ORIGINAL: gpzyellow
gander mountain told me today that they would mount and bore site my bushnell scope onto my cva optima gun for $17.50. Is it worth the expence to have this done? How much time will it save me considering the loading and cleaning time to site it in myself? Thanks for you help this forum has been a wealth of wisdom for me and I truly appreciate having somewhere to get my question answered.
Hate to say this, but, NO, it is NOT worth $17.50.
After they "bore sight it", it will still need for you to finish sighting it in at the range you choose for this. The best you can expect from a well-done boresighting job is that the first shot will be on paper someplace at 100 yards, if you are lucky!
If you mount your scope, then start off and fire your first shot at the center of a 12"X12" or larger piece of cardboard
25 yards away, I'd be willing to bet that first shot will strike somewhere on that 12"x12"target. Then, you simply make the required scope adjustments to movethe bullet strike to the spot where the crosshairs were pointing when it went "bang".
REMEMBER that at 25 yards, it takes four times as many "clicks" to move the bullet strike the required distance. For example, let's say the rifle was aimed dead on the center of the target at 25 yards when it fired, and the bullet struck dead center horizontally, but 4" high. Assuming your scope has 0.25 MOA(1/4" @ 100 yards) adjustment clicks,16 clicks would berequired to move the bullet 1" at 25 yards.Youknowyou have to come down 4" at 25 to be dead on, so you have to turn your vertical adjustment dial
48 clicks in the"DOWN" direction to do this.
Then, you repeat the process at a 50-yard target, but here, 8 clicks = 1" @ 50. Then you shoot at 100 yards, (4 clicks -1" here.) or wherever you chose for the final zero range.
IF you are a halfway decent shot, you can zero your rifle with three shots, two of which you'd have to fire anyway (50 yd & 100 yd). One bullet, one cap, and one charge of powder cossts a lot less than &17.50. So does 10 shots, if it turns out that you need that many to do the job.
Remember, NO-ONE CAN ZERO YOUR RIFLE FOR YOU-YOU MUST DO THIS YOURSELF if you plan on hitting anything!