VARIATIONS ON SIGHTING-IN

From what can be gleaned from the Campfire, most members sight-in their hunting rifles by putting up a paper target100 yards from a benchrest, then shooting the rifle and adjusting the scope until the rifle puts groups where they want them to go. However, there are plenty of variations, and over the decades I've seen quite a few, due to visiting a lot of ranges and hunting camps.

Among the most frustrating showed up one morning at a friend's 100-yard range, where I have permission to shoot anytime. (Well, unless he's just gotten a new bird puppy and wants to be sure it's properly accustomed to the sound of gunfire.) However, a few years ago another of his friends told a few of his buddies at work that they could use the range too.

This resulted in people my friend had never seen before showing up to shoot. On one of those occasions I needed to do some shooting for an article, and arrived at the range to find a guy around 40 and his teenage son sighting-in three rifles for the upcoming big game season. After introducing ourselves, I told them to go ahead and finish up. There was plenty of evidence they'd already been shooting a while, so I figured it wouldn't take long. Boy, was I wrong....

It turned out the father's method of sighting-in was to fire one shot, take a look through his spotting scope at where it landed, then adjust the riflescope and fire another shot. He kept doing this, switching rifles now and then as the barrels got hot. Eventually I realized the point was to have one bullet land on the 1/4-inch dots in the center of the bullseyes of the targets they'd taped to a cardboard box.

Now, they were using "affordable" factory ammo and scopes, and while both can be capable of good accuracy, scopes retailing for under $100 aren't known for super-consistent clicks. Plus, from the looks of things, they didn't shoot much either, so hitting the magic dot often required more than a box of ammo.

Eventually they got done, picked up their rifles and a PILE of empty ammo boxes and brass, and left. I went to put up a couple of targets for my shooting, discovering they'd placed their cardboard box right in front of one of the steel fenceposts on my friend's boundary fence. The post was shot in two, along with a couple strands of wire.

I have also seen many interesting ways of resting a rifle on a bench. Several have involved the shooter placing the barrel of his rifle on the front rest. On one of these occasions the front rest was a loose stack of scrap 2x4's, though the pair of shooters did have enough sense to place their target (another cardboard box) only 25 yards away. Their groups looked like buckshot patterns.

Another was a Pennsylvanian who, like me, had traveled to Alabama to hunt whitetails at White Oak Plantation near Muskegee. He was attempting to check the zero on his lever-action Marlin .30-30, which had a pretty big variable in see-through mounts.. He did use the range's sandbag rests, but placed the barrel of the Marlin on the front bag, maybe four inches behind the muzzle. After watching him for a while, and noting the piles of empty ammo boxes and brass, I decided to go back to the lodge until he got zeroed--or ran out of ammo.

At least the White Oak bench set-up was pretty good. I have run into some really strange arrangements on various hunts around the world, perhaps the worst a card table too tall for the kitchen chair behind it. However, there was also a Lead Sled on top of the table. The sled was too high to sit behind, and too low to stand behind, so most shooters knelt one knee on the chair. I eventually decided to bypass the sled entirely, sitting down and resting the rifle's forend (not the barrel) over my folded-up soft rifle case.


I also have a good friend who actually knows how to use a rest, but does not believe in shooting groups on paper. He's not really interested in consistent accuracy, but in cranking out LOTS of ammo on progressive presses.

I also suspect he doesn't own a chronograph--or if he does, it's buried in some dark corner of his garage--but do know that instead of looking up handloads in manuals, he tends to call me for suggestions about cartridges he' s never loaded for. He usually calls his human loading manual at least once a year, because he buys and sells a lot of rifles.

Like many long-time handloaders, he keeps adding powder until the rifle shows signs of distress, then reduces the charge a little. I've never actually see him work up a load, and don't particularly care to, but during the process he apparently shoots at dirt clods and rocks, and his rifle ends up sighted-in for hunting.

This actually works pretty well, even on small animals like prairie dogs, because unlike the father-son duo my friend buys very good rifles and scopes. With good equipment, some handloads are bound to shoot well enough to hit at least some prairie dogs out to 300 yards, about as far as most people can hit them consistently in typical prairie winds. And of course big game is by definition big, and super-fine accuracy doesn't matter all that much when shooting out to 300-400 yards, despite what many hunters believe these days.



