zeroing your rifle

[gaseousclay]

I still need to buy some extra tools for my rifle, but I was wondering if I really need all of the gadgets I'm seeing on the market. I've watched several videos from midwayusa.com and some of what they show seem necessary, but others don't. for example, a scope level seems practical enough, but what about stuff like a laser bore guide? what about a torque wrench? I want to zero my rifle at 200 yds so I wanna make sure I do it right the first time, rather than have to go back and fix a potential alignment problem. I'm sure there are plenty of experienced hunters/shooters here, so any advice would be appreciated.

 

[bdev]

Here's how I used to zero in my rifles.

I'm assuming you're using a scope.

Start at 100 yards.
Bench your rifle so it is rock solid on sand bags.
Bore sight your rifle so the target is centered when you look down the bore.
Now, without moving your rifle, align the scope so it is centered onto the target.
Take a shot and see where it hit.
It probably will be close but you'll need to fine tune it.

Now, re-set your rifle on the sand bags so your scope is dead center to the target.

Here's the hard part....
Without moving the rifle, re-align your scope so the cross hairs are centered on the bullet hole.

Once this is done, your next shot should be dead on at 100 yards.

Move on and fine tune at 200 yards.

 

[doublebucklemonk]

I wouldn't worry about a scope level unless you are doing competition shooting or long range varmint hunting. If you have 1 or 2 rifles, a laser bore sighter / collimater isn't necessary. Just bring the rifle/scope to where you bought them and sweet talk them into collimating it for you. If you bought it online etc. and it is a bolt action, you can still get by without one. At the range, set up a 100yd target. Setup the rifle in a vice or with sand bags etc so it is VERY sturdy. Remove the bolt. From the rear of the rifle, look through the barrel and line it up with the 100 yard target. Then without moving the gun, adjust the scope. If you are a hands on kind of guy and like to work on your own stuff, anticipate changing scope setups frequently, have quite a few guns etc. it might be worth your while to pick up a collimater of some sort. My father was a gunsmith for 40 years and never used a torque wrench.

If you feel like spending some money on firearm accessories, you are better off spending it on something like a nice quality Dewey cleaning rod, or a set of Bonanza screwdrivers.

 

[garyg]

I still need to buy some extra tools for my rifle, but I was wondering if I really need all of the gadgets I'm seeing on the market. I've watched several videos from midwayusa.com and some of what they show seem necessary, but others don't. for example, a scope level seems practical enough, but what about stuff like a laser bore guide? what about a torque wrench? I want to zero my rifle at 200 yds so I wanna make sure I do it right the first time, rather than have to go back and fix a potential alignment problem. I'm sure there are plenty of experienced hunters/shooters here, so any advice would be appreciated.

You never need all the gadgets, they sometimes make things a bit easier, but usually aren't necessary (but Midway sends me a big catalog every year anyway). The level isn't required, eyeball is good enough. The bore guide likewise isn't required, but might save some ammo on sighting in, by getting you closer before firing the first shot. But part of why you got it is to shoot right? DBM's method works just as well. And you don't need a 200 yard range either, you can tell from a ballistics chart for your load how high you want it at 100 to be dead on at 200 ... you'll also want to consider what you are hunting & where. For example, a .270 Winchester 140g can be sighted in so it is never more than 3" high or low from the muzzle out to 297 yards, the maximum point blank range, making holdover or under unnecessary on deer sized game ..

 

[delisle]

Here is an even easier way to get the barrel aligned with the scope.

1. Get a piece of paper and draw a 1 inch by 1 inch cross, tape to a wall
2. Remove bolt from your rifle and the rifle place in a rest.
3. Look down the barrel and align the cross like a target on the scope, centered.
4. Make sure the rifle is secure in the rest and use your windage and elevation knobs to center the reticle on the cross on the wall.
5. Viola! You are set to get on paper at 100 yards, fine tune as necessary.

If you want any further info please feel free to PM me.

Edit:It seems doublebucklemonk has already covered my technique in much better detail. My explaination is how I understand things, in a simpler way

 

[Crag]

You never need all the gadgets, they sometimes make things a bit easier, but usually aren't necessary (but Midway sends me a big catalog every year anyway). The level isn't required, eyeball is good enough. The bore guide likewise isn't required, but might save some ammo on sighting in, by getting you closer before firing the first shot.

