Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Wha is a good ,inexpensive boresighter ?

What he said. I have used this for bolt actions and, with care, it works like a champ.

I've got 2 boresighters, one a Bushnell and the other a Leopold.

Midway has the Bushnell for about $60 (see: http://www.midwayusa.com/product/766064/bsa-bore-sight-with-15-fixed-arbors )

The Leopold never seems to work, or at least I can not get it to; wasted $76.
(see: http://www.midwayusa.com/product/675745/leupold-zero-point-bore-sight )

I use my Bushnell Magnetic boresighter for exactly that purpose. It works fantastic for that application. The squares on the grid are 16MOA apart for most standard factory length barrels (22-26"), which makes it easy to test tracking, travel extremes, click increments, etc.

JB: I have an old Cabela's model with the spuds that works well but I cringe every time I shove the spud into the muzzle.

Is there a risk of damaging the muzzle or rifling with the spud?

Thanks,
Scott

White pin on tree outside my garage at 25 yards. Pull bolt, center pin in bore and set cross hairs to dot. Recheck and proceed to range.

I'm curious how many people have had a gun that is so far out that you can't get it on paper at 25 yds with no bore sighting? I contend unless there is something wrong with the gun or the scope isn't centered, that you can just mount the scope, take a few shots at 25 to see where you are hitting and then dial it in.

Seems like if a bore sighter is only good to 25yds, it's darn near useless.

The reason I prefer sighting through the bore when possible is you can get on paper at 100 yds and dial in. If you have to start at 25 yds, and you're at a public range with say 15 min firing sessions. Then you're stuck waiting around to move the target back to 100 yds to get the scope dialed in.

I've only had one but the problem was obvious.

I always bore sight on a target at 100 yards and am usually within 5-6". Fired a couple rounds with this one and no holes. Moved the target to 50 yards, two rounds, no holes. Moved the target to 25 yards - finally one hole in the very tippy top of the target, right through the target holder. Bottomed out the elevation adjustment on the scope and it was still 10-12" high at 100 yards.

Geting back to the original queston, my interest in a bore sighter is not so much bore sighting but in checking scopes for accuracy of their adjustments and maintaining zero when the power selector ring is turned. You could see this pretty easily with a bore sighter grid.

So - given that criteria what would be a good, "reasonably priced" boresighter?

PS: The Leupold magnetic boresighter gets good reviews and is reasonably priced at around $65-$76 but just looking at pictures of it I can't see how it really works. I'm assuming there is a standard grid not being shown on these that you can see from the other side?

http://www.leupold.com/hunting-shoo...-point-magnetic-illuminated-boresighter/

Hmm, Midway shows these out of stock and not due in until October?

I've got a Leupold boresighter and have never been satisfied. Even after playing with it for years, I've never been able to get it to work.

The problem with all boresighters is that you are trying to zero a bullet which follows a parabolic path using light which travels in a straight line. You can get on paper at 25 yards and with practice some can get close at 100 yards.

I probably approach the problem from a different angle.My bore sighter is an old Cabelas laser unit made by LaserLyte here in Arizona. At the time it was pretty cheap and it was on sale. It has tips from .22 to .45 with a small allen wrench to change them. It fits in the muzzle and you slide it in and then tighten the nylon tips by turning. Everything is tapered so as you tighten it centers and becomes firm. I sight it at about 20 yards and it has yet to be off more than an inch or so at 50 yards as i shoot at the range. I then use it again after I zero again at 20 yards and mark the variance if any on a paper I keep with the boresight. In camp the first day I test the rifle and see if the variance is the same. In 8 trips to Africa with several different guns I have yet to be off and then when sighting in I have never had to make any adjustments. I also try it with the spare scope I usually carry and the one time I had a scope failure it worked perfectly when I changed scopes. Prior to using this I have always just used the eyeballs and I have rarely missed getting on the paper with the first shot. I have been doing this for about 60+ years and still can't figure why people have such a problem with it.For the last 30 years I have used a telephone pole out my back window. It's precisley 70yards to the pole and a throughbolt holding the crossbar at the top is my aiming point. I taped the distance to be sure. Using the eyeball method (till I got the LaserLyte) this was my standard.

