Zeroing Your Rifle Scope
Having a rifle is cool and all but at some point you’re going to want to shoot it. What’s more, you’re going to want to shoot it a long distance. Most importantly, you’re going to want to hit what you’re aiming at. It’s kind of the point, really. Sadly, just slapping a scope on to your rifle isn’t going to suffice. At the moment, I’m not aware of any self adjusting rifle scopes. Before you can go shooting, you need to tell your scope where the bullet path is going to be. This is called “zeroing the rifle”.
Before we go any further, you might notice that I mention the 100 yards distance a lot. This is pretty much the standard sighting distance for all scopes. Even if you’re eventually going to reach out and touch 1000 yards, you’re still going to zero at 100. Why? Because MOA is calculated based off the 100 yard distance.
As far as zeroing goes, there’s two or three ways to accomplish this task. First and foremost, you can just go to the range, but the rifle into a bench rest (this is important) then aim at some paper about 100 yards away. Shoot three rounds then see where they hit. Then you just adjust the scope’s reticle to the center of where the shots hit…provided they hit paper. If not, you’re going to need to estimate, adjust the scope and try again. This method often takes a lot of back and forth but it gets the job done with nothing more than your ammo and a rifle stand. The three round shot is important to get the average spread of your rifle. If you go one shot at a time per adjustment, you’re going to be forever chasing that zero. Also, this method kind of goes to crap if it’s windy or hot out. Those things will affect your rifle in significant ways.
If you don’t mind spending a bit for some extra tools, get yourself an optical boresighter. This is a device that fits into the barrel of your gun and produces an image of a grid into your rifle’s sight. All you have to do at this point is adjust the reticle so that it lines up with the center grid lines and your rifle is now zeroed for 100 yards. These cost around $30-$50 depending on where you get them but, if you swap your scopes or just shoot often, having this to be able to return you to a baseline at any given moment is worth it. It takes less than a minute to get your scope ready to go.
Finally, the inbetween of these two methods is a laser boresighter. These are mostly for use with pistols but in a pinch they can help you find that zero on your scope. Keep in mind, I’ve seen numerous laser boresighters that claim they can be used with rifles but I’ve tested quite a few and I’ve yet to find one that’s really useable beyond 25 yards. This is partially because the cheap little lasers they use in the boresighters spread quite a lot over short distances. Not only that, but in any kind of sunlight they’re almost impossible to see. The green ones, while a bit more expensive, are better when zeroing at outdoor ranges. With that in mind, the way I use a laser boresighter for a rifle is to zero it at the 25 yard range. This will pretty much ensure that you’ll hit the paper at the 100 yard range when you start using the first method.
Now that your rifle is zeroed, you have a good starting point for any scope adjustments for bullet drop and windage. Get out there and practice!
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