As evidence of how well his method works, he points out his full freezers and the hundreds of burrowing rodents he slays each year. (Of course, he doesn't keep track of rodent hits and misses, though does use a clicker to keep track of his total hits for the day.) Sometimes he does "refine" the sight-in on a prairie dog town, which I've done myself on a number of occasions.

However, over the years I have noticed that rodent rifles sighted-in while shooting at rodents often aren't exactly zeroed when later bench-tested on paper. This is because almost all shots at Western burrowing rodents involve some wind, often far more than persnickety paper-shooters tolerate when sighting-in on an actual range. As a result, field-zeroed rifles often end up an inch or so off at 100 yards, since the shooter kept tweaking the scope until it worked in that particular wind.


Sometimes prairie dog rifles zeroed in the field end up being off an inch or more when rested on a paper target in calm conditions.

My friend tends to poke fun at people who actually shoot groups, whether in paper or on painted gongs. This obviously includes me, whereupon I point out that most magazine editors and readers would not be satisfied with an article listing "shoots flat" and "hits rocks most of the time" rather than actual velocity and accuracy data.

Of course, when working up rodent loads I experiment quite a bit to find the finest accuracy, checking each test round for bullet concentricity, and tweaking both powder charges and bullet-seating depths. After that, I often test several primers, to see if one particular brand results in measurably smaller groups, in the process often shooting 10-shot groups, to see if they keep making holes in the same basic place after the barrel gets hot.

I did this most recently with a brand-new bullet in my 6XC, a rifle put together in 2017 by gunsmith Charlie Sisk. He screwed a #7 contour, 1-8 twist Lilja barrel into one of a few "700 footprint" bolt-action he made a few years ago, then bolted the barreled action an adjustable Sisk Tactical Adaptive Rifle (STAR) stock.

I mostly shoot prairie dogs at ranges under 350 yards, because the landowners who grant permission want as many prairie dogs killed as possible--but sometimes stretch the range considerably, especially when wind conditions cooperate. For longer ranges really high-BC bullets work far better than the typical prairie dog outfit, a .204, .222 or .223 loaded with relatively light plastic-tipped bullets.

For this longer-range work I've used rifles chambered in various cartridges over the decades, from a fast-twist .223 WSSM to a custom 6.5-06 with a medium-heavy barrel. The 6XC is the latest, and so far I've liked it the most, partly because with a typical "dialing" scope it weighs around 13 pounds, which dampens recoil sufficiently to spot long-range hits and misses even through a high-magnification scope.

Recently I was assigned to test some new super high-BC bullets, among a 110-grain 6mm. I already knew what powders the 6XC liked with bullets in that weight range, and the best load ended up consistently grouping five shots (not just three) well under half an inch at 100 yards.

Along with accuracy, I also needed to test the factory-listed ballistic coefficient as much as possible. To determine the G7 BC, the company had clocked rounds with Doppler radar ay out there, but I would not be much of a journalist if I didn't do some longer-range shooting and see how the trajectory worked out using their number. So I loaded up a bunch of ammo and headed to the local 1000-yard range. However, instead of shooting the 6-inch gongs scattered across the range, I decided to be more precise.

Small chunks of limestone are common in the range's earthen berms, which come from the local bedrock. (In fact the range sits on the slightly sloping plain at the foot of the local mountains, close to a factory which dynamite-blasts limestone cliffs and grinds the rock into powder.) The pale-gray limestone chunks show up easily against the dirt berms. I'd already calculated how many elevation-clicks were required for various ranges out to 600 yards, and the numbers indicated that at any range beyond 500 the bullet would under-shoot small rocks if the BC wasn't quite as high as advertised.

I peered through my spotting scope to find appropriate rocks, around two inches in diameter, then started dialing and shooting. (The scope had previously been tested in several ways, and its 1/4 MOA clicks had proven very accurate and consistent.) Luckily, a thunderstorm had just blown through, and the rain had not only darkened the dirt on the berms, allowing any limestone to show up better, but the air was as close to dead-calm as it ever gets around here. This meant the BC-check would be about the bullet, not my wind-compensation.

I started at around 250 yards, and kept working out to longer ranges, checking through a spotting scope to find just the right rocks. On my final, longest shot the rock went flying through the air--in two pieces. Obviously the listed BC was accurate enough, but just as obviously I'd sighted-in on rocks, and it worked!

Calling Captain Kirk ...

