So, what do you all think about laser bore sighters? Are they useful/helpful, or what? I have heard two very different reviews of these things. Some say their great, makes checking your zero after a trip/hike/bump very easy and very accurate. Then I've heard that their not very useful at all, their not accurate enough to really tell you where your zero is, and you still have to shoot to really tell. I dont understand how they're can be such difference of opinions. I would think that these things either work or they dont. I'm refering to the cartridge type laser bore sighters, there are a number of different types, but not one that I've heard of has conclusive reviews. According to manufacturers' description's of their product, they say that you are supposed to be able to check your zero accurately with their product. None of them say anything about having to actual fire your rifle to check your zero, that would defeat the purpose of these things. They are supposed to save you ammo, and improve your tactics, by not actually having to fire your rifle and therefore possible scare off game. In theory these things sound great, I've always wanted to try one but I havent because of all the inconclusive reviews. Plus, some of these things are quite expensive, anywhere from $50 to $150 and up. I dont have that kind of money to "waste" on something that doesnt work. So, I'm curious if I cant get a better idea of these things here. Anyone try these things? Anyone like these things? I would greatly appreciate your reviews. Thanks.

I've used several bore sighters but never the cartridge type. I found if you use one numerous times you will be happy with the results most of the time. My opinion is they are better than most boresighting techniques but I would never risk a hunt on the use of one. Maybe nice for a quick check after banging the rifle hard and on your way to a animal.

I find checking my rifle at a night, bore sighting a light at a great distance, works well for checking point of aim. There is no substitution (that I'm aware of) for actually shooting the rifle.

Just my opinion, but I wouldn't count on any kind of bore sighting device for sighting in or checking accuracy after a bump on the scope. If I'm hunting and bump the scope, there's always a way to fire some rounds to check the zero.

no personal experience with them, we always just did a range session to sight everyone in on changeover day.

also gave us a feel for what kind of shooter you'd be escorting into the field.

still it's almost inconceivable to me how they couldn't be of some practical use.

I've heard guys swear by them and I've given some thought to getting the cartridge type built for .223 that have larger sleeves for higher calibers.

am thinking if a guy bought one and used it at the range enough, he'd either learn to be confident in it's use, or send it down the road at a discount, you wouldn't end up eating the whole purchase price unless you just let it sit and collect dust.

I wouldn't expect it to replace actual shooting to check zero, more of a safety check to make sure your scope hadn't got knocked off zero.

I just used one a few days ago. A pard had just received a "Laserlyte" boresighter. It has adapters to fit bores from .22 to .50. The plastic adapter (1 of 4) expands in the bore and holds the laser pointer. Sighted indoors at 10 yds (optional method). I wouldn't trust it for more than an approximation to "get on paper", but it was easy to do and took about 10 minutes, including opening the package and reading the instructions.
It comes with a reflective target for daytime range use.

Still need to kill some paper.

We use the beamhit system to train Soldiers in weapons qualification. We have time to play around with it and that experience has some application here. The boresighter by itself will do nothing more than get you on paper.
However, you can use it to check zero pretty closely as follows:
1.Set up a zero target at 25m from the muzzle. You can substitute yards, etc. but you must be able to repeat the distance in the field.(Use the same rangfinder you use in field or get lightweight plastic tapemeasure- it doesn't have to be full length- just measure 5 meters five times etc.) The zero target should be the type with a grid for sight corrections;
2. Place the already zeroed weapon on a rest- you can improvise one- so the weapon is steady and the scope reticle is center mass on the bullseye and the reticle is level;
3. Turn on laser boresight and mark on target where boresight beam hits target. Circle the beam. Repeat 3 times, each time removing rifle from rest, remove and replace boresight and reset. Your marks should be very repeatable. You now know where boresight hits target at 25 yards or meters or feet or whatever distance you used with your weapons zero;
4. Laminate target and pack it with boresight;
5. In field to make a check, use measure (rangefinder, light measuring tape, premeasured length of cord, to set your marked target the exact same distance as you used in creating your collimation target- pin up target- put rifle in improvised rest- put reticle on center target and turn on boresight.
The more precise your are in setting system up, the better your results will be.

