Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting Rifle Cant

At what range does rifle cant really start to cause issues?

Was at a Highpower shoot this weekend and noticed that in the standing position - quite a few shooters end up with quite the rifle cant to their left as they line up on the target. Wondering if the yardage is such that it just doesn't come into play?

It also doesn't matter if it's accounted for.

In High Power, most riflemen keep a scorebook. In each section or shooting position, offhand sitting and prone, their zero is recorded, many shooters may have a different zero for each position. As some examples, offhand no sling is used and maybe some cant...likely a different poi from rapid sitting...both shot at the 200 yd line but the sling is used...they will likely have a different zero. So, since you have a different zero for each stage, cant makes no difference as long as it is uniform and you have established a zero to compensate. In my case, for instance, you would look at my scorebook and see that I have clicked on 1R windage for offhand...but rapid sitting I will click 2R for my zero because of the poi change to the sling tension and an elevation change of 1D because (maybe?) of bone to bone contact on my elbow/knee joints. So cant means nothing after you know its impact on poi and compensate for it.

I corrected for that with a small level glued to the base of my front sight, and hours of dry fire, in the winter, and shooting small bore postal league. Learned a lot, like how important follow through and cant was in offhand, as related to sight/bullet/bore dwell time. Bolt guns, ofcourse..

I thought I was extremely capable of staying level until I purchased a Sharps that came with a level on the front sight. Boy was I wrong.

Withour sight adjustments, cant is simply a linear function of distance.

Cant matters. Just how much depends on what you are willing to accept. It also depends on how far out (of plumb) it is. I generally don't see much if any at 400 yards. Most of the guys I shoot with at competitions use levels, but those shots are out past 600 yards. I generally hold the reticle pretty level, but some guys really struggle. YMMV..

No levels for these guys - service rifle shooters.

Per David Tubb:

"a 1° cant will produce five (5) inches of lateral displacement at 1000 yards. Thus, if you cant your rifle just 8°, the POI would move 40″ from the center of the target, putting the shot off the edge of a 72″-wide target."

So, basically 1/2 MOA.

I tend to cant my hunting rifles pretty bad in a CCW direction as looking at target - not sure if it's 1°. Something about getting a good cheek weld does it. Have thought about just putting the scope on with a CW rotation.

The actual number is also dependent on the line of sight height over the bore. The POI will be off in the direction of the cant AND lower.

If you can see a cant without a level or a horizontal/ vertical target/background reference of some sort it is much more that 1 degree in my opinion.

The White Oak scope has a specific "can't" reticle so you can be repeatable in your position.

If you sight in at 500 yards or any range with a cant, as long as you shoot with THE SAME CANT, at the same range, you’ll still be on. Change the cant and you get the POI shifts as mentioned above.

The reticle needs To be level, the rifle can be canted. As long as the reticle is level then your adjustments are correct

Finally the correct answer! In fact if a person finds that there rifle always move slightly right or left when they shoot they can get a shooting position with the rifle that works in a more direct line of attack by setting up the rifle to be canted just a bit. For a right handed shooter putting a slight left can't on the rifle works very well as long as "the reticle" is set up to shoot "Level"

Not quite.

Shooting with a cant has its advantages in comfort and accuracy in different positions which is why it is used by some position shooters. It's disadvantage is the windage zero changes at each distance. No getting around that...

That's my "not quite".

I was confident you understood.

Yup. The orientation of the reticle makes no difference to this particular issue (albeit, if you are holding over using the reticle, then a level reticle results in consistent windage offset as a function of distance). If the horizontal axis of the bullet's trajectory is not aligned with the LOS, i.e., if the centerline of the bore is not directly underneath the center of the reticle, the windage changes with distance.

Hello Mike, I believe you missed the part where I said......the rifle can be canted "But the scope has to be set level".As long as the scope is level when you pull the trigger you won't get windage change because the reticle is tracking true

Sorry, but even with the level reticle, the windage can only be correct at one distance if there is a cant involved.