earlly

I was told you could zero a 30.06 at 25 yards to hit 1-1/4 inches low and you could hold dead on up to 300 yards. Has anyone tried this and what are the results? Thanks for your input.

hometheaterman

Yes, there are just too many variables. I've also found loads to shoot off to one side at 100 yards even when shooting dead center at 25 yards. I've also found others that shoot way differently I'd have expected. You really need to sight it in for the distance you are going to be hunting.

nchawkeye

Before you shoot at an animal at any range you should have practiced at that range...

As far as "holding dead on"...What are you trying to hit??? Sure you might hit a deer, but a groundhog???

Let's say you sight in a .243, 100gr bullet 2 1/2 inches high at 100 yards...At 225-250 it is "dead on"...At 300 yards it will hit about 4 inches low...At points in between 25-275 yards that bullet will be anywhere from dead on to 3 inches high or 3 inches low...This will allow you to hit a deer, but it's not really "dead on"...

Make sense???

One constant in rifle shooting is gravity, it always works...

It's fine to start sighting in at a short distance like 25 yards but you should always move the target out to longer ranges and fine tune your zero...


What you described is an old wive's tale that started back during WW-II...During basic training the range instructors would tell their raw recruits they could sight in their rifles at 25 yards or so and hit a human at 300...

Wingbone

When we sight a new rifle in, we'll start at 25 yd. A center hit at 25 will usually result in a hit close to center at 100 yd. A hit an inch and a quarter low at 25 yd., I would expect result in the rifle being about 5" low at 100, and approx. 15" low at 300 yd.

Nomercy448

This is actually a VERY common occurrence. We all like to believe that our scope mounts/bases, rings, scopes, erector tubes, barrels, and actions are all machined perfectly, but such is not the case. Lateral "drift" is very common. We sight in at 100yrds, essentially matching up an intersection between the straightline of the bore, and the straightline of the center of the scope. If these two lines were perfectly matched, the shots would track perfectly straight, showing no windage shift across different ranges.

However, we know real world weapons are NOT perfectly machined, and we know that our bore, action, mounts, and scope will not all perfectly line up on the same centerline.

So what we're dealing with is a long skinny "X" with the centerline of the bore/bullet's flight path tracing out one line, and the centerline of the scope tracing out the other. Granted, poorly stabilized bullets will actually CURVE during flight, but for the sake of simplicity, we can't always account for that mathematically.

Over short distances, typically this isn't too noticeable, but over LONG ranges, a load might be an inch or two RIGHT at a shorter range than zero, then an inch or two LEFT at a range LONGER than zero.

However, if you sight in at 25yrds, your "X" becomes shorter/fatter than it might be if you sighted in at 100yrds. So if you're on target at 25yrds, then 1" to the right at 100yrds, that's 4" to the right at 300yrds. However, if you were ON at 100yrds with the same deviation, you'd be off by .25" at 25yrds to the RIGHT, but then only 1" at 300yrds. (Granted, that's 1/3" deviation between the bore and scope centerline, which is exaggerated, but you get the picture.)

earlly

Thanks everyone for the great input. It was very helpful. This is a great fourm.