150 yards.
Brian Pfleuger
Moderator Emeritus
He's either wrong by assuming and never verifying, lying or has a very strange definition of "dead on".
No two bore sighted guns will even shoot the same spot, say nothing of actually being "dead on".
What's he's claiming has as much credibility as the moon being made of cheese.
Bore sighting will get you on the paper. I have never had a rifle hit dead on with just bore sighting. I have a Leupold Zero Bore Sighter.
http://www.leupold.com/hunting-shoo.../zero-point-magnetic-illuminated-boresighter/
It can get you on the paper. What I can do with it is once I zero a rifle I can put it back on and record where it places on the target. I can then use that to check my zero. However before I go hunting I am going to the range and verifying that the rifle has held zero.
http://www.leupold.com/hunting-shoo.../zero-point-magnetic-illuminated-boresighter/
It can get you on the paper. What I can do with it is once I zero a rifle I can put it back on and record where it places on the target. I can then use that to check my zero. However before I go hunting I am going to the range and verifying that the rifle has held zero.
as i stated in my original post that i bore sighted in my rifle and scope. let me make this more clear i used a laser bore sighter a 10 yards in my basement. i adjusted the cross hairs to be 2" above the red dot at 10 yards. Thats what i meant by me bore sighting. So lets not get all in depth if laser bore sighting is right or wrong. I can start another post so you guys can argue on that topic. Any ways i found some screws loose on this gun so im re locktiteing them and re installing the scope. I traded the bushnell in for a nikon so we will see what happens.
Bushnells are still good scopes. If you truly did have some loose screws on the gun, then that should be your problem. I too use a boresighter in my basement to get me on paper with non bolt guns. With bolt guns, I put it in a gun vise, take the bolt out and look through the barrel at a pumpkin or large object about 75-100 yards away. Center it in my barrel and then very carefully adjust the crosshairs so they are now on the object. This will get you on paper also (I actually like this way better than a laser boresighter).
Now, when you go shoot the gun to sight it in, you can do it in one shot. Here's how. Using a gun vise to steady the gun, adjust it so it is dead center on your target at a distance that you can see your hole after you shoot. Take the shot from the vise with as little influence by you as possible to ensure that you don't flinch. After the shot, align the gun back to where you had before the shot (meaning the crosshairs centered on the target), while you are looking through the scope, adjust the crosshairs to where the shot actually went. This will now put the crosshairs and the actual point of impact at the same spot. You should shoot the gun again to ensure that it is fine tuned, but it should be dead zero. I read this method in a gun magazine many moons ago and have used it every time I mount a new scope and it works like a charm.
Now, when you go shoot the gun to sight it in, you can do it in one shot. Here's how. Using a gun vise to steady the gun, adjust it so it is dead center on your target at a distance that you can see your hole after you shoot. Take the shot from the vise with as little influence by you as possible to ensure that you don't flinch. After the shot, align the gun back to where you had before the shot (meaning the crosshairs centered on the target), while you are looking through the scope, adjust the crosshairs to where the shot actually went. This will now put the crosshairs and the actual point of impact at the same spot. You should shoot the gun again to ensure that it is fine tuned, but it should be dead zero. I read this method in a gun magazine many moons ago and have used it every time I mount a new scope and it works like a charm.
Qtiphky I was wondering about that. My dad had mentioned doing that but I had never tried it before. I always use my lead sled to sight in a gun and like I had said before using my laser bore sighter at 10 yards I have never had a problem. Upon finding loose screws I also found some steel shot in some places it shouldn't be. So until I get the whole gun pulled apart and cleaned I'm dead in my tracks for a bit.
And if you ran out of adjustment, I'd check your rings. Are they lined up correctly? I forget the name of hte company... I think Wheeler, whoever it is that makes the FAT wrench (search Cabelas) also makes a scope mounting kit... It even comes with a FAT wrench as well inside the thing. Now it's a bunch of crap marketed to the guy who doesn't know what he's doing with gadgets and gizmos that may or may not work. But it's got enough useful stuff in the thing, with a nice carrying case that I don't regret picking one up.
I have thought about getting the kit that has the two tubes that have points on them and they should touch when they are lined up. Just haven't spent the 60$ yet. I really think my front mount screws being loose and the screws holding the stock on not being tight might be my fix but I will definitely make sure every thing is right before I go back to the range.
If you look around, you can find the individual parts of that kit too, if you only want part of it. I just bought the whole kit, since I wanted most of it, and the convenience of the hard plastic box made it worth buying the crappy little doodads and gadgets that look.. suckerish.
And yeah... you want to start with a fixed baseline... both of those, if they allow play in everything under the scope will throw off the scope. Remember, how much movement can one of those little clicks really make on the machinery inside the scope, and look at the effect it has... now think about how much movement those loose screws can have, and how much bigger that effect will be per micro-measurement-unit because of how far from the "fulcrum"...
And yeah... you want to start with a fixed baseline... both of those, if they allow play in everything under the scope will throw off the scope. Remember, how much movement can one of those little clicks really make on the machinery inside the scope, and look at the effect it has... now think about how much movement those loose screws can have, and how much bigger that effect will be per micro-measurement-unit because of how far from the "fulcrum"...
Well as long as you pulled all that crap off, you might as well get the kit and use it to put the thing back on... re-mounting a scope reminds me of that scene from In The Line Of Fire. Eastwood and Russo are tossing the contents of two VERY heavy and VERY loaded Batman belts on the floor to get you to infer their characters are getting nekkid... the phone rings, and Eastwood says something along the lines of "Christ! Now I gotta put all that crap back on.".
hooligan1, adjustments are adjustments regardless of whether up/down or left/right. If you think a scope knows which way is up, you're wrong. If you've ever looked at an AimPoint, you'll see those turrets are marked for both orientations. I've used several scopes for specific needs "turned on their side" and all work fine but you have to give some thought to which way is left or up.
Don't dis the optics under $100 unless you've tried each and every one available. There ARE good reliable scopes in that range.
Don't dis the optics under $100 unless you've tried each and every one available. There ARE good reliable scopes in that range.