Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Checking your rifle's zero

If you want to grab a cold drink (hard or soft) and some popcorn, I’ll share just two that come to mind to reinforce one of my “lettered” observations above: b) familiarity with the rifle(s) they brought.

A few years ago, an attorney friend of mine called me up early in the year and said after hearing all my stories about Namibia, he wanted to come along. I knew he was a big waterfowl/wingshooter and spent all his free time in the Louisiana marshes every year and had even made several trips to Argentina for the dove shoots. I told him I’d be more that happy to take him with me on one of my trips later that year. Sorted out a time frame and number of days he wanted to go etc. I asked him what caliber rifle he had, he said, “none”! WHAT? He said the last rifle he’d owned and shot was 30yrs ago!!

I told him, we had lots of time and I offered to let him use one of my 308’s and we spend some time getting him back shooting again at the range. He declined. He said, shooting a rifle with a scope “was no big deal”! Booked the tickets and every month I’d talk to him and make the same offer and get the same decline for the same reason. The ol’ phrase about “leading a horse to water….” comes to mind. So…..

We get there and early the next morning after breakfast, we’re off to the range for the customary “sight in”. Offered the client (name redacted to protect the guilty) to be first up on the bench and he wants me to go first. I brought my Win 70 in 450Marlin, two shots and a couple of clicks to adjust for elevation (I live at sea level and PH’s place is at 3600ft) and I’m good. Client uses one of the PH’s loaner rifles, a Ruger 77 Tactical in 308 with a Leupold 3-9x40 that is also his primary daily shooter and shoots dime size groups. PH hands the rifle to George and he’s pretty clueless on the safety operations and how to load the magazine etc, but he’s very safe in his general handling of the rifle. PH patiently explains and shows him everything while frequently giving me kind of a combination of “the evil eye” and WTF.

Client finally settles into the chair on the bench, loads ONE round into the magazine, closes the bolt and tries to settle onto the stock and look through the scope. His head was bobbing all over for literally several minutes until he FINALLY found the view through the scope and his head settled down. Bang. PH and I are both looking thru the binos at the fresh target and not a mark on it. PH glances at me and I just shrug my shoulders. “Send another one”. Same ordeal with the head and finally, bang. Same result. So, what should have been a quick 2-4 shot exercise became a ½ day of shooting lessons and training.

To keep this story short, after one gut shot gemsbok gets away after nearly a full day of tracking, Client aggress that it would be a good idea to let me back him up from then on. In the end, he ended up with a gemsbok (2), mountain zebra, warthog and springbok. All I will say is that 308 made some very impressive entry and exit holes, but the client was able to put a few pieces of copper into a couple and was happy in the end and that is what counts.

Second story and it also illustrates the same point and why I strongly recommend against clients bringing a turret (twisty) scopes at the same time. The people I take over I try to impress on them the K.I.S.S (Keep It Stupid Simple). Unless you’re hunting the open Savannah’s where 300m-400m shots are the “norm”, sight your rifles to have an approximate “point blank range” of 150m. Point Blank being defined this way as an example. Zero is 150m, at 100m you’re somewhere around 1-1.5” high and at 200m you’re about 1-1/2” low. Just about every caliber under .458 can easily do that or better. The “vital area” on impala size game is roughly a 4” circle and obviously bigger on bigger species. Having that kind of point blank zero pretty much takes all the guess work out of ranging and hold over/under. Just put the crosshairs in the vital triangle and squeeze. No need for a range finder. Every PH will be able to guess the distance to target to well within 10m or less. K.I.S.S. So, story time.

Took a guy over from out west where long distance (200yd+) shots are normal. He said he was taking a 7mm Rem Mag with 140gr TTSX. Was after mountain zebra and smaller. Rifle and bullet was more than adequate for everything he was after. Told him to expect shot distances of under 200m unless he wanted to try some long range baboon sniping. He said he was in some long range shooting club and occasionally competed in armature long range competitions etc., and was familiar out to 1000yd+ shots. OK. Told me he had some sort of 6-18x “twisty” scope with a MIL reticle etc. Asked him if he’d ever shot standing off shooting sticks, “no” everything was bench or prone. I asked it he had something in a lower magnification somewhere in the 2-8x power range that was NOT a “twisty” and a simple duplex reticle? He said he did but he “knew” this scope and how to use it. OK, I had made my recommendation. In the end he did take part of my recommendation and showed up with a Leopold Patrol VX-R 1.25-4, but it has the factory build-in elevation “twisty” and not just the add on cap.

