%0 cal CVA hunter bolt , used 2 50 gr pellets with power belt sabots and did not mhit paper at 20 yards. Shot 7 times and do not know where bullets went? Is a muzzel harder to sight in than a shotgun?/ Any help appreciated.

You just found out why some people choose to bore sight their newly scoped rifles (centerfire or muzzleloader), it would've saved you from shooting $10 worth of PowerBelts into the dirt.

When I recently scoped my inline, I set up a target of 20"x30" paper at 10 yards and when I walked 'em into bullseye, I could then move back to 25, 50 then 100 yards to tweak the scope adjustment using loads that grouped the best.

Thanks for tip. I just spent an hour cleaning my rifle. Will go out next chance I get and use your technique. Thanks

I use both the "look down the barrel" and the optical bore sighter for fresh scope mounts. After that I take them to the range along with a large piece (refrigerator box size, 2 sides) of cardboard and set the targets mounted on the cardboard at 50 yds and let one rip. From that point I will adjust the scope (gun in a Lohman sight vise) from the bull (original point of aim) to the point of impact of the 1st round. Sometimes this is not possible as the error is far to great to make up on the w/e of the dials. at that point you have to start playing with the mount or the load to correct the error. I would say that 99% of the time the bore sight is within 6". Once you have the gun on the paper, fine tune and then check your grouping and play with different loads to see how your gun handles them. I find that this system allows you to "play" longer rather than spend the entire session trying to figure out where the bullets are flying to.

on any bolt type rifle I use the same as Rodsmith; I take the bolt out and set the gun in a gun vise and look down the barrell to get it close,then adjust the scope to that and go to the range.most of the time you can get it to within 5 or 6" to start with.

the rest is fun !!!!

I am not a hunter I am a whitetail population reduction specialest

remember keep your back to the sun, your knife sharp, and your powder dry.

Two years ago, my friend brought his CVA inline .54 caliber with the same problem. He mounted a scope, and could not find where it was hitting. So we took out the bolt, and put it in a vice. Then we took a large piece of cardboard and painted a 5" red circle on it. We moved the target at 20 yards to where it looked lined up looking through the barrel. Then we moved the scope to the center of the red circle. When we finally got it all put back together, we began shooting. We knew the gun liked 100 grains of loose Pyrodex Select, and 300 grain LEE conical ballets. The scope was about 5 inches off. It was then a matter of tuning the scope to the rifle. After it was set, we cleaned the rifle, and I was impressed at the groups he was shooting at 50 yards after that. It seemed to be a nice shooting rifle, although it did like to push a little if you put more then 100 grains of Pyrodex in it. Good Shooting

Ok I used big cardboard and started seeing shot locations and adjusted scope and now am getting groups near the center of target. Next question, In order to clean gun I must remove scope. Do I mark the base where the rings attach then just slide scope back to its mark? Is this correct or is there another way. Thanks for the help.

What kind of scope mounting system is on your rifle? Some are much, much better than others at returning to zero. If you have to loosen more than one fastener per ring (at the base of the ring), you'll likely have troubles with losing zero.

I got so tired of doing the re-zero after cleaning that I checked out the Cleanshot...........Boy am I glad I did!!! No more messy BS, I clean from the breech end with the scope intact and its a breeze. There are attachments that you can use to clean with the scope on. Depending on your gun.