I have the BSA bore sighter-- bought it from SportsmansGuide.com over a decade ago. I think I paid $20 for it.


Usually, bore sighting gets me on paper at 100 yards. I have had one instance where I was not, when I got to the range. I had the bore sighter with me and found the source of the problem and had the whole thing corrected before I had to take another shot.

. . . more thoughts on this:

If I take the bore-sighter with me, I can tell if a given rifle is off when I get to my destination. The bore-sighter has a grid. I make note of the deviation from bore-sighted the scope is set to as I'm boxing up the rifle and then check the setting again when I get to the destination.

The other thing that my bore-sighter does is something I've never seen mentioned by anyone. As I'm mounting the scope, I do my best to level the scope. Then, as I am bore-sighting it, I check the horizontal cross-hair against the bore-sighter's horizontal axis. There is only one solution where the horizontal and vertical axis match from the scope's reticule to the bore-sighter, and that's when they're perfectly aligned. If either is rotated, the axis don't align. Once I have that figured out, I do my final tightening of the screws and then go back and check it against the bore-sighter. I can see how much the final tightening has changed the alignment of the scope. Being meticulous at this stage in the process gets me on paper at 100 yards almost every time.

You know, we all make fun of the hicks that go to Walmart on the eve of the Opener and buy a scoped rifle. Yeah, it is pretty lame, but if the bore sighting is done properly, you can get pretty good accuracy. I wouldn't chance a 200 yard shot across a pasture with such a rig, but a 50 yard shot out of a tree stand probably would produce venison.

One other trick, and then I will get on with my day: If I bore sight with my bore-sighter and then run the load through PointBlank software, I can get a fair idea of how far off bore-sighted I need to be, and I can make that adjustment at home, before I go out. Generally speaking, a rifle will be shooting couple inches low at 100 yards after it is bore-sighted. Moving the scope up a grid line or two before you box it up for the range will get me closer to the bull on the first shot

Sounds expensive and complicated. Here's what I do.

1. Take the bore sight device and throw it in the river.

2. Line the center of the bore up against the bottom of the bull on the 200 yard target (about 6" low--recoil will fraise the bullet path).

3. Adjust the scope crosshairs to the center of the target.

4. Shoot at 200 yards. With a few adjustments you'll be right on.

Indy,

Evidently you (and most of the other people who have posted, because of the common problem of not really reading the thread) missed this by bcraig:

"Hi Guys ,yea I have been taking the bolt out of rifles and bore sighting that way for years .
I mainly want a boresighter for scope mounting and seeing if a scope is tracking properly."

This is the MAIN reason for owning and using a bore-sighter, also known as collimator. Without an accurate bore-sighter you don't stand much chance of aligning the mechanical/optical center of the scope with the bore.

And if you don't get the bore and scope lined up, then the scope won't work right, on several levels I ain't about to go into all the stuff here, but it's in a long chapter in my most recent book, RIFLE TROUBLE-SHOOTING AND HANDLOADING.

Yeah, I know a bunch of shooters think all you have to do is look through the barrel at the range. It ain't necessarily so.

Thanks John,I went back to read my post to see if people were reading what I wrote! LOL
Craig

I can't think of too many threads here that stayed 100% on track. After all, tracking is what it's all about, right?

If you end up getting one for scope mounting, just keep the initial work at shorter ranges. You'll have fewer problems and less frustration.

Good one Steve !

Mule Deer,

I don't understand your post. I don't want the center of the bore aligned with the center of the scope. i want the bullet to hit the target.

If I point the bore 6" below the scope center at 200 yards, the bullet hits very close to the target, within a few MOA.

I don't know anyone--and here I'm talking of national championship quality match shooters who shoot thousands of rounds each year--who uses a boresight device. What are we all missing?

Using the boresighter has nothing to do with zero'ing your rifle. The main purpose that MD, myself, and the OP have for the thing is to gauge a scopes tracking, RTZ, and click increments using the optical grid visible in the boresighter.

When it comes to zero'ing the rifle, the OP, myself, and possibly MD (??) still take the bolt out of the rifle to bore sight the scope by eyeballing its alignment with the center of the bore at any given range.

Hope that clarifies.