Oklahunter- I understand what your saying. That sounds like a good way to see if your zero has moved, but it doesnt allow you to correct it if it has, correct? Still, I guess it would save you some cartridges that it would normally take just to see if your zero has moved. Thanks for the advice.

So, the consensus is that there's nothing like actually shooting the rifle to check your zero, And the only way to actually correct your zero if it has shifted is by shooting it, and that these bore sighters do little more than get you on paper, or as Oklahunter stated, check if the zero has moved. Pretty much what I've already read, although every once in a while I hear of someone who absolutely swears by these things and how great they are. I've laways been curious about these things. Of course I can get by without one, but I thought if these things actually did what the manufacturers' say they did, it be a pretty handy device. Anyways, thanks for the responses everyone. I dont think I'll be getting one anytime soon. I would like to see exactly what they can do eventually, but I aint got the cash to spend on something like that right now....

I always pack a boresighter( the Leupold magnetic job) with me on extended back country hunts.

In theory, I could, in case of suspected scope damage, boresight the weapon and find a place to confirm my zero.

Whether or not it will work in practice, I do not know for certain.

Yes, you can correct to zero if you've been precise but nothing is as good as checking zero by firing.

To reset to zero, carefully place your target at the correct distance. Place the weapon in the improvised rest and turn on the bore sighter. Then either move the target or the weapon to place the beam in or on your boresight mark. Without moving the weapon, adjust the scope reticle to center the target. Remember that down is up and left is right when holding the weapon stationary and moving the reticle. When the reticle centers the target and your boresight laser hits your pre-mark, you are collimated. This can be done without help, but it goes much quicker with a buddy.

OklaHunter- Okay, I didnt think that would accurately re-set the zero, it makes sense, I just didnt think it would work. thats' interesting. And, I take it you've done this? You say your using "beamhit", I'll have to look into it. Now, if you can correctly re-set the zero, that would be something I would be interested in getting. For the times when I either dont want to/cant actually fire my rifle.

Why I have I heard so many times that these things arent actually accurate enough to re-set a zero?

I just went over to the Cabelas site and read some reviews of these cartridge type laser bore sighters. All of them pretty much complain about these things not being accurate enough to bore sight the rifle at 100 yards. But, if one were to use these things only to re-check an already accurately zeroed rifle/scope, mark the POI on a graph target, and then only use the bore sighter to check that the zero has not shifted and if it has, move the POI back to the pre-determined spot on the target, and not to initially sight the rifle in, I wonder if they couldnt be useful.
And because your not using the bore sighter to initially sight in the rifle, maybe there's no reason to spend top dollar on these things, essentially you just want a laser that hits the same place all the time, doesnt matter how accurately they sight the rifle at a 100 yards. From the reviews I read, it didnt matter if the bore sighter cost $50 or $200, they werent accuarte enough at 100 yards. But since I will only be using them to check a pre-determined POI at 25 yards, maybe I can get away with the cheapest one I can find?
I think I may try this with a fairly cheap laser bore sighter and see how accurate it is.

Oklahunter- I tried to figure out what Beamhit is, and from what I could tell, it wasnt a laser bore sighter, but a way to fire blank rounds with a laser. Anyways, I can see how you could re-check a zero with any laser that comes out of the barrel with the technique you described.

oklahunter, thanks for the best explanation I've ever read on how to make a boresighter useful for more than getting on paper. I've never used one but it might be worthwhile after all. Even with your system I'd not expect a precise sight-in but if you knew it was accurate within 3 inches at 100 yards you could hunt deer or elk out to 100 easily. But rather than my speculation, how close to the precise point of aim can you get with your boresight system?

