Scope zero portability

B

BertH

Inactive
Simple question.

Is a scope zeroed to the rifle, or to the shooter/rifle? i.e. If I zero the scope on my rifle, will it work equally well for someone else?

And what about a red dot sight? Is it the same? Or are they different (since they only have one plane vs a normal scope). What about those "reflex/holo" sights?
 
Not likely. Everybody holds and shoots a rifle differently and needs to sight in for themselves. It'd usually be close though. As in close enough for range shooting, but not for hunting.
Red dots are sighted in just like any other sight. Difference is that the dots tend to be too big for rifle shooting. A 3 MOA dot will entirely cover the black of a standard sighting in target at 100 yards.
 
If you zero a rifle and lets try to remove all human imperfection we can. Put the gun in a lead sled and zero it. Then if another person shoots it off that same lead sled it should be 99.9 percent the same.

Hand the same rifle to two guys standing and there are many factors that can change accuracy.

But as said if you're going to hunt with someone elses rifle it's best to shoot it and see where you hit.
 
It should be very close. The biggest potential problem is two people with very different cheek welds shooting a non-adjustable parallax scope at a distance other than the fixed distance it's set for. Then you'll get some movement due to the different cheek welds.
 
With optics it shouldn't be enough different to matter. Many people look at iron sights a bit different. You may have some differences in parallax with different shooters. But that will make about 1/4" difference at 100 yards at most, less than the diameter of many bullets.
 
From a hardware perspective, it is 100% repeatable. From a software perspective, not so much.

I have spent a good deal of time zeroing rifles for others including at matches. In one match I shot, there was a 10" plate at 150 yards. When a squad of good shooters would come through, the 10-12 impacts were in a 2-3" group, bottom left on the plate. I told the MD his zero was off. He shot and center punched the plate. He was left handed and had a poor check weld. Even though he was repeating it, the mechanical zero was off, enough that he was hitting about 1.5" high and right of the mechanical zero.

If you have proper technique, another shooter with proper technique should be able to jump in and hit the same POI with your rifle. If both have poor technique, it can be off by several inches at 100 yards.
 
I'll give a solid answer of SOMETIMES.
My older Son and I use the same zero on several rifles.
There's no real pattern to this either. My older brother was 4" taller, 100# heavier, and LEFT HANDED but I did all the sight-ins for his rifles and the zero was always dead on.
I used to zero a lot of rifles for customers who very often didn't re-check that zero. It seemed to work well enough( of course they weren't shooting 400 yards either). Hunting deer at 200 yards, I wouldn't be overly concerned. Coyotes at 300+, I wouldn't even go out w/o checking zero.
 
As in close enough for range shooting, but not for hunting.
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Okay, now I'm confused. :confused:

While shooting at a range, I try, and am very successful at, putting 5 shots into the "black" of a target at 100 yards. The "black" on the targets I use measures exactly one inch. While hunting, the "kill zone" on, let's say a whitetail deer is what, six to eight inches. So, "close enough" is the opposite of what you wrote. "Close enough" is much larger for hunting!
 
Okay, now I'm confused.
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I'm sure what he means is if it's off a bit at the range who cares and you can get it zeroed or change your aimpoint. But if you're off while hunting and think you're on that could equate into a suffering animal.

My dad has a deer rifle that a gunsmith only boresited for him. The smith said for him to check it when he got home even though the smith was provided ammo to shoot it as his back yard range. The gun is 7 inches off at 100 yards. The distance from my dads blind to the bait pile is 14 yards. That means the gun is 1 inch off at the short distance. Up close it's acceptable and far away it isn't ethical. Since then he shot two 6 points with it and I zeroed it and now he's on. I had him shoot it so I know he's on.
 
A scope zeroed on a rifle will be close to same P.O.I. between shooters when in the set parallex range of the scope. With an A.O. scope, the rifle will be close at all ranges. Excluding parallex, how much pressure one holds the rifle with will be the other variable. Some shooters Use cheek weld and a near death grip, others barely contact the stock with their cheek and shoot in a near free recoil condition. (Most shoot somewhere in between)
 
I often go target shooting with guys that dont own their own rifles and like to shoot so they shoot mine, I have yet to have anyone shoot one of my rifles that are all moa shooters and not hit where they were aiming, granted, they dont shoot tight groups but then again they dont shoot like I do. So, I would say for the most part "with scopes" once zeroed for one..good to go.
 
The change should be next to nothing too nothing. I have been sighting in peoples rifles now for about 4 years. Started out as doing it for my boss and a friend. Word got out and now I am up to about 20 rifles I do. ( Which is great by me:D)
I sight them in and have never had a complaint yet. Now while as some stated-Some look through a scope different, the Idea is-There is only one way to look through a scope, the right way being that. I do have one person that Cants his rifle so bad that I can not help him.
 
There have been a few comments about people holding rifles differently which I totally agree on but the human eye is also pretty unique to an individual.

Typically the zeroed scope for one person is going to be pretty close but almost never the exact same. It would probably need some fine tuning to be right for the other person
 
I would tend to agree with another poster; if the rifle was zeroed with the scope's parallax (target focus) properly set, then it shouldn't matter much. The parallax adjustment is there for target focus AND to prevent crosshair creep relative to the target when the eye's position moves behind the scope.

If the scope is of the "parallax free" variety, and the rifle was zeroed at 100 yards (where these scopes are MOST parallax free), then again, it wouldn't matter much if shooter A and shooter B are shooting at 100 yard targets or beyond.
 
@BertH
Junior Member

Scope zero portability
Simple question.

Is a scope zeroed to the rifle, or to the shooter/rifle? i.e. If I zero the scope on my rifle, will it work equally well for someone else?

And what about a red dot sight? Is it the same? Or are they different (since they only have one plane vs a normal scope). What about those "reflex/holo" sights?
Click to expand...

Simple answer: No. These are not handguns. Zero the rifle "scientifically." Never mind "I tend to pull to the right a bit" statements. If you "... tend to pull to the right a bit" don't. That's what marksmanship is all about.

But good luck doing that.
-SS-
 
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