Why can't I figure out my scope? Am I really that dense?

[brymoore]

I use what I learned reading Jack O’Connor’s method as a kids. Sight in a 25. It’ll make most rifles 3”s high at 100. Shoot again at 100 to confirm it’s sighted in 3”s high at 100. Rifle will shoot point-blank-range (PBR) out to about 260-300 depending on the caliber. PBR means you hold on your normal aim point to roughly 300-350, caliber dependent, before making aiming adjustments.

PBR is how the Army sights in its rifles.

 

[cahunter805]

I may have missed it but did you rezero when you started shooting your handloads or still using your factory ammo zero? That could change everything.

 

[belshawelk]

For me all guns get "on target" at 100 yards. If the true sight in is 200 or 300 I get it whatever the height above 100 it should be. That puts you very close at your desired range. All my guns except two are zeroed at 200 yards. Including my .28 and .30 Nosler.

Only my 6.5-300 is sighted in at 300 because it shoots laser beams at that range and allows for a 400 yards or less POI.

My lever guns are sighted at 100 yards, because all are either open sighted or small or fixed scopes.

 

[BuzzH]

Making easy chit hard.

Zero at your desired range, confirm 100 and 200 yard POI adjust your POA as necessary in the field.

 

[buckbull]

I use what I learned reading Jack O’Connor’s method as a kids. Sight in a 25. It’ll make most rifles 3”s high at 100. Shoot again at 100 to confirm it’s sighted in 3”s high at 100. Rifle will shoot point-blank-range (PBR) out to about 260-300 depending on the caliber. PBR means you hold on your normal aim point to roughly 300-350, caliber dependent, before making aiming adjustments.

PBR is how the Army sights in its rifles.

yep, i use maximum point blank range for all my rifles. not a scope dialer at this point. and not a long range shooter. works well for me and keeps everything simple.

 

[antelopedundee]

I may have missed it but did you rezero when you started shooting your handloads or still using your factory ammo zero? That could change everything.

You should use the same point of aim POA for both types of ammo in order to tell which point of impact POI is closest to the POA. Initially you're looking for group size [precision] vs accuracy which is shooting to POA. Once you find ammo that groups well then you adjust POI.

 

[brockel]

Sight your rifle in at 80 yards prone just like you are shooting your 200 and 300 yard groups. Odds are you are getting more muzzle rise vertically and probably a little horizontally shooting prone than you are from your bench from recoil management. That’s why people are generally more accurate with less recoil.

As soon as a bullet leaves the barrel it is already dropping. The slower the bullet gets the faster it drops. There is no bullet rise. Your optics are angled downward so your cross hair will cross bullet path twice that’s what makes people think a bullet rises. Here’s a shitty 3rd grade drawing to explain

 

[mtmuley]

As soon as a bullet leaves the barrel it is already dropping.

So many shooters don't get this. mtmuley

 

[antelopedundee]

I use what I learned reading Jack O’Connor’s method as a kids. Sight in a 25. It’ll make most rifles 3”s high at 100. Shoot again at 100 to confirm it’s sighted in 3”s high at 100. Rifle will shoot point-blank-range (PBR) out to about 260-300 depending on the caliber. PBR means you hold on your normal aim point to roughly 300-350, caliber dependent, before making aiming adjustments.

PBR is how the Army sights in its rifles.

As I understand it, sighting in at 25 yards is the same as at 100 yards. It will be easier to see if you're on paper at 25 yards. If POI is 1 inch high at 25 yds it will be 4 inches high at 100 yds. If you adjust it to be 2 inches high at 100 yards it should be good out to 275-300 yds without adjusting for hold. At 100 yds or less I would prefer to adjust hold, but there were times I'd forget to do that.

 

[BuzzH]

As I understand it, sighting in at 25 yards is the same as at 100 yards. It will be easier to see if you're on paper at 25 yards. If POI is 1 inch high at 25 yds it will be 4 inches high at 100 yds. If you adjust it to be 2 inches high at 100 yards it should be good out to 275-300 yds without adjusting for hold. At 100 yds or less I would prefer to adjust hold, but there were times I'd forget to do that.