Whatever you do, always remove the boresight before the rifle is actually fired.

intellectual posterior!


signed, Richard Cranium

Sometimes it takes the shot to find out if the scope is truly screwed.

might want to keep that a secret from Stick! (grin)

'course if the barrel had been broken in ahead of time, a guy'd know if the scope was likely to remained zeroed after a bounce in the rocks......(grin)

We were able to return sights to zero well within one cm at 25 meters. That's within 2 inches at one hundred yards. With iron sights, we ended up at the same zero sight setting we started with,give or take one click, that's pretty close with no magnification to help. The beamhit laser is a pretty good quality laser. It has a good,concentric (round) narrow beam at 25 meters which is important.

Yep. In my pilgrimage I have run across an occasional scope whose windage and elevation adjustments were random. With them, adjusting back to zero means nothing.

The worst ones adjust correctly sometimes, which keeps me adjusting and shooting for awhile till I finally figure out it is a messed up scope.

oklahunter, thanks for the info. That is pretty impressive consistency and accuracy with a bore sighter. Good to know what can be done.

I see SiteLite started giving away their Ballistic Targeting System software for free. I've used a SiteLite laser boresighter for years, but without the software you can't make use of the inherent accuracy of such boresighters. The BTS software works with all laser boresighters, but only runs on Windows PCs.

I owned 2 laser bore sighters, both were sold on the campfire. Not very useful/accurate for me. Best use was watching my dog chase the laser dot around the yard.

That was pretty much my experience too when I first got a laser boresighter, but the BTS software made a toy for playing with the dog into a valuable tool for setting up a new scope or realigning one taken off or adjusted. The free program produces an alignment target customized for my gun, sight, load, zero range and the distance I have available for sighting in.

I just thought I would let others know that if they have a laser boresighter, there's free software that makes it work a lot better.

I use the Leupold Zero Point Magnetic Boresighter too - http://www.leupold.com/tactical/pro...-point-magnetic-illuminated-boresighter/ . It has a lot of advantages over the laser in the chamber or in the barrel type boresighters. It's very light, small, has a built in grid, works even if the battery fails, and is very repeatable. I have a scope that I swap among several rifles, and I'm within an inch of being zeroed at 100 yards when I use it. The other advantage is if you do bang up your rifle/scope, you can put the boresighter on and then push on the scope, barrel, etcetera, and see if things are returning to zero or moving around...

A laser boresighter is supposed to be helpful when setting up a chronograph so you don't accidentally shoot it. Any one here use it for that?

Or you can not shoot your chrony the old fashioned way... Pull your bolt and boresight through your chronograph to your target, or read the manual that came with the chrony and they'll tell you how to do it. They tell you something along the lines of put some tape "X" inches above the center of the rods that hold your sky screens, then look through your scope at your target. Put the horizontal crosshair on the target where you want to hit and look to see if the horizontal crosshair is also on the tape. If not, move either the chrony or the target until everything is lined up. Of course the vertical crosshair should be centered between the rods when on target. "X" is usually the height of the horizontal crosshair above the center of the bore.

Maybe I'm just use to my SiteLite, but the steps needed to use the Leupold Zero Point Magnetic Boresighter seem complicated. Also steps 6 through 12 seem contrived as few shooters don't know how to zero-in once they are already at the shooting range.

Basically the Zero Point Magnetic Boresighter is designed to align the scope's line of sight to the barrel's bore centerline, but by sticking to the outside of the barrel. How well does that work with a tapered barrel?

The free BTS software goes one step beyond in that it allows you to align your gun and load to a specific zero range. Being you are aligning over a distance of 8 or more yards with a laser aligned to the actual centerline of the bore it seems inherently more accurate than something stuck on the end of the barrel.

It's not complicated - turn it on, stick it on the barrel so the little window facing the scope is about centered in the scope, look through the scope at the grid, adjust your crosshairs to be dead centered. This gets you on paper at 100 yards. Go shoot, get POI where you want it. Stick the boresighter back on, look at the grid where your crosshairs are, mark a little dot on the provided paper copies of the grid, and you now have your reference that you can use to field check your rifle with the boresighter. Takes less time than it took to type this.

If you can't figure out how to adjust your scope while at the shooting range, you probably can't get batteries in the laser boresighter, let alone read the instructions to use it...