I find the method with the gadgets is like using a store bought multi-blade razor...It works, but doesn't really teach you HOW.

I prefer to teach my students the sight-scope method, because that way they know HOW to do it and don't need the gadgets to fine tune their weapon, as a matter of course & they can do it pretty easily in the field so long as they remember the basics of precision. My advice is to learn the basics, then buy the gadgets...you can ALWAYS fall back on the basic method, but if all you learn with is advanced technology then the basics will be lost when the gadgets are not around. Just my opinion...

I should note that my dad is a Former Marine Corps Range Instructor, so I know a bit about this subject.

Good luck and keep on shooting!

 

[auk1124]

I use the zeroing technique basically covered already and it works like a charm, only thing I do a bit differently is set up that first target at 25 yards or so, boresight the rifle to the bullseye of the target, then without moving the rifle I adjust the crosshairs to the bullseye. This will get you sometimes surprisingly close to good without firing a single shot. Then to fine tune I put a target at 100 yards and adjust crosshairs to the center of a three shot group.

A scope leveler probably isn't necessary but if you are anal and worry about stuff like that, a level scope may give you some peace of mind if nothing else. A cheap hillbilly way to level the scope is to put your rifle in a rest, level the rifle in the rest from side to side with an angle indicator, then hang a weighted piece of string in front of the rifle. Without touching the rifle, level the vertical crosshair of your scope to the weighted string. Works like a charm.

 

[Slash McCoy]

The doodads aren't needed. What is needed is a pad and pen, and a place where you can shoot at 25 yards or less as well as 100.

FIRST, make sure that your scope is level. The plumb bob method Auk mentioned is good for roughing in a scope to level and this is likely all the precision that you need. If you are using iron sights, make sure that your front post is absolutely top vertical on the rifle. You may have to loosen a setscrew on a lug or flash suppressor or muzzle brake whatever, depending on the type of rifle. The axis of the scope or sights must always be dead vertical over the axis of the bore. Canting will make a big difference, particularly at longer ranges.

If you can't look down the bore and don't have any way to boresight, run the windage and elevation both from one extreme to the other. Count clicks or marks or MOA whatever and set both to dead center. You should be able to look down the plane of the barrel and see that you will at least be on the paper at close range. If you are nervous about it, start out with 10 yards. Shoot and adjust and record. If you are using iron sights and this has never been done, drift your front sight post to right or left to coincide with mechanical zero, i.e. where the windage of the rear sight is halfway from one extreme to the other. THEN fine tune the windage using only the rear sight. Shoot, adjust, record some more. At 25 yards or closer have your point of impact a bit lower than your point of aim to allow for the parallax between bore and scope or sights. Now you should be on the paper at 100 yards. Shoot, adjust, record with the 100 yard target. Repeat as needed.

If your scope or sights have elevation marked in yards, carefully loosen the elevation knob setscrew and set the scale so that the range index is at the 100 yard mark. Tighten it back up, shoot some more to verify that you didn't disturb the sight or scope elevation, and you can now set your elevation for a shot by the estimated or known range to target and be spot-on, elevation wise. Returning your el knob to the 100 yard setting will now put you on at 100. Moving it to the 300 yard mark should magically put you on at 300. Now you can quickly adjust for a 50 yard or a 450 yard shot without holdover/under. Clean your bore, and shoot one last string with a cool, clean rifle and with the exact brand and type of ammo you will be shooting in the field, preferably from the same lot or batch. Now you can count on your rifle to put it where you aim it at any range within the inherent capability of the weapon and round. While you are there, LEAVING YOUR ADJUSTMENTS ALONE, go ahead and get some practice in, shooting from any and all positions you are likely to use in the field. Be comfortable with your weapon, and confident with it.

While you have your pad and pen handy, record the reticule marks of your scope vs range vs the height of a deer or whatever game size animal and this will help you to accurately estimate range, if your scope does not already have a graduation system that you can use for this. Remember, there are many many situations where windage is not an issue at all, but elevation is ALWAYS an issue, so if vertical placement of your shot is critical, you must have a usably accurate range to target to work with. Practice ranging deer (or people or whatever) using your scope. Remember to always use the same power setting on a variable, when ranging.