Wrong.

I'm starting to wonder if:

1. Anybody knows anything about physics.
2. Anybody actually shoots
3. Anybody realizes that ballistic calculators exist, and for a reason.

Finally, good thing that deer, elk, pronghorn, etc. are rather large targets and have pretty big kill zones.

 

[Nicoli7153]

So many shooters don't get this. mtmuley

Gravity wins all the time

 

[antelopedundee]

Wrong.

I'm starting to wonder if:

1. Anybody knows anything about physics.
2. Anybody actually shoots
3. Anybody realizes that ballistic calculators exist, and for a reason.

Finally, good thing that deer, elk, pronghorn, etc. are rather large targets and have pretty big kill zones

Yes we all know about gravity. The process of "sighting in" adjusts for it. Or we could use the Polska method and move the target until the bullet hits the desired POI.

 

[cahunter805]

You should use the same point of aim POA for both types of ammo in order to tell which point of impact POI is closest to the POA. Initially you're looking for group size [precision] vs accuracy which is shooting to POA. Once you find ammo that groups well then you adjust POI.

I wasn’t referring to POA. I was referring to his POI and if he adjusted his zero to hit his POA with his hand loaded ammo or just used his zero from when he was shooting factory ammo.

 

[English Setters Rule]

Somebody may have mentioned this already, but have you checked to see if all the scopes mounting screws are tight?

 

[antelopedundee]

I wasn’t referring to POA. I was referring to his POI and if he adjusted his zero to hit his POA with his hand loaded ammo or just used his zero from when he was shooting factory ammo.

It doesn't really matter as long as POA was the same for both. He can simply adjust POI to his zero for the best of the 2 loads afterwards.

 

[cahunter805]

It doesn't really matter as long as POA was the same for both. He can simply adjust POI to his zero for the best of the 2 loads afterwards.

It does matter. I was referring to if the OP adjusted his zero for the handload or the factory ammo and then which ammo did he shoot at 200/300. If he sighted in/zeroed with factory ammo but shot handloads at 200/300 it could explain a lot.

 

[antelopedundee]

Target pic 1 top left I'd posit are factory loads. Center of target group [notice that it seems to be zeroed] could be handloads. Actually both groups ARE zeroed since he said so.

How does a group zeroed at 80 yards end up 2+ inches high at 200 yards?
#3 looks like there was some wind that wasn't accounted for.

 

[Don Fischer]

I zeroed at around 80 yards as thats the distance I have behind the shop with a gunrange already setup with a huge dirt backstop. Here is my 8 shot group on paper, from a bench, while trying different factory rounds and handloads.
View attachment 335341

After I got done tinkering with handloads, I wanted to see how they did at distance from a prone hunting position so I setup a target at 200 yards shooting prone off my pack to see how much practice I need to do before my elk hunt this year. (Surprise, I'm going to need to practice a ton) I was aiming for the center circle. Top right shot was a flyer I pulled.
View attachment 335342

I then setup my target at almost 300 yards (closer to 290 as thats the longest area I have without open sky behind me) and this is what I got.

View attachment 335343


Now here's the issue I cant figure out. I used the same point of aim for all 3 distances. I didn't adjust my turret or make any elevation adjustment. It actually hit HIGHER at 200 yards, and hit back at "Zero" at ~300 yards. Based on the specs on the factory ammo, I should have been 7 inches low with a 200 yard zero. The only thing that makes sense in my head is that I "zeroed" on the "rise" of the arc of the bullet path and not on the "fall" of the bullet path. (Does that even make sense?) I drew a diagram with my kids chalk to try to help myself figure it out. View attachment 335344

Does this even make sense? I did the same exercise with factory ammo as i did with my handloads and it turned out the same both times. What is going on? How do I fix it? How am I this slow to figure this out?