The Zero Point goes on the end of your barrel, the not tapered part, not the side of your barrel, the tapered part...

Yes, the 12 step process I linked to before. The idea of a one shot zero seems a stretch. I've found that the first shot out of a cold and freshly oiled barrel is not representative of where a group of three to five rounds centers at.

With the SiteLite and BTS software I select the gun, sight, load, and the zero range and print out a custom alignment target for the distance I have available indoors. Pop the laser into the barrel and line it up with the spot on the target and adjust the scope to match the cross hairs on the target. Done this for a 200 yard zero and it was amazingly close at the range. Fire a group of three rounds and dial in the offset to zero. Then fire several more groups to make sure nothing moves. Easy, quick, and reliable. Show me the guy who would fire only one shot to sight-in before going on a hunt and I'll show you an inexperienced hunter.

Each rifle is different. I have several that were dead on at 100 yards, several others were within 2 inches, and one was about 4 inches off. I never said take just one shot, I said get the POI where you want it, meaning shoot enough shots that you truely know that you have the POI figured out. How many rifles have you tried your boresighter and procedure on? If you know about rifles you'll know that where the bore is pointing, and where the bullet hits, aren't necessarily going to be the same right? It's due to the fact that the barrel is whipping around in three dimensions as the bullet is going down the bore, and where the bore is pointed when the bullet exits is what counts. If you have a good load the bullet exits at hear the same time every shot, then the bore (actually the muzzle) is spatially in near the same place, and you'll get near the same POI, hence good groups centered around the same POI from shooting session to shooting session. So, regardless of boresighting method (and I wasn't dinging yours to start with) you're going to have to do some shooting. Use what works for you, but maybe keep an open mind in case something better comes along...

I agree that you never said take just one shot to sight-in. I got that from the marketing for the Zero Point Magnetic Boresighter. Glad to hear you don't buy the one shot sight-in hype. I also agree that no static sight-in technique can compensate for barrel whip, and that includes the Zero Point Magnetic Boresighter as well as all laser and optical boresighters.

I expect you're familiar with the concept of sight radius, which explains why the accuracy of iron sights increases with barrel length. The same principle is at work when boresighting. Any misalignment between the line of sight through the scope and the bore centerline is angular, and thus, increases in proportion to the distance over which it's measured.

The Zero Point Magnetic Boresighter sits at the end of the barrel some 18 to 24 inches from the objective lens of the scope. Whatever misalignment you could observe at that distance would be twice as large at twice the distance, but the physical design of the Zero Point Magnetic Boresighter doesn't allow for any extension. A high quality laser boresighter, such as the SiteLite, allows you to increase the alignment distance 10 to 100 times beyond what's possible with a device like the Zero Point Magnetic Boresighter, and thus, laser boresighters are inherently more accurate.

As most shooters know, to zero a gun at some distance the line of sight must converge with the bore centerline. The angle depends on the sight height, the trajectory of the load, and the zero distance. That's where the free BTS software comes in. It figures out that angle and prints an alignment target for whatever distance you specify. The BTS software works with any laser boresighter, but likely not with devices like the Zero Point Magnetic Boresighter.



I'm always open to new and better ways of doing things, but often new products are more marketing hype than substance. I learned a long time ago that understanding the underlying principles is the only way to figure out what's hype and what's real.

- So it's a good thing that the Leupold engineers took that into account and designed the optics on the Zero Point Magnetic Boresighter to give you an essentially infinity sight radius, right? The optics are like what's on red dot scopes, or holosights, where you can move it around a lot but things stay centered, and give you a long sight radius.




- Not quite correct, the LOS and bore centerline relationship don't necessarily correspond to POA and POI. POA and POI are determined by the relationship of where the scope is pointing and where the muzzle is pointing at the moment the bullet exits the muzzle. That's why no sighting technique where you don't fire rounds is only going to get you close, yours included. You didn't answer my question about how many rifles you've tried your product/procedure on. I'm guessing very few, or you'd realize what I'm getting at.

