sighting in?

[silvermesa]

Just purchased my first Anschutz rifle, a 1985 model 54MS and am looking to sight it in, later this week after I purchase some ammo. Does the following sound like a reasonable way to sight in/ and set turrets? I also need to purchase ammo and look forward to hearing your recommendations.

1)Mount scope and rings and sight in at 25 yards. Get to where your hitting your aim point fairly close.
2) Move out to 100 yards and sight in. Get to where your hitting your aim point fairly close.
3) Test groups at 100 yards. Am I looking for close groups and not necesarrily whether i hit where I am aiming since that can always be changed with the turret for the ammo?
4) Zero for each distance, but the chicken distance is your 0 and each distance for pigs, turkeys and rams are adjusted for up on your turret.

Thank You!

[ter]

You may find that you need to put a shim under the rear scope ring. Usually a sliver of a beer can or credit card is about right. The settings are about 0, 2,4,8 moa.

[jneihouse]

Might suggest this order of things...

1. Mount scope and sight in at the 40 meter berm....skip the 25 yard sight in, has no relevance to silhouette. Set your elevation turret to 0
2. Establish your pig, turkey, and ram settings...should be, with standard velocity ammo something like 2 1/2 for pigs, 4 for turkeys and 8 for rams, give or take.
3. Gather the ammo you wish to test and shoot groups at 100 meters....most ammo will group well out to the turkeys, then you begin to see some separation between good, better, best.

Find what your rifle likes and buy all you can afford, go shoot and have fun.

Kitty

[boats]

I like to sight in on a cardboard target. Painted on with a stencil taken from the actual steel animal. Shoot a fairly high round count group offhand, at least 10 shots 20 is better. Then take the target back to the firing line and using a pencil & framing square box most of the shots in. Ignore off shots idea is to center your normal group. Say 80 % howver that's not a firm number. Idea is to ignore any pulls or jerks box in the good shots only.

Box is probably going to be a rectangle wider than high shot from offhand. Then take the corners of the box and connect them. X in the center is your center of impact. Make all changes from that X. In pratice you are centering something that looks like a shotgun pattern, not a pinpoint bench rest group. I take great pains to center groups and will go back again and again under different conditons winter summer ammo or rifle change, to make sure my zeros are correct for the proper Critter. Even a little change to prefectly centered will make for more hits in a match. Larger your wobble is more important perfectly centered is. Besides cardboard target zeros are good pratice too. I try to do this on a no wind day but knowing my rifles mechanical zero it's intresting to do the same thing on a windy day with the scope set for wind zero, see what the change in impact is. If you shoot between the gust impact is not so much affected by wind sometimes better not to twist on the windage knob. It's real easy to get caught on a let up with too much wind on the scope. Wind might change the bullets point of impact, sight change will change it every shot no matter what the wind is doing.

As far as the knob setting, it's nice to have it at zero for chickens but in my mind better to have zero on the knob line up exactly with one of the turrents horizontal hash marks. Chickens might be 2 turns plus 3 moa or some odd number. Set it at zero for chickens it's possable to get lost comming off Rams to Chickens by turning the wrong way with no frame of refrence for what true 40 meter zero is when you read off the dial. BPCS or Cowboy Lever with iron sights you can't set at zero for chickens and it's not a handicap. Don't see many mistakes on Cowboy rifles using whatever number the sight happens to have for Chickens and the approprate additonal MOA for the other 3 critters. Most of my scopes read windage from zero counting up on both sides of the zero mark and I do set them at zero with no wind at the Chicken line. However also log the turret hash marks just to make sure it is recorded against some unexpected twist of the knob.

Last thing I do is paste the settings on the rifle itself and always adjust for the next bank of animals when finished shooting my relay and before cease fire is called and the rifle is racked. Shooting several different silhouette disiplines best to have a fixed routine so you don't make mistakes. Avoiding mistakes is the first step in shooting good scores.

Boats

[1armoured]

I like to sight in on a cardboard target.
Besides cardboard target zeros are good practice too.

Set it at zero for chickens it's possable to get lost comming off Rams to Chickens by turning the wrong way with no frame of refrence for what true 40 meter zero is when you read off the dial.
However also log the turret hash marks just to make sure it is recorded against some unexpected twist of the knob.