Details of my setup:

Weatherby Vanguard 6.5prc 24" barrel
135gr Hammer Shock Hammer 3150fps
Also 130 Barnes Factory Ammo 2950fps
Leupold VX-5HD 3-15 x 44

I was trying to think about it like my archery setup and what would happen if I accidentally zeroed my 10 yard pin at 10 feet. Wouldnt it be higher at 20 if i used the same 10 yard pin because I was on the front edge of the arc? But now I'm confusing myself the more I think about it. Surely there is an obvious solution Im not thinking of. Right?

I don't know if this is right or not but you zeroed in at 80 yds. ullet is going to rise some at 100yd, When I zero a scope I start at about 25yds. then move to 100 yds and with 25yd zero the 100 yd shots hit over 4" high. Won't be that drastic at 80 yds zero but gonna be some kind of change. What your doing will likely work fine, zero at 80 then shoot at farther ranges and see where you hitting. If you can find data somewhere you can figure out max point blank at 80 yds and see where it should be hitting at other ranges. My old chronograph used to figure that out for me all they way to a lot farther than I would consider shooting andshooting against the data at longer range showed me how well it worked. Worked extremely well!

 

[Don Fischer]

You have a 300 yard zero. The place on the 80 yard target where the bullets impact is the “other zero”. It’s actually <80 yards, but because your shots are not tightly grouped, it is harder to see.

This is why you always sight in rifles at 100 yards, then confirm at 200.
My creedmoor is 0.8” at 100, 0 at 200. The “other zero” is around 65 yards.

With my bow, my arrow sits 4” lower than my peep. At 12 yards the arrow rises to 0”, 18 yards it’s +0.8”, and it’s back to 0” again at 25 yards (25 yard pin). Same principle.

Not really necessary to sight in at 100 yds, just something we've been doing for more years than I've been around. From there you can figure out where you have to hold at other ranges to have the bullet hit where you want. I sight in at 3" high at 100yds then feed it into my old chronograph and figure out Max Point Blank Range at an 8" target form there. 100yds Is simply no more that a figure to zero in at, it could but any range you want just be aware where your bullet's hit down range is gonna be in regard to the range you sighted in at and the size of the target you want to hit. All fired bullet's are going to rise somewhere until the start to be effected by gravity. No bullet from any cartridge I ever heard of doesn't do that.

 

[MinnesotaHunter]

This has been remarkable. Lots of partially informed solutions being offered.

Depending on what you are doing you may have stumbled into being just fine.

First question....at what range do you want your point of aim and point of impact to be the same? 100, 200, 300? Personally, I like a stadia reticle (elevation hold marks) as I have shot with a Trijicon ACOG for 20 years, so I use a 100yd zero (POA=POI) and use the holdoffs for longer shots. It is really up to you. I do think a 200 or 300yd zero on a hunting rifle is a good practice. Technically, a Point Blank Range Zero is based on a given load's trajectory, your PBR is the max range you can hold center mass and still have the bullet stay in the killzone at the high and low end, so if you decide you want your bullet to impact within an 8" kill zone, your bullet can go as high as 4" above your sight axis, or 4" below. There are online calculators that will fit the ballistic profile of your load to your acceptable window, and tell your your MPBR and the offset for zeroing. Someone earlier mentioned the Army's zeroing information. The Army zeros at 25m (prioritizing range throughput) and depending on the platform M16 or M4 uses an MPBR between 275-300m. This roughly equates to a close zero of 75yds.

Once you figure that out, and settle on a load, plug it into a ballistic calculator and figure out what your offset is at 100yds (or 80 if that is all you have), then adjust your point of impact to the correct offset (example 1.5" high at 80, so your POI is dead on at 200yds if that is what you want), and then fine tune at 200.

If you were shooting multiple loads at 80 in the first picture, that is a fine group. Often different loads will string vertically. Your left/right dispersion looked good. As long as the wind was dead it looks like you could make a slight adjustment left (~1MOA).