Back when I was starting to play with rifles and I'd want to sight in a rifle, the old-timers would tell me that I didn't need to go to 100 yards. Just get a really good sight-in at 25 yards and that would suffice for any reasonable range out to the limits of normal hunting.
I was reading a forum today and someone asked that same question; if I sight in at 25 yards, how close will I be at 100?
That's kind of generic, because we don't know how well the guy can shoot, but I started thinking about those old-timers, so I ran some of my hunting loads through my ballistic computer and found something interesting.
My standard .30-06 load, the one that I used for hunting this year, features a Nosler Ballistic tip bullet at about 2900 fps. With a 25 yard zero, I'd be up nearly three inches at 200 yards and down nearly four inches at 300 yards. That's certainly good enough to put a bullet in a game animal's rib cage.
With a standard .30-30 load (150 grain bullet) and a good 25 yard zero, you'd be up a little over an inch at 100 yards, down a little over 2 inches at 150 yards, and that's just about what you'd expect from that caliber.
Those old-timers knew what they were talking about.
Just remimber to flip the rear sight to long range before shooting the 300m qualification course.
ReplyDeleteEd Jones
I sight in my 6.5x55 for about .75" low @ 25 yds, which is about 2" high at 100yds. It's pretty much dead on @ 200 yds, 4" low @ 250. From 0-250 yds I don't worry about high or low on a deer's side.
ReplyDeletethat is how we did our initial sight-in with our M 14, 43 years ago.
ReplyDeleteYep, battle zero still works for even civilian rifles. I was taught zeroing on an M-1 many years ago, and I was amazed how close it was
ReplyDeleteWorks a treat with iron sights but scopes can have parallax issues at close range. There are offset issues with scopes that can come up too. It's always best to test after initial sight in using this procedure at 100 where the parallax is correct for most big game scopes to make sure of your zero. Saves a lot of time getting the scope on paper though and usually gets you pretty close.
ReplyDeleteI dunno 'bout the oldsters, I'm only 65, but I discovered about forty or so years ago that any rifle chambered for a main battle cartridge* or equivalent will be more or less point blank to 250-300 yards with it's standard military load or a hunting load closely replicating it, using the battle sight designed for that load. I suppose in another fifteen or so years, I'll be getting scopes for my hunting rifles, but so far no need.
ReplyDelete*6.5mm (.264" 130 gr. min.) to 8mm (.323" 150 gr. min.)
Gerry N.