I first learned most of this on the iron-sighted M-14 but it applies to many other systems. Since you recorded your settings, you have a starting point next time you do this.

 

[Rossmeister]

To be frank, I didn't read the posts above me. This is what you need when zeroing your weapon:

- Iron sights

- Whatever sights you intend to add to that (scope etc)

- Support (sand is awesome, backpack is good, as long as it's really supportive )

- Appropriate target at appropriate distance


If you want to, you can zero your iron sights and scope at different ranges, but if you're going hunting, there's really no need (unless you can use the iron sights separately, that is, if the scope is not in the way). Fire three rounds at the target, make sure you have proper support. Don't leave the weapon unheld on the support, and don't use a contraption to zero. It's you who's going to be firing, and it's you who should be zeroing the way you're gonna be shooting. Keep firing three and three rounds until you get a solid grouping without flukes, then adjust.

Repeat with the scope.

That's it. It's not so hard, really.

 

[commanderkeen]

To be frank, I didn't read the posts above me. This is what you need when zeroing your weapon:

- Iron sights

- Whatever sights you intend to add to that (scope etc)

- Support (sand is awesome, backpack is good, as long as it's really supportive )

- Appropriate target at appropriate distance


If you want to, you can zero your iron sights and scope at different ranges, but if you're going hunting, there's really no need (unless you can use the iron sights separately, that is, if the scope is not in the way). Fire three rounds at the target, make sure you have proper support. Don't leave the weapon unheld on the support, and don't use a contraption to zero. It's you who's going to be firing, and it's you who should be zeroing the way you're gonna be shooting. Keep firing three and three rounds until you get a solid grouping without flukes, then adjust.

Repeat with the scope.

That's it. It's not so hard, really.

You really don't need that solid a grouping to begin with, for fine tuning it helps. The way we did it in the army (finland) was to take the average impact point of a 3-5 shot cluster from a prone position and adjust from there. This was on iron-sights, but as above, the procedure is unchanged for scopes.

 

[Rossmeister]

You really don't need that solid a grouping to begin with, for fine tuning it helps. The way we did it in the army (finland) was to take the average impact point of a 3-5 shot cluster from a prone position and adjust from there. This was on iron-sights, but as above, the procedure is unchanged for scopes.

Interesting!

We never did this in the Norwegian army, except for very fine tuning at 200 metres. I mean like, within a centre (10 point) variation.

We zeroed our rifles (G3s) at 30 metres. The trajectory has the same height at 30 and 200 metres.

I'm interested to know, did you shoot very accurately after zeroing in that way? I should think a hunting rifle should DEFINITELY be zeroed with initial groupings. If you have a scope, you should have but one hole!

I know that the Finnish RK is not as accurate as the G3 variants, but then I would've thought even more reason to zero it accurately from the get go. I also know that the RK serves a different purpose than the 7.62 G3 and the 5.56 HK416, so I'm not really surprised.

From what I know, the penetration characteristics of the RK even works very well in forests, which I was surprised to hear.

EDIT
I'm speaking with marksmanship in mind. it's totally fine to adjust by average impact point on many weapons an many shooters. What's your personal best at whatever long-distance the Finnish armed forces fire at? With the 416, I have 50 points (five rounds) at 200 m.

 

[commanderkeen]

Interesting!

We never did this in the Norwegian army, except for very fine tuning at 200 metres. I mean like, within a centre (10 point) variation.

We zeroed our rifles (G3s) at 30 metres. The trajectory has the same height at 30 and 200 metres.

I'm interested to know, did you shoot very accurately after zeroing in that way? I should think a hunting rifle should DEFINITELY be zeroed with initial groupings. If you have a scope, you should have but one hole!

I know that the Finnish RK is not as accurate as the G3 variants, but then I would've thought even more reason to zero it accurately from the get go. I also know that the RK serves a different purpose than the 7.62 G3 and the 5.56 HK416, so I'm not really surprised.

From what I know, the penetration characteristics of the RK even works very well in forests, which I was surprised to hear.