Mule Deer, I am near Tuskegee and White Oak Plantation. That is a good area for Deer Hunting. Thanks for the column.

Well I learn something new every time I read one of our MuleDeers articles.

While I will usually just hunker down into a squat, and blaze away at a mark on a box placed a paced off 100 meters or so away.
I’ll have to try taping up a target or two.

Some folks use benches , and target rests ! Do they schlep all this paraphernalia when out hunting ?
No wonder they need a 1 ton hunting rig.

I do appreciate the luxury of practicing the sit ( with sling ) , perched on top of a shooting bench at the range. I might even sit on a gardeners kneeling pad if the bench top is splintery.

Count me amongst those who believes in tuning the zero whilst whacking rodents.
I can always blame my spotter when it’s off next time.

I have a portable bench I use and a portable target I use at the deer lease. If it’s a new scope-rifle set up, I use a lead sled to get on center and an inch and a half high. I then use sand bags to double check shooting on the sled. Year to year with the same scope on the rifle, I use bags to make sure it’s still on.
It seems my rifles stay on since I went to Talley bases and rings. I had always used the Leupold windage adjustable bases. No more.

I don’t like gun ranges anymore, too noisy, too many people!

When I was working at the gun store/range a customer purchased a Barrett M 82 and the most expensive Leupold Mil scope and some cheapo rings. When the set up arrived the customer requested that we sight in the rifle at 1k yards so he could go shooting. The sales guy, who was pretty sharp, tried to explain how it really worked, the customer got pissed and called his old friend, the owner and raised hell. The owner, who was dumber than the customer, called me and said fix "fix his [bleep] rifle"

I bore sighted the rifle on the bustop across the road @ 50 yards. Got some dope from a ballistic calculator and printed it out along with the website for Rifle Only and made another customer who would bitch eternally about dumbasses in gunstores.


mike r

FWIW I'll usually sight in at 100 metres (ranges here are generally denominated in metres rather than yards) , but with a hunting rifle while I use a rest I am actually holding the rifle in my hands, weak hand holding the fore-end. I might do this over a benchrest or over some other rest, such as my daypack.. Holding the rifle like this is how I'll take the longer/more critical shots, so I want the POI to reflect that hold, rather than, say, sitting the rifle directly on the benchrest, and perhaps letting it recoil freely.

With a new rifle or new scope I will typically start at 50 m after boresighting. With a new rifle or load I also like to see how it goes at longer distances than 100 too, but once I have that sorted then confirmation of zero is usually just at 100.

I like to check zero before each trip. Part of this is confirming everything's lined up, part of it is having a couple of foulers down the bore before the shots that are to count, and part of it is just practice. I don't begrudge the few rounds it takes, and if I'm going to go bush for a few days I like to be confident that the rifle's on the button. Even just up on the family farm I'd check zero if I haven't shot that rifle for a while.

I've been on a few hunts with guides, and it has been my experience that they like to see you zero - more to see how close they are going to have to get you than anything else I suspect. They always seem to be relieved to see that a bloke can put them all into a nice tight cluster from whatever improvised rest they give you.

Good write-up.It does have a few colloquial names,but that's the first time I've heard it called "Muskegee"...

I don't like public ranges either. Too many unsafe idiots.
Thankfully a friend has a 600 yard range with a bench at his farm here in SW Missouri. When I travel out west to hunt I find a nice big flat rock face and shoot out to 600 yards while recording the impacts through my spotting scope with my smart phone and an eye piece adapter. Works like a champ and saves a lot of walking.

Best part of the article is the picture of the 788

RJ

I built this tailgate bench for my Z-71. I find it easier and faster to set up than my bench rest and it works OK. The extra length gives room for a free standing Magnetospeed chrono.

1/2" plywood is light enough, yet strong and stiff enough with 2x2 bracing. The extension is to get out of the way of the tailgate cable.

So, my range is where I park the truck...

DF

John,

I read your article on sighting in, and just the subject--and some of the types of stories--took me a step back in time...

I can recall just starting the learning curve of scope sighted center fires in the early 1970's.

Back then, Weaver scopes came in yellow boxes, and I recall one of them having an insert inside titled:

"No One Else Can Sight In A Rifle For You. Here's How You Can Do It."

The article was from Outdoor Life, October 1947, by Jack O'Connor.

In the article he recommends a preliminary sight in at 25 yards, striking the point of aim. Then, to move back to 100 yards and sight in 3 inches high. I tried that a time or two back then, but wasn't satisfied.

