What's your preferred method of bore sighting your scope?

[308pirate]

Six or half a dozen. It's your choice. But in my experience it's a lot more precise and efficient to physically measure. It cuts a lot of the fluff out of the process. Of course you will get there measuring with the scope but it's not always as efficient as measuring the old fashion way

So let me get this straight, you think it's more efficient to: get up, walk all the way to the target, measure with a ruler, convert to angular units, walk all the way back to the rifle, lay back down and rebuild your position, then adjust the scope and fire again

Instead of: stay in position behind the rifle, measure the offset between POI and POA with a reticle that's already setup in the same angular units as the turrets and is right in front of your eyes, adjust turrets and fire again?

EL Oh EL

 

[308pirate]

If you have a FFP scope with sub tensions you are good

It can just as easily be done with a SFP scope with reticle subtensions.

 

[308pirate]

Back to the subject at hand.........

I have a basement with a clear 10 yd span. I run my ballistics from 10 yds to my chosen zero distance (often, but not always, 100 yds). I stick a laser boresighter in the muzzle and and adjust scope until reticle is centered horizontally on the dot and displaced vertically to match the 10 yd dope.

At the range, I'll set up a tall paper target (the reverse of NRA smallbore prone targets work great for this) at 100 yds with a small aiming reference on it. 2 - 3 rounds later I'm zeroed. And I don't have to walk downrange at all. If the scope I'm zeroing doesn't have enough magnification and/or a reticle with subtensions, I'll staple a mil or moa grid target on 8 1/2x11 paper to the tall brown paper (the ruler) and use a 25X Kowa spotter.

 

[alamo5000]

So let me get this straight, you think it's more efficient to: get up, walk all the way to the target, measure with a ruler, convert to angular units, walk all the way back to the rifle, lay back down and rebuild your position, then adjust the scope and fire again

Instead of: stay in position behind the rifle, measure the offset between POI and POA with a reticle that's already setup in the same angular units as the turrets and is right in front of your eyes, adjust turrets and fire again?

EL Oh EL

You are misunderstanding the process but regardless you can use whatever method you like.

For my way: Put your target at 25 yards (or some other known distance that is close). You don't have to get insane with the building of positions and all that. A sled or a bipod with bags, or a simple bag works fine. The main thing is you keep your gun level. Having the gun level and having a level line on the target matters so just putting a random target up there can work but not as good as getting everything fairly square when putting it all up.

Fire one shot. Walk 75 feet up to the target and measure on the X-Y how much you are off. If you are 3" to the right and 1" high you need to adjust 12 MOA to the left and 4 MOA low (if the desired zero is 100 yards). "Breaking your position" and all that other stuff has zero bearing on it because you only fire a single shot. Going up and measuring takes a lot of the guess work out of it and it works for me because 95% of the time you are not 3 inches off. You are 2 1/8th inches off or something not even.

Taking the time to put a level line on the paper does take time. So does making sure the target is level.

Adjust the scope once then go back to the hundred yard line and verify. The entirety of the process is what matters.

Keep in mind that when I zero optics half of the time it's for other people. Often they have hunting reticles without hash marks. Or it can be a .22 rimfire scope without all the hash marks. Or it can have a number of other things going on there. With that being the case how would anyone know what kind of adjustment to apply? Some scopes require taking the caps off the turrets and to adjust with a screw driver. These are a PITA to work with. So I measure and get a flat head screw driver and I know exactly what I am supposed to be doing.

If you have someone or some way to hold the rifle still while another person dials the optic over you can skip all the measuring. But if not, measuring will save a ton of time and effort.

 

[308pirate]

You are misunderstanding the process but regardless you can use whatever method you like.

For my way: Put your target at 25 yards (or some other known distance that is close). You don't have to get insane with the building of positions and all that. A sled or a bipod with bags, or a simple bag works fine. The main thing is you keep your gun level. Having the gun level and having a level line on the target matters so just putting a random target up there can work but not as good as getting everything fairly square when putting it all up.

Fire one shot. Walk 75 feet up to the target and measure on the X-Y how much you are off. If you are 3" to the right and 1" high you need to adjust 12 MOA to the left and 4 MOA low (if the desired zero is 100 yards). "Breaking your position" and all that other stuff has zero bearing on it because you only fire a single shot. Going up and measuring takes a lot of the guess work out of it and it works for me because 95% of the time you are not 3 inches off. You are 2 1/8th inches off or something not even.

Taking the time to put a level line on the paper does take time. So does making sure the target is level.

Adjust the scope once then go back to the hundred yard line and verify. The entirety of the process is what matters.

Keep in mind that when I zero optics half of the time it's for other people. Often they have hunting reticles without hash marks. Or it can be a .22 rimfire scope without all the hash marks. Or it can have a number of other things going on there. With that being the case how would anyone know what kind of adjustment to apply? Some scopes require taking the caps off the turrets and to adjust with a screw driver. These are a PITA to work with. So I measure and get a flat head screw driver and I know exactly what I am supposed to be doing.

If you have someone or some way to hold the rifle still while another person dials the optic over you can skip all the measuring. But if not, measuring will save a ton of time and effort.

LOL

 

[impactaddict]

I'm lazy...

1. Single 1" dot on an all white target at 100y. 24"x24" works well.
2. remove bolt (AR15 remove upper from lower and remove BCG), look through barrel, find paper, and use dot as reference if you can see it through the barrel.
3. without disturbing rifle, adjust reticle to 1" dot... repeat 2& 3 till approximately correct.
4. fire shot aiming at 1" dot, you will not hit the dot but the shot will land on the paper.
5. Keeping the same point of aim (1" dot) adjust reticle to bullet hole.
6. repeat 4 & 5 till shots land in dot.. usually 3-5 rounds total for me.

 

[Leland T]

When we talk about measuring I would assume most people here are referring to counting the 1 inch squares on their target from the seated or prone position to determine their adjustment. Personally I use sub tensions and if I am reasonably close after two or three shots I'm 0n to the 50 yard because my scopes are not perfectly clear at 25

 

[Greg Langelius *]

Center the bull in the bore at 100yd, adjust reticle to about 1" above center of bull. Fire confirmation rounds to refine zero. An X about 6" tall can be substituted for the bull as long as the X is bold enough to see through the bore.

I have quipped all my LR capable rifles with Bushnell AR Drop Zone BDC Scopes. Once zeroed at 1000yd, the additional aim points on the reticles are also good at 200, 300, 400, 500, and 600yd (exception 6.5M scope has aim points to 850yd, which I use for my 260). No knob manipulation is needed. Ranging/aiming is done at max magnification.

Unfortunately; these scopes have recently been dropped from the line by the manufacturer. The ones I have were Korean made. Some stock is still available from a few retailers.

They have been replaced by scopes which are supplied with additional elevation knobs for various chamberings. These scopes do require knob manipulation.

Greg