Last thing I do is paste the settings on the rifle itself and always adjust for the next bank of animals when finished shooting my relay and before cease fire is called and the rifle is racked. Shooting several different silhouette disiplines best to have a fixed routine so you don't make mistakes. Avoiding mistakes is the first step in shooting good scores.

Boats

I find the same.
For me shooting zero off the bench does not exactly equate to where the bulk of my group impacts on (or under) the target.
I don't shoot 1 hole groups offhand either at 40 or 100. My shots tend to go lower offhand.

Having sighted off the bench at the 4 distances, I establish my true offhand zeros by shooting at paper silhouettes, offhand, in gear, as I would in a match.

Besides the 4 distance settings, I also have a reference on my scope to where the turret revolution markers are in relation to my top (40) and bottom zeros (100)

I'm also not bothered that the 40 turret marking is not actually on 0 .
My MOA adjustments are generally in the order of +2, +3, +3, depending on ammo.

When you adjust your scope for the next bank, you must do it with total concentration, and no interruptions or distractions.
I've seen too many shooters screw up their settings, as well as go round the wrong way and end up a revolution out !

On the command to Start the next animals, the first thing i do is check what I'm shooting at, my bank number, and my scope focus/parallax distance setting and vertical setting for that animal/distance.

Habit of fixed routine is good.

You can't beat shooting at paper silhouettes on card,

and in a match (we reset our own animals and don't have the luxury of spotters), I always take note of where my hits are on the silhouettes,
and adjust accordingly if necessary.

At the same time, I make sure that I just enjoy the hell out of the 40 shots that I'm allowed to shoot !
No doubt one day time will be called, and all that will be left will be my scope settings sticky label in a scrapbook to remind me of it all, as I languish in the house for the confused !!!

cheers,
SS

[boats]

Other day I went through my paper zero routine on Chickens 10 rounds. Finished did a little experement. I had been using X sticks for Varmit hunting, made a monopod, though it would be easier to carry. Straight stick hard round knob V shaped for the barrel right in front of the stock. Anyway soon as I finished shooting 10 on the Chicken line put my Smallbore Hunter Class rifle on the monopod and shot 10 more sitting. To see how it worked.

Bringing the target back measured the group. It was over 3 moa higher than the center of the offhand group. 1 1/2 inches high at 40 meters difference between hard rest and offhand position. I see guys all the time rest there rifles on our wood rails and get zeros before a match. Zero off something hard is not the same as offhand from positon. General rule of thumb is rifles shoot 1 moa higher from bench rest.

Also found out the Monopod did not work as well as X sticks. Consistent elevation wide spread windage, as wide as my offhand group.

Boats

[Jerry G]

I don't think shooting groups at the close ranges tells you anything. Do all your testing at 100 M with 5 shot groups. Do shoot more than one 5 shot group with each box you test. Make sure you clean when you change ammo because different ammo uses different lube and shoot enough shots before you shoot for group to settle the rifle in after you clean. With both of my annies that is about 6 to 8 shots but I have heard some say their rifle takes more shots than that. When you shoot groups, use a small aiming point on the target and adjust your group so you don't hit the aim point. Just for shits and giggles, move your scope 2 minutes below your ram setting. That would be 6 on your dial if you are using 8 to hit point of aim on rams.

I think if you are a new shooter and on a limited budget you should be happy with anything 1 1/2 inches or less. You always have someone pull a 1/2 minute group out of their wallet but what they don't tell you how many 1 minute + groups they shot before they lucked into that keeper.

[boats]

Might sound funny but have not put any of my offhand competiton rifles on a bench rest for years. Bench itself is a different sport than positon matches and needs experence and the proper set up to give good results. Most offhand guns don't ride the bags well due to stock shape which hides any small differences in components.

Rifles themselves are what they are and ammo is the best I can buy or load. Have a rough idea of what group sizes might for different guns be but end of the day a few select small groups are not important. What's important is a rifle that can shoot the first shot or last shot to the same point of impact day in and day out. Any changes, scope sight stock or ammo I make are off season and will run some test to make sure all is as expected offhand. Calling and spotting every shot fired under actual match postion and conditon even pratice rounds is a very good way to make sure your rifle/ammo combination is working well. Nothing negative on bench shooting I just don't take a few groups from rest as a good indication of how a rifle is going to perform in Silhouette matches.

My opinion only your mileage may varry

Boats