Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Final pre-season zero check

My son and I just got back home from the rifle range. Mule deer season starts Saturday morning.

His 6mm Rem with the 3.5-10x Leupold is nicely sighted-in at 200 yards. The load hasn't changed in years:

48 grains of RL-22 with a 95 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip at 3,000 fps



I had the 25-06 Rem with a 6x Leupold, also sighted-in at 200 yards. And used my standard near-max load of Retumbo with the 115 gr Nosler Ballistic Tip "Blue Cyclone" at 3120 fps.



Both are proven loads. After checking the 200 yard zeros, we had a blast banging my steel gong at 300 yards from sitting and prone. There were a few misses, but mostly hits at that range on steel.

Looking forward to the hunting season, and perhaps we'll put some venison in the freezer!

Guy

Looks like you guys are good to go. It's nice to have peace of mind about it for sure. I just did the same thing this week, since we had some cool weather push through. My setup is a Mcwhorter 7-08, 140 AB's @ 2820fps, sighted 2" high at 100, or dead nuts at 220 yds. Reason being I'm using the same VX3 with a B&C reticle. Sighting in this way puts the hashes dead on at 300, 400, 450, and 500 (top of thick, bottom vertical post.) Just for grins it also wears a custom CDS dial for these ballistics. Holdovers and POI's all verified. Peace of mind for me as well, and lots of fun in the meantime. When the wind cooperates it is very easy.

Good luck to you guys, and everyone else for that matter.

Did mine today too with the new Barrett Fieldcraft.

shot cold bore shot, hit perfect

set it down and sighted in a buddies old Remy 742 with the crapiest Bushnell scope I have ever seen, finally got it "on" at 100.

went back to the Barrett, fired another cold round, hit a half inch next to the first. I ran \ a couple dry patches through it and wont touch it till after the season.

BTW - love the new "Montana Sling" on my 25-06, I thought I'd give one a try after decades of using the ol' leather military-style sling.

I still like the military sling, but this "Montana Sling" does everything I need for a hunting rifle. I'll likely get a couple more so I don't have to swap it around between various rifles!

Guy

I’m gonna check some Sunday. I like sighting in a rifle. I do it at the deer lease. I hate rifle ranges. One of the rifles I’m sighting in is a 25-06 built by Iver Henriksen. I have some 115 Nosler Ballistic tips to try. I’ve always used 120 Grand Slams in it.

Good luck on your hunts

There's no "season" for being prepared.
All my rifles are always zerod.

I have been having a ton of trouble sighting in my muzzleloader (but my Tikka T3 is a beaut', ready to go 2 weeks after black powder opener!). I even sent my scope in to Vortex and they fast tracked me a brand new one. Even still I have been having nothing but issues getting it to group. I will cloverleaf 3 shots at 100 yards, no joke, and then my 4th and 5th shots will be 5" away. I've never had this problem with the same rifle and mount, same type of powder and bullets.

Tomorrow I am going to set up 3 targets and shoot 3 cold/clean bore shots at them. If I hit with a couple inches of bullseye on all 3 shots, I am going to be DONE. The range is as long as my field of view for my black powder ground blind spot so I'm not going to be using the 100-yard zero to take a shot at 200 or anything like that. I think my plan of action is to buy a new rifle, new mount, new scope for 2018.

Good luck on your hunt.... 1 shot 1 kill....

Ah yes, a day on the shooting range is s good day indeed....Good luck on your hunting season.....Hb

Will keep an eye on the weather but we'll probably head out the 21st or 28th for one last range session.

I did my last pre season checkup yesterday... did a lot of scope shuffling the last few months. Proven optics, proven rifles just rearranging them for their purpose and the results were good!