One cold, late October night back in 1973, I walked a couple miles out to Bill Beyl's home, carrying my rifle. When I arrived, he was eating supper, and his kid was in a high chair--arrayed in his Halloween costume! Bill was ready to sight it in for me. We drove out back with his truck, and set up a target at 50 yards. It was dark, so we used the headlights of his truck to accomplish the task. He zeroed the rig in three shots. At that point Bill told me, "you want that bullet to hit one half inch high at 50 yards." This was a practice I used for the next couple decades.

It was almost exactly 20 years later that I read an article in Outdoor Life by Jim Carmichael titled:

"A Short Cut To Sighting In" dated November 1993.

In the article, he stated that in testing many rifles and different bullet weights, he came to the general conclusion (me paraphrasing), that if a person were to sight in their rifle one half inch high at 50 yards, most big bore cartridges in most bullet weights will hit within 3 inches of where you aim at 200 yards...

It caught my eye because it was essentially what Bill taught me to do 20 years earlier. They both are, and were--amazing shooters...

Thanks for the info, and bringing back some of the memories!

Hi Jerry,

Very interesting!

I eventually came to a similar conclusion on a caribou hunt in Quebec in the early 1990s. It was an "affordable" almost-DIY hunt, common then in Quebec: You brought your own food, and hunted and packed out game on your own, but were provided wall tends with cots, a primitive kitchen, and a "camp manager" to fix stuff, provide a little hunting advice, and use a 2-way radio for emergencies.

We'd already seen from the air as the plane approached that the camp was surrounded by caribou, and when it pulled up to the shore the camp manager (a French-Canadian named, of course, Pierre) was very excited. "Get your rifles and go! These are the first caribou to appear in many days!"

So we did. The camp, however, did not have any sort of target set-up to check zero, so I grabbed emptied one of our grocery boxes, and used my note-pen to draw a small circle, setting the box down 50 of my paces away. (I limited it to 50 because the only flat ground was a narrow strip along the shore. Behind the camp a semi-mountain rose pretty steeply.)

I did some mental figuring. The rifle had been zeroed two inches high at 100 back in Montana, so should shoot slightly high at 50. It did, and worked fine in the field, shooting just about dead-on at 200-225.

Did some more experimenting after that, and discovered the 25-yard sight-in recommended by O'Connor (and many others) usually ended up with a 100-yard zero higher than three inches, often 4-5 inches, depending of course on the cartridge, and how high the scope was mounted over the bore. In general, short-range zeroing at 35 yards comes much closer to the present standard for big game rifles of two inches high at 100--which of course results in shots landed a little high at 50!

Hope you are doing well. I supposedly semi-retired this year, resigning from one of my magazine markets that required half my writing time, but only provided 1/4 of my income. But it still feels like I'm working way more than half-time!

Great comments MD and Jerry. I learned the 50 yard sight in out of desperation while in Africa years ago. We cobbled together a 50 yard range and sighted our rifles slightly high (1/2-3/4” inch). It worked incredibly well for that safari and I have used the method ever since.

You mean this isn't right?

Yes. Over time, one eventually witnesses all. Years back as we were preseason zeroing, we met a gentleman insisting we were doing it all wrong. One must zero firing from an off hand standing position.

John,

Congratulations on the partial retirement! This will leave additional time for more loony projects, and other fun things.

Yes, that is what happened to me back in October 1973. I had spent quite a bit of time scouting out at Joe Lee's place, and had found a big whitetail buck that had my undivided interest. I day dreamed about that buck for about 3 weeks. A few days prior to opening day, I had once again sighted in my rig at 25 yards, as recommended by O'Connor.

That morning, the whitetail I was after was sparring with a smaller buck. I waited for the perfect broadside shot, and when that presented, I made a careful shot--and nothing happened! The deer took off before I could fire again. Skunked. When I got back home, my mom admonished me, saying, "You've got to shoot them in the heart." I was crest-fallen. When I think about it now, I chuckle about her comment though.

After re-living that a few times in my mind, I suspected the shot went high. It was then that I walked to Bill Beyl's house. After he fired the first round and saw where it hit, he said, "It's no wonder why you missed, your rifle is sighted in for several hundred yards out--maybe even out to about 500 yards. I figure it would probably hit much higher than 3 inches high at 100 yards--might be as much as 5 inches high."

