buckmaster68

I have been told as a general rule for most calibers if you sight in dead on at 20 yards it should be close to being dead on or close at 200 yards. What is everyones opinion on this?

SHoNUFF

i start out at 25yards-zero, then to 100yards zero, then out to 200yards just to see where shot placement is. i useually dont go over 100 on the zero. I have sighted in out to 400yards once but that was HARD and a pain because the open range has crazy crosswinds.

stubblejumper

That is not at all true.A 20 yard sight in could resultin enough errorfora complete miss at 200 yards.The only way to do a proper sight in at 200 yards is to shoot the gun at 200 yards.

Roskoe

The 25 yard zero can work out pretty good if your scope isn't on high mounts. If so, however, you couldwind upbeing 6" high at 100 yards - which doesn't sound real bad until you look atwhere you are hitting at around 250 yards. My "one size fits all" zero is 3" high at 100 yards. For everything from a .50 muzzle loader to a .30-378 Weatherby, it seems to represent best practical field zero for the trajectory/maximum effective rangeof the big game rifle. Varmint hunting is, of course, a whole different ball game.

texagun

The late Jack O'Connor, gunwriter and hunter, always recommended an initial sighting in at 25 yds, but he emphasized that you should re-check your zero at 100 yds to verify that you are on target. The following chart is from one of his publications showing what you can expect when sighting in at 25 yds. I have used it several times and it has always been close.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y46/w5lx/SightinginTable-3.jpg

missed_another

this is called your first and second zero. but every caliber is differant. for example a .223 with a 45 grain lead will be dead on around 40 yards this is first zero and dead again around 200 yards being the second zero. but you still have to make the final adjustments. another example is a heavier and slower bullet. being a 35 remington. with a 200 grain lead your first zero is about 15 yards to have a second zero about the 200 yards mark. your numbers probably would work on a certain gun but i have no idea which one without going threw the books. the general idea works on every gun but the number are differant.

stubblejumper

This depends greatlyon how high the crosshairs are above the bore and to a lesser extent on the ballistic co-efficient of the bullet used and the velocity delivered by the load..With some mounts and with some loads it will be very close,but with others,it may not be close at all.

skeeter 7MM

Agreed, the only true way is to shoot the rifle/load at the distances you intend to hunt.

Solitary Man

As others have mentioned there's simply too many variables in play to assume you're going to be dead on (or even close) at a greater distance if you're dead on at a lesser distance. You have to actually shoot at the longer distance to know exactly where your bullet will impact.

DANTHEHUNTER

This is the method uesed by the army to get there first sight picture for new recuits. At least when i went through that is what we did. The targets were made to represent the size of target picture you would get at 300 meters. This was a good starting point and it made you see what your target look like at that range ." Open sights" it was small!!!! I like it because you can get your rifle to good starting point with out wasting alot of ammo. Good luck