Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters The Old Way to Bore Sight

Does anyone use the old way to bore sight their rifles after mounting a scope?

I still do often if I am working on the gun during daylight hours. I actually get closer on average than with using my optical boresighter.

If you mean removing bolt and sighting down bore to target, and adjusting scope to target, I do.
Have never not got on paper at 100 yds, that I can recall.

Yep. Use too many different calibers to buy all of the contraptions..

I also do it, but when I do it is at 25 yds..don't get good results at 100.

Nope, it is a wast of time for me. I just fire one offhand at 25 yards, adjust it so it is shooting a little low at that range and then step back to 100 yards. I can usually have a rifle dialed in with about 4 shots.

Boresighters get you on the paper most of the time. Here's how my friends 338 win mag did after bore sighting from the store that installed his scope. The first shot was way low and to the left. With my method I mentioned in the last post I can generally get closer than this:


With this ruger M77 MKII 338 win mag I had the poi where he wanted it after the second adjustment.

I used-to. Even went so far some times with a big-bore rifle as to use an empty, unprimed case in the chamber.

Peeping down the bore? That's how I've always done it. Works great.

Sure! It ain't old cause I did it recently....

I bore sight all of my rifles in this fashion. I do use scope levels when mounting them though, apparently I've got a crooked eye and a pard that loves pointing out my occasional crooked reticle......

podunk ain't those reticles a bugger?

I just did it yesterday.

My pards got the best eye for straight I've ever seen, and the bastid relishes calling me on em..... since I bought the leveling kit no more crooked reticles though.

Never used a bore sight, never will.

Same with all the OAL contraptions that are out there. I don't need another 47 pieces of junk to keep taps of.

To adjust a 'scope so that you know that the vertical cross-hair is truly plumb �
� clamp the barreled action in a swiveling vise, aimed at a white plumb line in the yard
� level the receiver cross-wise with a bubble level against the bottom of the receiver or the recoil lug
� swivel the vised barreled action to align the vertical cross-hair close alongside the plumb line (not right on it) and lock the vise down
� keep the vertical cross-hair parallel to the plumb line while carefully tightening the scope-ring screws

For a while, I used the vertical side of a window frame on a house up the street as my vertical reference � until lining it up beside a plumb line showed that the window frame wasn't plumb.

To keep the plumb line plumb on a windy day, hang it with the plumb bob in the middle of a bucket of water.

Yep, and if I do it that way, and tweak it IE check it 3-4 times, I'm generally always close enough to kill a deer when I fire the first shot.. Not that I'd consider that... just saying... the old coliminators just sucked for us.

I believe ill try that Mr Howell. As to the unplumb window, first thing I learned in layout was to never assume anythings plumb, straight, or square until you've personally checked it....

It works so well for me that I've never been even slightly tempted to buy a bore sighter.

In the weeks preceding deer season, our club opens our ranges for the public to check their sights (for a modest fee). Members volunteer as range officers. On more than one occasion I have helped people who came with newly-mounted, bore-sighted scopes that would not put shots on paper. They are amazed that I can pull the bolt out, sight through the bore with the rifle on sandbags, and adjust their scope so they can sight it in. Especially the generations younger than me are are conditioned to think a "higher" technology is the solution to every problem.

As president of the rod-and-gun club at the proving ground, I did pretty much the same thing.

I took my "portable shop" to the range every preseason sighting-in day and mounted and bore-sighted 'scopes without charge. What an experience that was! And how disgusting it was to learn that many "gunsmiths" had mounted 'scopes, bore-sighted 'em with collimators, and pronounced 'em "sighted-in!"

I also used a good collimator. With all the variables, I "zoomed" the magnifications up and down their full range, and discovered that an alarming number of the reticles wandered all over the place. Particularly distressing was the discovery that some cheap Japanese rip-offs with soft aluminum screws and mysterious brand names wandered less, while some renowned and respected brand-name 'scopes often wandered worst of all.

I like gadgets and use a SitLite laser boresighter along with their software that prints a sight-in target for the particular load, sight-in distance, and where I want that load to zero at. Even with less than 20 yards indoors to work in, it�s impressively accurate at placing a shot near zero at the selected range.