So, that's when I got the sight in lesson, where he taught me to zero one half inch high at 50 yards. You can be certain I got my buck the next time out--which really restored my confidence.

Today I do things a little differently, but always do a follow up at 100 yards, and time permitting, farther out.

Nevertheless, the half inch high at 50 method will always be handy in those various situations like you had when you were caribou hunting--it simply works when in a pinch.

I love articles like this, as they are part of what makes the field so interesting. Kind of like what Louise Shepard said about her husband Alan Shepard back in 1960 or 1961: "He reads the technical manuals--the kind, the Admirals and Generals say should be read..."

Fun times!

I don't like too much mid range rise for that very reason. It is all too easy to shoot over or worse, wound an animal in a way that doesn't kill it quickly, when your rifle's zeroed to put the bullets 3 or more inches high at mid range. I remember seeing a nice fallow buck one time with a divot cut out of its backline just above the spine as mute witness of that - he didn't look happy, poor bugger.

With most of my rifles I sight in about 1 1/2" high at 100, so as to have no more than 2" mid-range rise. That will put them on or close to the button at about 200, and so for all practical purposes I can hold right on out to somewhere over 200 (depending on which rifle) without having to think about trajectory. That accounts for the vast majority of the shots I actually take at game. For longer shots I usually have plenty of time to think about trajectory.

For rifles to be used on small game I want less mid-range rise than this.

Dan,

In 2011 I killed a Cape buffalo in Tanzania that had a missing "spinous process" at the top of the shoulder area, with round scars on either side, indicating somebody had shot high and didn't QUITE miss. I always wondered what happened after that high shot, since those often put big game down--but don't keep them there!

My favorite is the guy who was on a public rifle range with no hearing protection shooting a 25-06
Using a folded boat cushion.
He couldn't understand why I could get tighter groups at 200 yds.

There's actually a smidgen of truth to that. I noticed a lot when I was an avid smallbore silhouette shooter that I was off by a little with my offhand practice shooting versus benchrest sight-in. Differences between rest versus hand hold don'tcha know. (That's not to say I don't sight in off the bench and call it good today.)

When I was younger there was a difference between my offhand zero and my sitting rapid fire zero.
(Both 200 yards)
Hint, slingtension.

That could have led to some excitement!

I've found the same thing. I zero from a rested position, but with the rifle held in both hands, and the back of my left hand on the rest, for the reason that that gives me a POI best representative of what I'll get for shots in the field. POI from resting directly on the bags front and rear tends to be different.

Wherever possible I take shots in the field from a similar hold: more often than not kneeling supported, or less often from lying supported or some other supported position, using some sort of improvised rest such as a post, stump, tree, or daypack. Offhand is a little different for POI, but I don't take the longer shots from that position - mostly quick snap shots, often at running animals - and so the difference isn't enough to matter.

John, I am spending the morning doing some reading and have been catching up on some of these threads. In the above anecdotes, and I am sure on countless other occasions, you have encountered shooters taking a torturous path to getting their guns sighted in. You are ever the polite professor here on the forum, often taking time to share your knowledge and experience and correcting errant thinking. In the above instances, you just let the shooters go on doing their thing rather than nurturing them along. Is that because your experience tells you that it is hopeless to try to do anything about it?

I generally do NOT suggest anything to shooters at the range, unless they specifically ask. In general, they're already convinced they're doing things correctly--and even if they have some doubts, resent other people making suggestions.

Best practices are to keep head down and don't even make eye contact.

The last time I recommended ANYTHING to a shooter at the range was to ask him "hey! do you really wanna walk out there while the others are shooting?"

Yeah, in case of emergency I have made some pretty strident suggestions--such as when some high-school age boy was loading his rifle with the barrel point right down the line of benches, and his father paid no attention.

But technical advice, no, not unless asked.

Yeah, I can vividly recall Gunnery Sergeant Joe Monteleone telling one my class mates, "If you don't keep the barrel of that rifle pointing down range at all times; I will sick it up your ass so your can remember where it is pointed." Sarge had a way of getting points across !

CJ

I was tempted to do the same!