First morning at the bench, he put two shots nearly touching 1” high. Great, this is going to be easy and on to the bakkie and into the bush. In not too long, a very, very nice gemsbok bull (43”+) at about 200m. Off the bakkie, a quick stalk, but the gemsbok had moved a good bit and had opened the distance to maybe 260-280m full broadside looking at us. Now, I’m thinking, with that caliber/bullet combo and the 1” high at 100m, all he has to do is put the crosshairs, 1/2 of the way up the offside front leg and squeeze. Nope. He’s on the sticks, looks up taking his eyes off the scope and gemsbok, give the twisty a few clicks and before he gets his head/eyes back down the Oryx is gone! Back to the bakkie and in for lunch and he’s missed a serious trophy Oryx for himself. Lesson #1 for the list.

Lunch, customary early afternoon nap and back on the bakkie. Just before sunset, we round a bend in the two-track at the base of a kopjie and there are three good bachelor Oryx bulls all between 37”-39”, just off the edge of a dung midden doing a little light sparring and not aware of us at all. PH quietly backs the bakkie up behind the kopjie and we bail off and climb out to a little bit of an spot that gets us just up above the brushline and they are still there and maybe 125m out. Should be a chipshot. He picks out the biggest one, settles and pulls the trigger. Bullet goes completely over the top and all three Oryx are gone in a flash. Since we were above the oryx, he held high on the shoulder to compensate. Client had not returned the twisty to zero and that combined with a bit too much hold over for elevation, put the shot just over the top for Lesson #2.

Next morning back in the bush we spot a troop of baboons up on the side of a kopjie at maybe 450m or so. Client wanting to impress us with his shooting skills and wants to take a shot at a really big male in the top of a mountain beechnut tree. Jan lets him shoot from the back of the bakkie. The baboons know we are there and barking but figure they are safely out of range. Client asked PH what the distance is, PH says 450-460m, client does his twisty thing and pulls the trigger and drills the baboon center of mass. 4x power scope and a 450m shot, OK, maybe the guy can shoot. We go up and grab the baboon take a few pictures and take the baboon to hang for a leopard bait farther on. PH “reminds” him to be sure to reset his twisty to zero and we continue on.

Just before lunch we spot a small herd of mountain zebra with huge “queen” mare. They’ve seen us and are on the move up over and around the mountain but not running as if spooked. We drive past to get down wind and out of sight, stop and load up with water and head around the other side of the mountain and cut them off as PH figured they were heading for a waterhole in the next valley and it would be along hike/stalk. And it was.

Took us about 2hrs to get up and around the mountain side and to a nice ambush point 150m from and 30m above, overlooking the trail. PH was pretty sure where they were going to cross on the way to the waterhole maybe 1k beyond. We settled in amongst the rocks and the client semi-prone. Sure enough, in maybe 15min here they came with the queen mare in the lead. Client is dead on her and PH whispers to the client to aim dead-on the tip of the chevron stripe on her shoulder and to nod his head when he’s ready but don’t shoot while she’s walking. A few seconds later, client nods his head and Jan whistles and the entire herd stops hard and is looking up the mountain side and the shot goes off. We see the impact very low in her chest, just behind her front leg and the rodeo is on. We do find a small amount of blood but it’s not like it should have been for a good heart shot and start to track. Client is cussing and crushed and can’t believe he screwed up the shot. We check his twisty and somehow it had gotten turned nearly ½ a turn DOWN past his zero that he swore he did reset after the baboon shot.

We did manage to collect his zebra late that afternoon. The necropsy of the initial shot showed that it did hit low and just nicked the very very bottom the heart muscle but only took a sliver of muscle with no other damage to the heart. We all had a hard time figuring that out because, we all thought the traumatic force of the impact of the bullet passing that close and actually touching the heart muscle should have been enough to a least rupture at least one chamber. We conclude, that his twisty must have gotten bumped/moved during the hike/climb up and around the mountain either from rubbing on him or bumped/grabbed by any number of the thorn bushes along the way. Lesson #3, client didn’t check/confrim zero on his twisty before the shot.

That afternoon when we got back, very tired, hungry and parched. But before we started the sundowners, we got a big roll of duct tape, went back to the rifle range, set and confirmed the client’s twisty was set to zero and taped it tight so it couldn’t be moved again by choice or by chance. When the client left, he left the scope with the PH as part of his “tip” and the PH ended up trading it to someone else for what he said was, "something useful”.

Prattled on way to long but you can maybe see there is reason to my madness. I’ll save a few more stories for when/if a few of you decide to join me either in Namibia or Botswana for a trip with a little good Scotch and a cigar around the braai while a few good game fillets are sizzling away for our dinner.