Hello All,

I have always thought that when you scope a rifle anyone can shoot it and the bullet will end up in about the same place. This weekend I shot my buddies gun and at 70 yards I was hitting 8" high and 3" to the right. I shot a three shot group and the group was tight and consistent. My friend was able to put the bullets all in the 3" ring around the bullseye.

What is going on here?

Both of us shoot with one eye.

Thanks
Tom

I read about this a while ago, so my explanation may be off a little.

The scope isn't mounted straight. There is a slight imperfection which is based upon the way your friend holds the rifle. It could be where he mounts his cheek, or how he grips the stock. Whatever. Anyway, he shoots well at 100 yards because it is sighted in there. At longer distances, the problem should be more pronounced for him.

For you, the problem is well pronounced at 100 yards because you hold the rifle altogether differently.

I hope I've said this right. I bet there are guys here who will point out errors I've made, or whatever, but I think I got the jist of it.

Only thing that can vary is parallax. But parallax would have to be way off. And only thing I have seen were its off that much is with a tasco scope with Adjustable objective. The stupid thing wouldn't focus unless you moved the abjective but the objective was supposed to be the paralax adjustment. wierd.

Other than that, thats is it. 8" is entirely out of wack.

Parallax can cause different points of impact at distances other than the distance at where the parallax is adjusted for,however the amount of difference is far more than parallax can explain.I have seen this situation before and there are acouple of likelypossibilities.Are you both resting the stock on the rest?Is one of you resting the barrel on the rest?Resting the barrel is poor practise as it can cause a very different point of impact.The other likelypossibility is that one of you has terrible shooting form and is pulling the gun off target as you pull the trigger.To determine which of you it is ,have a few other people fire the gun and most likely their points of impact will be very close to one of yours but not the other.I helped a fellow that was scared of recoil sight in his rifle and after sighting it in perfectly he fired the gun only to find ithigh and to the side byseveral inches.Another shooter fired the gun andhis point of impact was the same as mine.He still wouldn't believe me so yet another person fired the gun with the same results as myself and the other shooter.Only then would he believe me about his flinch.

I'm not saying it isn't possible that I was the one who has the poor shooting form but I can say that compared to my friend I am certified military sniper so if anyone has the bad form it has to be him.

Can anyone speak to what etothepii said about the scope not being mounted straight? Is this legit. I know how to fix this problem but it is going to have to wait till after the season.

Thanks for the info so far.

Tom

The scope not being mounted perfectly straight is not going to be a significant factor.I have mounted scopes on many rifles and even those that required a great deal of windage adjustment did not cause any such problems.If you have access to another rifle,you can test to see if the results are the same,since if one of you has a big flinch,it will usually be present with most guns.I had the big flincher that I mentioned in the previous post shoot my .223 and the results were exactly the same for the first few shots but faded somewhat when he realized that there was no significant recoil.He spent a great deal of time shooting a 22 and this seemed to help although he still has a slight flinch.I have seen othe people flinch though not as bad but all were right handed shooters and in every case the point of impact was to the right andoften high.

This is "not" uncommon. As was said, it's more than 99% about the difference in "people" and less than 1% in the gun/scope ect....

I can't count how many times i've seen this before, and it's why i would NEVER sight a rifle (or any thing else) in for another person. I always just get it close, and then "insist" that they shoot it while i make the final ajustments.

Drilling Man

Ok, explain how its possible if parallax free? Other than flinching. And very consistent flinching at that.

I would like to hear that explanation as well.Myself andmy current hunting partners have fired each others guns,and although groups size varies,they all shoot to the same point of aim reguardless of who is firing them.

From what i've seen, some hold there guns tighter, some looser. They put the butt of the gun in different places on the shoulder, and hold there hand on different places on the forearm. The other day, my neighbor was holding so far up the forend he was on the bbl.!!

You already mentioned flinching....

I've even see many folks holding there guns slanted instead of straight up.

Most have never had formal gun training, and have learned a huge amount of "bad" habits...

Drilling Man