John, I agree about those "near spine" shots. I once witnessed a Hunter, I didn't know (during early muzzleloading season, Nat. Forest area) drop a decent buck. He didn't reload, but rushed down to the buck. About the time he got to the buck he begin to stir & tried to get up. The Shooter grabbed the Buck by the horns & tried to hold him down. I hurried down & when I got there, the Buck was getting stronger & the hunter was getting winded. I at first offered to cut the Bucks throat, The Hunter readily agreed, but I feared the Buck would go NUTS when I made a cut, so by then the Buck was getting the upper hand & was in position to gore the hunter (the Buck was standing & the hunter was on his back). I shot the buck (probably 175 #'s) in the chest . That settled the matter !!

But nine times out of ten those that are doing the "sighting in" would like some advice instead of being snickered at behind their backs. Rather than watch them waste and or run out of ammo I would think a "worldly gentleman" would be more than willing to offer or at least ask "Hey buddy, you having problems with your rifle?" or some other polite question to break the ice like "Hey buddy, that sure is an interesting 444 ought 40 you have there, mind if I have a look and/or shoot it? I've never shot one before." and in the end help a guy out that spent a good amount of his hard earned money on what might possibility be the hunt of a lifetime with his less than your standards rifle and scope setup. Who knows, you both might walk away with a better appreciation for the other's situation.

My bench is also "free for friends" and 99% of the time I'm invited to come and spot so I bring my "Bob-sled" and sandbags as well as a rifle (or three) which almost always turns into a " Hey, want to shoot mine? " situation. Also by not shooting your best and letting "Buddy" shoot yours and by maybe besting your group builds their confidence.

Some recent shooters at my bench come to mind:



This next young man also worked up his own load using my press and sighted in his rifle (see target) and shot a pretty darn good group after zeroing!!





A non reactive target set up at a shooter/hunter's maximum distance will also boost confidence in their rifle, load and ability. Here's that same young shooter/hunter/reloader's 300 yard, three shot target. Yes, there was a slight crosswind.



He later harvested a nice fat muley doe with that load with one shot.

Anyways, I hate to see folks get a bad rub just because their stuff isn't what others think it should be.

RJ

Read that article by Jack O'Connor many years ago sighting in at 25 yds dead center and being 3'high at 100....have being doing it for 40 years like that and about every caliber you pick up will be like that .Look at JBM Ballistics and zero your given gun at 25 yds and look at where it will be at 100.....about every time it will be 3" high at 100. I was looking at this few days ago with a 308 shooting a 130 grain TTSX at about 3165 fps and at 100 it was 3.1" high. What is happening is dead center at 25 bullet starts to rise, and at 50 yds will be like 1/2" inch high and still rising at 100. I always like a 3" high at 100 so that at 300 yds you do not have to hold high....will only be 1 to 3 inches low for most calibers. Even at 200 yards bullet still rising.

recoiljunky,

"But nine times out of ten those that are doing the 'sighting in' would like some advice instead of being snickered at behind their backs."

That has NOT been my experience at public ranges. While some do, most others can get pretty huffy even at a polite inquiry. (But I don't snicker at them. I just let them do their thing, and I do mine.)

A private range is a different deal. Helped out quite a few at different private ranges, including the one I had for 8 years, and the one mentioned belonging to a good friend.

BUT in the instance described, the guy and his son were complete strangers to me--and when I told my friend about it later, they were to him as well.

Turned out one of his other friends (a guy I also knew who worked part-time for the county sheriff's department) had announced to the rest of the guys in the department that the range was open to anybody. Whereupon a steady stream of people my friend did NOT know started using his range. Which resulted in things like fenceposts being shot to pieces, and a few other incidents.

My friend was VERY interested to hear about this (especially the fencepost) when I phoned him that evening, and informed his "generous" buddy informed that the range was NOT open to everybody,. My friend put a couple of steel fenceposts in the middle of the turnoff to the range, with a sign that said, "Shooting with permission only," and gave his phone number. After that I was the ONLY person allowed to use the range without calling and asking.

I grew up on the ranch where my dad taught his kids to shoot off-hand out to 100 yds, kneeling out to 200 yds, sitting out to 300 yds, and prone out to 400 yds, and all at an 8-inch bull. Using a Garand.

I'd never see a bench, a table, or whatever for shooting until hunting season came when my dad would "fill in the corners" of income by letting hunters come on to the property. Then the bench and some sort of stool would get pulled out to let the hunters check their zero at 100 yards.

