Sighting in for offhand matches

[ALPHAWOLF45]

I wonder if I am correct in my thinking that to sight in a rifle off the bench, the area that is held by the forward hand in offhand competition should be the spot supported by the bags on the bench... My forward hand grips the front of the lever and underside of the receiver . I don't ever even touch the wood up front. How do you handle sighting in.?

[OldRanger]

Most folks swear the bench sighting in is as much as a full moa off of their position firing. So they sight in offhand using the center of their group. Personally my alleged group looks more like a bad shotgun pattern and really isn't usable. I just position the front bag where my hand goes. So in your case you would need the front bag to be on the lever. So no using a one piece rest for you!

[edgehit]

Ranger is correct. The bench rest setting vs off-hand sight-in is different by a significant amount. This is very prevalent in smallbore rifle.

I suggest you sight-in off the bench as you described with the front rest on the receiver - no wood. Then fine tune the sight setting off-hand on paper target. Shooting paper is the best training tool you have as bullet holes record your performance and you can self-call the shot. If you predict the shot went left and you can see that with a spotting scope, then your sight setting is on. forget groups. Just look for the shot going where you called it.

Take note of the wind condition. As little as 5 mph cross wind has a noticeable effect on windage, especially on the long line. So set your windage at chickens, then hold off on long line.

[snaketail2]

Joe is right. Take a look at the photos of the Oklahoma Sooner Classic - you won't see many hands on the forearm. Almost everyone used the "Artillery Hold" - basically that means the strong-hand (right-hand, or left-hand) is doing the holding and pulling the trigger while the other hand is simply adding support.

We shot in the rain on Sunday in Oklahoma - I'm pretty sure that wet bullets are not as accurate. And so, there are a lot of things to consider.

M

[ALPHAWOLF45]

This question come up because I recently shot my first match using Marlin 336 .30-30.. I wasn't thinking and took round dot targets to the range to sight in with and then found the ball on top post of my front sight completely hid the target. So I only roughed in the sight settings... But next day I went and shot the match anyway. I got a 20. I then come home and re-worked the trigger from 4.5lbs to 2 lb 2 oz and intend to get sighted in before the next match and shoot a better score. To work well with round targets, I will use a front sight insert with round hole in center to sight it in off the bags......Reckon how close I'll get if I am sighted in well with the round hole insert but change to the fiber optic insert for the match? It would be mighty close do you think?

[OldRanger]

I wouldn't change the front sight post from sighting in to the match. They could be completely different heights. One could be leaning left. I would just use what you are going to shoot the match with to sight in. Use bigger dots.

[boats]

Sight in offhand and center your group. These targets are cardboard painted to suit our club single shot/lever rimfire offhand match. 75 yards on a 3/8 Ram. However you can see the principal.

First one group is not centered, all hits but some are edge could well have been misses.



2nd one it is centered, note I did not use the two bobbles off the nose or the two high over the back for sight adjustment. Adjustment should not take errors into account only the normal group.




All the talk about group size you read hides the job at hand. Offhand you are centering a pattern, just like a shotgun pattern. If the pattern falls center of
desired impact scores will be higher. Off a bench rested has very little to do with point of impact from postiton. Some of my rifles have never been on a bench at all.

Way I do it is box in the "normal" shots with a framing square draw X through the corners make adjustments from that point. When sighting my NRA rule silhouette rifles Paint a line of critters 5 wide. Shoot at least 5 on each animal. So I can see the difference in impact as I go down the line, just like in a match. Some targets it makes little difference because they are wide. Pigs and Rams. Chickens so close it's not real important. Turkeys change in impact as you run down the targets is important.

I have also seen signifgant change in point of impact ranges that set the targets up or downhill. Enough they require sight adjustment to compensate

Boats