EDIT
I'm speaking with marksmanship in mind. it's totally fine to adjust by average impact point on many weapons an many shooters. What's your personal best at whatever long-distance the Finnish armed forces fire at? With the 416, I have 50 points (five rounds) at 200 m.

We were shooting from 150 m. The RK-62 is good for a 3cm diameter grouping at 100m. At 150 m my best prone score was 46, granted the guns we are issued are not that well taken care of, go through a new user every 6-12 months and some can be 50 years old. My model was from 84, and this was 1.5 years ago. The Finnish RK-62 is regarded as one of the finest military issue AK variants in the world. The penetration of a FMJ is if I recall correctly 30cm of fresh wood, 50cm of dry, 100cm of packed sand. Effective range for the RK is 350m, which in a forest (primary use) is more then enough. If a war breaks out, I'm glad we are packing RKs because of the reliability and ease of maintenance.

 

[Nishnabotna]

Start at 25M instead of 100M.
I was watching someone try to sight their rifle last weekend. At 100M it wasn't even hitting paper, so that makes it much harder to figure out where you are - especially if you haven't done this before. If this is a rifle that you haven't shot before and/or just added a new sight/scope you don't really know where it will hit and to me this is easier than trying to boresight.

Something that will make things much easier for you now, and forever, is to understand Minute of Angle, what that means to you and your sights, and how to use it to adjust your sights for any range.

I'm a big believer in Project Appleseed. Attend one of their weekend instructions if you can.

 

[jkingrph]

Here's how I used to zero in my rifles.

I'm assuming you're using a scope.

Start at 100 yards.
Bench your rifle so it is rock solid on sand bags.
Bore sight your rifle so the target is centered when you look down the bore.
Now, without moving your rifle, align the scope so it is centered onto the target.
Take a shot and see where it hit.
It probably will be close but you'll need to fine tune it.

Now, re-set your rifle on the sand bags so your scope is dead center to the target.

Here's the hard part....
Without moving the rifle, re-align your scope so the cross hairs are centered on the bullet hole.

Once this is done, your next shot should be dead on at 100 yards.

Move on and fine tune at 200 yards.

That's the procedure I follow with one exception, Start at 25 yards, fire the one shot as directed and reset rifle, and carefully adjust crosshairs to concincide with bullet hole. Now fire another shot and make sure it hits where crosshair is aligned on target, If not repeat adjustment procedure. Then fire a 3 or 5 shot group to make sure everything is as you wish.

By initally zeroing at 25 yards you should be zeroed at a little bit over 200 yards, in fact for most cartridges pushing a bullet at 2700-3200 fps you should be able to aim for the kill zone on most animals out to about 250 yards and score a good hit.

If you want an absolute zero at 200, again use 3 to 5 shot groups and adjust until the group centers where you want it.

I've been doing this about 60 years now, and think all you need to do is adjust scope to your eyes, you can eyeball scope level, no need for fancy levels, and just use a coin for scope adjustments.

 

[binowatch]

Deslile and MG have it down the way I do it-start with the Des method and then fine tune with the MG method. No need for fancy tools and you don't waste ammo. If your scope is way off at first the MG method may not work-hence start the other way and the fine tune.

 

[Rossmeister]

We were shooting from 150 m. The RK-62 is good for a 3cm diameter grouping at 100m. At 150 m my best prone score was 46, granted the guns we are issued are not that well taken care of, go through a new user every 6-12 months and some can be 50 years old. My model was from 84, and this was 1.5 years ago. The Finnish RK-62 is regarded as one of the finest military issue AK variants in the world. The penetration of a FMJ is if I recall correctly 30cm of fresh wood, 50cm of dry, 100cm of packed sand. Effective range for the RK is 350m, which in a forest (primary use) is more then enough. If a war breaks out, I'm glad we are packing RKs because of the reliability and ease of maintenance.

Uh, it penetrates a metre of packed sand and only 30-50 cm of wood? Are you sure?

When I was in the army, my rifle was from the seventies. I had no problem shotting accurately with it. Regular maintenance makes a weapon last forever, irregardless of who uses it. I suppose a 3 cm grouping at 100 metres is just fine, especially in the Finnish woods