I remember for a number of seasons "old joe" would come out to the ranch to have a try at Mulies. All I remember about Joe was something about he having cornered the market in fresh ravioli in the big city and each season he'd show up in a new pickup and carrying a new rifle in some loudenboomer cartridge, usually a Weatherby. This one particular season old joe must have brought a particularly nasty recoiling rifle as you'd see him pulling away from the rifle before the bullet launched. Naturally, he completely missed the entire target at 100 yards, and then missed the entire target again when we moved it up to 50 yards. At that my dad declared the rifle 'broken' and gave him one of the ranch rifles in '06 to use and told me to take joe out and to bring him back alive at the end of the day. He also told me to take a rifle and finish off whatever joe manages to hit as well.

Now I'm not saying this is true 'cause my dad didn't admit to it, but I understood "old joe" was urged to give the Q ranch down the road a ways a try as the Mulies were supposedly bigger and fatter over there.

Pud

Well maybe around Bozeman a public range is loaded with [bleep], but where I come from on the other side of the Madison and Gravelly ranges and here in NW Colorado, the public range users are pretty ok especially if you show interest in what they're shooting.

RJ

This afternoon I had to explain to someone that you don't set foot forward of the line until everyone there has acknowledged that the range is cold and hands are off the firearms. I didn't use foul language, and hopefully not too harsh of a tone, but there's no doubt about if I was load and clear.

I grew up in Bozeman, and it was different then--around 12,000 people-, instead of a "metropolitan area" about 10 times as large. Am very familiar with Alder, since my father and his brother founded and ran the Virginia City Players for many years. I worked for the theater during summer as teenager, mostly doing grunt work, partly because I could walk outside of town in 2 minutes and start hunting with my .22.

Am now 70 miles away from Bozeman. Moved here 30 years ago when it was still really rural, and helped establish the local range. Even though the range is between Bozeman and Helena, it gets a LOT of use due to the area growing so much in recent years.. In fact what used to be just a "club" range now regularly hosts shoots that have people coming from several surrounding states. It was expanded to 1000+ yards a few years ago, with around 20 concrete benches.

Am also somewhat familiar with your area of Colorado. Hunted northwest of Craig for mule deer with a friend close to 20 years ago, and got an ancient, heavy-antlered 3x3, and my partner got a very good typical 4x4. Great country, and am glad to hear it's still pretty rural. Dunno what we're gonna do with the recent vast "Californication" of this part of Montana. Thought we were too far from the Bozone to get invaded, but might have to sell out and head farther east.

I really enjoyed these posts.
All the types of things I can appreciate.
I have to say I don't care to go to our public range if I expect others, luckily I can shoot at home and tend to do the finicky stuff at home...at home , I am the only one allowed to shoot( and kill) my chrono, the only one that uses my spotting scope, fatwrench etc.
At the public range, it can be entertaining and dangerous but so is a first ride on a colt.
Merry Christmas, folks

I hate to even go to Bozeman now. Moved away from Ennis in '97 and the only place I stop now is Shedhorn to see Rob (we were EMT's on the Ennis ambulance together) and stock up on reloading supplies. It's all changed so much, even Alder is californicated.

I remember Judith Furee (sp) singing Mule Train 😂😂

RJ

Yeah, we go to Bozeman as little possible anymore. Used to go there regularly to get slide film developed, but switched to digital around 2004--about the time Bozeman started being a PITA to get around in.

Did go with my brother when he visited a couple years ago, just to show him the changes--such as traffic lights every mile all the way out to Four Corners!

I have a buddy that does the shoot once adjust the scope shoot again and just keeps shooting. I leave him alone he looks so happy doing it. I saw a guy few weeks ago sighting his rifle in and barrel sitting on his shooting bag. At one point he swapped scopes, he was an older guy so he knew what he was doing. Seen the rolled up jacket for a shooting rest. I just about seen it all just like muledeer. The best one was in Colorado guy sighting in his new rifle, instead of sitting in the chair he kneels on it and using his memory foam pillow rest. He touched one off, I never seen so much blood that dude scoped himself bad and he was bleeding everywhere lol. Another time guys just came from the gunshow bought one of them osprey scopes 5 rounds into it the glass fell out of it...

Great read. Thanks for everyone's part in this column.
I guess you could call it that.

Try myself never to give unasked for advice on a range unless it s a safety issue. First of all you don't even know whether shooter has any ability. Second it is alot easier to help a woman than some guy, women generally never assume they are a direct descendant of Daniel Boone like guys do.
Some polite help goes farther with them than a guy. Best advice is to find a place to shoot by yourself. ...mb

I sight in at lease, hate the noise at gun ranges.

