Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Shooting smaller groups

I've read a few different places about matching the target you use to the type of reticle your scope has, even to using different targets for say shooting a low fixed power as opposed to a higher mag like a 4.5-14.

Most of my rifles have worn 3-9 variables or something similar and I've always used a generic target like this one for sighting in and practice:




I'm looking to do some work with a handy little bolt action that is currently wearing a 4x M8 Leupold. The Leupold has the standard duplex and is of vintage that Leupold will not swap the reticle for me.

The glass is near perfect on the M8 and it fits the rifle really well so I've committed myself to learning to shoot it well.

What targets have worked best for you when shooting at 100yds with a fixed 4x using a standard duplex?

On a similar note, what style targets do you feel help you train the best for placing accurate hits on game in the field?

I use 2" red diamonds for 4X and a 1" for anything from 7X on up. The target you use is basically both sizes on one piece of paper.

I use round bullseyes with a 6" black when I practice for hunting and always try to hit the center. It's about the same size as the heart/lung junction on a deer.

For a low magnification scope or iron sights, I prefer a standard bullseye target, such as a High Power rifle style target.

For scopes the target you show is what I use as well. For irons I prefer a black bulls-eye of a size appropriate to the range.

Mountain Planis Industries targets are great for your purposes.

They recommend this model for 4x at 100 yards.

http://www.precisionplustargets.com/hv_red_target_desc_1.htm

I find the size just smaller works fine also.

1/2" or 3/4" black squares printed on 67# off white cover stock. Takes about 10 minutes to make in Excel, save as PDF. I usually do 4 or 6 on a page. Bud has a target dot in his scope, so we made some that were almost identical in size. Screw the fluff and any color other than black.

PM your email and I can send you PDF's of what I've got if you want.

I basically use the same target as 16 bore, but for a number of years now I just draw a roughly 1" square with a sharpie. What I do from there is hold the upper right intersection of the cross hairs on the lower left corner of the square. This shows me if I'm even slightly off center. When I start shooting long - 800 yards or more I hold center of square... about a 3" square.

For me I use a 1" fluorescent orange dot against a black background target at 100 yrds and a 3" model against the same background at 300 yards. Slightly larger sizes work well out to 600 yards.
The reticle coverage of a 4X duplex works well on these sizes and forces you to hold tight, especially at 300 yards and beyond and the contrast is distinct so that you don't do much floating.

"Best" target I've used to simulate game is a cardboard box cut-out of a deer, full size, measuring about 18",top of back to bottom of belly line behind the shoulders with no markings around vitals....this forces you to concentrate on holding into vitals against a monolithic background. This is about what a mature northern whitetail or mule deer measures.

I used to do the same thing for elk targets using 30-32" measurement behind the shoulders.

This is also helpful for getting your mind trained to the view through the scope as to distance estimation, and duplex subtension in case the ol' LRF doesn't get a reading or you have to judge quickly as to distance(a common occurrence when dealing with smart old muley's and whitetails).

You quickly learn to "know" the distance out to 300-400 yards because the constant picture through the 4X (or 6X)will not fool the brain like a twist of the dial to higher magnification will....I have see a couple of awful snafu's judging distance when the perp cranked to a higher power and got fooled into thinking 400 yards was 300 and shot under; and unfortunately they happened on "lifetime" bucks...LRF's resolve these issues but not always if they don't read or there is no time to use them.

i use a 2ft x 3ft real estate sign for a 100yd target. i usually take a marker and draw 6in squares on the whole 2x3 target. i find that shooting at a x that matches your rifle recticle help shoot tighter groups. i am a remodeling contractor ,so use siding metal for targets . sometimes i put 1in dots on the x.smaller the target the tighter i usually shoot.

for my eyes, it's tough to beat the old school redfield target that you've already got. shoot the bigger diamond in the middle on 4x

Take a piece of paper and put 1", 1.5", and 2" orange squares on it. Put it up at 100 yards and see which size you like. The square size that your reticle almost covers is the one I'd use. "Aim small, miss small".

16bore,

Were those groups shot with 4x scopes? Because that's what the OP was asking about.

6X on the bottom two, 10X up top. 3/8" is better with 10x. 1/2's are covered w/6x, 3/4" and 4x should be about right.

I tried all kinds of things to line up the crosshairs in the past. A big + sign drawn on paper seemed to work, just cover it with the crosshairs but depending on how much the reticle subtends that sometimes didn't seem precise enough. For many years now I've used a hollow square size it to the power of the scope. E.g., for 3-9 scopes set on 9 power the squares are 1 1/2" inches, for a fixed 4 or 6 power I'll use a 2" square. It's easy enough to center the square with the crosshairs.

Templates are made by cutting the proper size square out of cardboard and tracing the inside of them with a magic marker. The sides of milk cartons or the backing from steno pads work well, the ones I use have lasted probably 12-15 years now. You can use whatever paper you want, standard blank printer paper is cheap and stores easily. I bought a 5000 sheet box of old 11 1/2 X 14 green bar computer paper on closeout for $5.00 in the late 90's and haven't even used half of it yet. The green bars are each 1/2" wide so you get a built in scale for elevation adjustments if needed.




I've been using this setup for so long I've never thought of questioning it, but now that you bring it up I'm going to draw the squares as a diamond shape and align the crosshairs with the points of the diamond like on your target to see if that helps.

Nothing to do with scopes, but those square templates also make good handgun targets for patridge sights. Just fill them in and rest the square on top of the front blade for a precise sight picture.

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Experiment with big + signs.

Print them so they cover most of a sheet of paper. Experiment a bit and make the line thickness such that when you aim at it the reticle doesn't quite cover up the plus symbol. This will help you hold about as fine as possible, and unlike a dot it will help you eliminate cant.

Print the targets on a 1"x1" thin line grid background.

Use a level when you hang your targets.

These are what are used for registered benchrest matches unless Sinclair is lying. "These targets represent the 100 yard target used in registered benchrest matches."



Is there something special about benchrest scopes other than their very high power that would make these not suitable for regular scopes if sized to fit the power appropriately?

They're suitable, I've used them myself. But I've come to appreciate the virtues of custom sized "plus sign" targets as I described.

Don't benchresters line up their crosshairs on the corner of the square instead of bisecting the center? I think I read that somewhere. Kind of like using half of a + sign.