Oh, I just thought of another thing. How do you like those little "caliber specific o-rings" that you use on the spud? Bet they really contribute to the accuracy of the system, especially over time... I reload and shoot over 10 calibers, I have enough trouble remembering to bring the right ammo on a trip, let alone grab the right o-ring...

Yeah, okay, the end of the muzzle might not be square to the bore, so the Zero Point Magnetic Boresighter might have a problem, but wait, that's also part of why it has the infinity optics designed into it.

How much does the Sitelite weigh and measure, and how big are the target cards? From what I found on the web it's about 11 oz and L-10.5, W-4, H-3.5 inches. The target looks like it's about 11x6 1/2". I hunt places where weight and space are a premium, since everything goes in on my back. The Zero Point Magnetic Boresighter specs are: weight: 1-3/4 oz, dimensions: 4.2"L x 4.95"W x .06"D, and the target reference card is about 1x1". The card is actually too small for me, so I blew it up to about 3x3" on a copier and carry them in my wallet in the slip for my hunting license.

Then there's the disclaimer in the Sitelite manual - "The SL-1--/150/500 are delicate, precision instruments and must be handled with care."...

And finally, the Zero Point is about half the price of the entry model of the Sitelite.

But, again, not dinging your choice - do whatever works for you...

You're confusing infinite focus with infinite sight radius. The infinite focus allows you to focus on the gird pattern that's only inches away. Try focusing on some object that's right at the end of the muzzle and you'll see the difference. With optics the resolution of angular displacement is a function of power (magnification). An infinite sight radius would equate to infinite power and no scope offers that because such a device would be useless even if it could be built.

Basicly, the Zero Point Magnetic Boresighter is a magnetic mount optical collimator. Other than the compact size and low cost, it's nothing new.



Sorry, but if the sight is mounted above the barrel the LOS must converge with the centerline of the bore in order to zero any load some distance down range. I know about barrel whip, but unless you are using rubber barrels, it amounts to less than 1 MOA for any rifle worth taking on a hunt.

To zero something like a 25 WSSM at 200 yards you need about 4.6 MOA of convergence or more depending on sight height. Without knowing that angle all any boresighter can do is get you on the paper when mounting a different scope. The free BTS software solves that problem.



It's actually a very good system. You can test it yourself just by putting a rifle in a gun vise and putting the SiteLite in and then taping a target up some distance away and adjusting the target so the laser spot is over the X in the center of the target. Go back and take the Sitelite out and put it back in but trun it 90 degrees clockwise. Go back to the target and see if the laser still hits the X. If so, repeat for another 90 degrees and then another 90 degrees. If the laser always ends up over the X you know the boresighter is aligning to the centerline of the bore. I've used the same o-rings dozens of times betweens such calibration tests and as long as they are not showing wear the alignment of the SiteLite has been spot on. How do you self-test the Zero Point Magnetic Boresighter or do you just trust it to be right by blind faith?



If you read the reviews at the Cabela�s site you'll find that "firehunter79" contacted leupold when he couldn�t get it to work and was told by them that the Zero Point Magnetic Boresighter can't be used on any firearm with a flash hider. Likely because it must mount at a near perfect right angle to the bore's centerline. That matches other reviews I've read that say to carefully clean both the boresighter and the muzzle before using. From the reviews on Cabela's it looks like the biggest problem for the product is the lack of good instructions, which probably explains some of the 1 out of 5 ratings.



I agree that for use in the field the Zero Point Magnetic Boresighter is the way to go for quickly checking your scope to see if the zero has moved, but when it comes to setting up one of my rifles I'll be using the SiteLite. As usual the tool that works best in the shop may not be best in the field.

Okay, you win... We can take it offline, as the rest of the guys probably don't want to listen to us anymore.

I found a Guide to Boresighting at

www.twincityrodandgun.com/PDF%20files/GuidetoBoresighting.pdf

The guide covers optical and laser boresighters including magnetic mount optical. Page 8 says Note that axis of the bore and the axis of the collimator must be parallel. Therefore the face of the muzzle must be perpendicular to the bore.