I stopped going to the county range regularly a couple years ago. Seems like every time I went other than our Monday morning bunch, there is some Jaba the Hut dude there with a 30-378 with a brake defeating everyone’s double hearing protection or the skinny jeans crowd banging away incessantly with their ARs also equipped with brakes. (Sigh)

Many, many years ago I used to take a roll of "mad money" to the range with me, especially as hunting season approached. Now the "mad money" was not about me; instead it was intended to be used for the once-a-year shooter who got mad at their rifle and was ready to unload it right there, right now.

This was in fact how my custom .30-06 was born 22+ years ago. This fellow showed up at the range in business casual dress - docker slacks, loafers, etc. - lugging a new rifle box with him. Now those kind of folks always made me nervous and I always hoped they'd park themselves at the other end of the firing line from me. But this time he hit the brakes 2 benches from mine and in the end it worked out to my advantage.

I make it a point to mind my own business, but his anger and cussing was getting to a point where it was in my best interest to start paying attention. And then I saw it. He had a brand spankin' new M70 featherweight on the bags and 1 box of Winchester ammo next to it, probably because the rifle was a Winchester too.

I said to him from 2 benches down "You realize that rifle is supposed to have a scope on it, cuz there ain't no iron sights on the rifle and that's why there's no holes in your target".
"WHAAT?" "the guy didn't sell me the scope to go with this rifle!" I asked him where did he buy the rifle? "Walmart" "Well, perhaps you should go back there and get a scope and rings for the rifle. Don't forget the bases too." He was not having any of that, and that is when I made an cash offer to make his problems go away.

When I got back to the shack I called Rick the gunsmith and told him I had the donor action for the project. Rick looked over the rifle and bought both the stock and the barrel for other customers of his. I tossed in the Winchester box of remaining ammo gratis.

I stopped a long time ago going to the range on weekends and during sight-in season. Too many heart palpitations involved.

This year, our sighting in before rifle season and our taking our deer required a total of two shots each. The first one for each of us was to validate that our zero from last year with the same ammo was still good. This resulted in our two bullet holes touching in a figure 8 that was1.5" above dead center at 100 yds with hers being 1/4" left and mine just on the outside edge of that. Our second shots both came on opening day. She shot a nice 10 pointer at 220 yds and I took a 12 pointer at about 110 yds. It's nice to have decent equipment and to have results like that. Good guns, good scopes, good shooting rests make a lot of difference.

Good thread! Out the truck window produces decent groups, in a pinch! Lol

Firstr time I've heard of that. I start at 25yds and fire one shot. Then re-aim on the aiming point and move the cross wires to the bullet hole. next shot is at 100yds and again move the cross wires to the aiming point. Third shot normally very close to the aiming point and final adjustment made. If I remember I'm gonna try that 50 yd deal next time I have a scope to sight in. Old gunsmith named Dingman In Independence, Ore taught me my way about 1963. Doing like Mr Dingman told me worked really well for a long time, normally three shots and I'm there!

If it's a rifle where I can pull the bolt and look through the bore I start by bore sighting at 100 yards. The first round typically lands a very few inches from center.

Reading through this, I’m reminded how fortunate I am to have a good place to shoot. Our club has rifle range out to 800 yards and going to 1000 soon; ten pistol bays and a 50 yard multi purpose bay. It’s strictly a rifle and pistol club, gate access by chipped card and safety is stressed. Everybody knows the rules. Usually, week days, there are only a few of us out there. I have never, in the 3 years I’ve belonged, had a bad experience or even something to just leave me shaking my head.

It's approaching that time of year where I go to 'help' my brother 'sight-in' his rifle for his next big-ticket elk hunt.

It used to be I'd go all-eager to help my brother improve on his shooting skills, however eventually learning the tips I'd pass to him would never seem to take. The same tips would have to be offered season after season after season, ending only in my frustration.

Then it hit me; he 'aint gonna learn, so just make it a fun time, nodding my head at the appropriate times, and wait for him to burn through the single box of ammo he bought on sale the night before.

Since over the years I've learned it takes him on average 5 shots to finally finish off the poor elk he's selected, the only true wisdom I've been able to pass on to him is to suggest he take 10 rounds with him.