What do you use to sight in your rifle?

Hookeye said:

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Me too

The cheap orange rest is a Hoppe’s brand, I’ve got one too, and is the one I take anytime I need to zero. I have a Bald Eage with windage top but rarely drag it out unless I’m load testing. Either works well with a Protektor rear bag.

I grew up on sandbags and sometimes a Delta Rest, a weighted triangular front rest with multiple heights molded in. Also improvise at times with my range bag as I did last weekend but never to sight in a scope.

The other thing I use are Thompson Targets and a torpedo level to ensure level and bracket the shot.

Chuck R. said:

For non-bipod rifles, I use an adjustable front and a rear eared bag also, by coincidence mine's also orange. It's also ancient, but every time I think about replacing it, I figure it's working well enough.

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Rifle intended to be shot primarily from a bi-pod, precision & varmint stuff, I do my load development and sighing off the bipod with a rear eared bag.

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I was given a lead sled, but I'm really not a fan of it. Seems like I spend forever fidgeting to get the reticle lined up.

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I have the exact set up. I have no idea how old it is. i am thinking from the 70's.

Bulls Bag, just as easy as it gets.

I made my living building things from metal and my hobby now that I’m retired is building “ things” so
I built a front rest complete with a windage top to use on a bench and use a Protektor bunny ear bag for the rear. No wiggling around to get things just right, only a little knob twisting after initial setup.

After shoulder surgery I couldn't tolerate recoil so I bought a Lead Sled to get back shooting sooner, now I'm still using it hdbiker

Since I took the plunge and bought a SEB NEO rest, that is all I use now though I have a few other ones.

Bob

One other thing.

Don't start out at 100 yards with a small target.

With a rifle that I have not shot before I start close in, at 25 yards. That gives me a good idea where it is hitting. If I completely miss the target at 25 yards, something is wrong.

Next I move to 50 yards. Same thing.

Our range is only 100 yards long, so I will move out to 100 yards last.

The other thing that helps is completely covering the target backer with fresh paper. Newspaper will do, or any other paper. If you miss the target at 50 or 100 yards, but are still on the target backer, the paper you covered the backer with will tell you how far you are off.

If I install a scope I take the bolt out, lay the rifle on something solid, look through the bore at something I can identify and adjust the reticle to what I am seeing through the bore. I usually pick an object about 100 yards away. Since I am a hunter and not a target shooter I do all of my rifle shooting sitting on the ground using a single shooting stick. I grasp the shooting stick with my left hand and lay the rifle over my left wrist. I fire one shot at 25 yards and adjust the reticle to hit about 1 1/2 inches low, and I fire a second shot at 25 yards if needed. I fire the next shot at 100 yards and adjust the reticle to hit about 2 inches high. The next shot is at 200 meters (218 yards) and I adjust the scope to hit dead on. If everything works good I can get to this point in about 5 shots. I test the zero every time I go to the range by shooting 5 shot groups at 200 meters. I call every shot so I know what the group looks like before I see the target up close. I practice my trigger pull by shooting small steel targets at 230 meters.

Not sure they make it anymore but any simple, lightweight front rest is far superior to many of the overpriced contraptions sold today. Not as good as a Hart or Ransom but if you own one of those you understand that already.

Bought my Hoppe’s at age 14, 33 years ago (1987). A Thompson Target. Visible and makes for easier crosshairs alignment with heavy reticle hunting scopes (and I assume target scopes as well).

I have the Hoppes front rest and and bag rabbit ears. I've reached a point now that I only use my hunting backpack and no rear rest. I use this to sight in my 270 Roy, 340 Roy and 375 H&H. It's much more like what the real world shots are and it's made me concentrate more for each shot, both on paper and game out to 300+ yards. I should say that I'm pretty immune to recoil. Grew up shooting 1.5 oz 12 gauge shells in an o/u shotgun so I got the full recoil effect. Anyway this works for me. Your results may differ. JM

I have a green Hart rest that weighs a ton and two Hoppe's rests, plus a home-made rest made out of a piece of 1/2" steel plate (no longer used). I keep one Hoppe's rest and rear rabbit-ear bag in a 5 gallon covered bucket, under my wooden shooting bench in the hedgerow between blueberry fields down back. The Hart rest was used when shooting Rimfire Benchrest, but is so heavy I don't like to carry it with all my other gear at the club range, so just use the Hoppe's rests, with seem to work just fine for what I need to do these days.

Offfhand said:

I've tended to try about everything that comes along, as seen here, but use the Farley "stick shift" in BR competitions. But for general testing and sighting-in prefer the John Loh or Ransom rests with rear bags that best fit whichever rifle I'm testing or sighting-in. View attachment 934203

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That's quite a collection.

Other. Actually, all of the above, depending upon intended use of the rifle.

For XTC target Jacket & Glove
offhand, sitting & Prone add/sling VV. For calling Rifle off shooting sticks V V.

<< All others off front rest/rear rabbit ears, and any other field expedient solid rest in a pinch.

Regards,
hps

Chuck R. said:

For non-bipod rifles, I use an adjustable front and a rear eared bag also, by coincidence mine's also orange. It's also ancient, but every time I think about replacing it, I figure it's working well enough.

View attachment 934066

Rifle intended to be shot primarily from a bi-pod, precision & varmint stuff, I do my load development and sighing off the bipod with a rear eared bag.

View attachment 934067

I was given a lead sled, but I'm really not a fan of it. Seems like I spend forever fidgeting to get the reticle lined up.

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Just checked my rest. It is marked Hoppes

DukeConnor said:

Just checked my rest. It is marked Hoppes

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So's mine......I wonder how many of the things they sold through the years???

I hunt with my rifle. So, when I sight it in It's freehand. I want to hold it the way I hold it in the field, I want feel it the way I feel it in the field and I want to see the sight picture the way I see it in the field. I will fire 3 rounds at a time. The two rounds the closest to each other is where my gun is shooting. The third is my screw up. Surprisingly how well that has worked for me. In my over 40 years of deer hunting I don't remember taking a second shot. Honestly.

Driftwood Johnson said:

One other thing.

Don't start out at 100 yards with a small target.

With a rifle that I have not shot before I start close in, at 25 yards. That gives me a good idea where it is hitting. If I completely miss the target at 25 yards, something is wrong.

Next I move to 50 yards. Same thing.

Our range is only 100 yards long, so I will move out to 100 yards last.

The other thing that helps is completely covering the target backer with fresh paper. Newspaper will do, or any other paper. If you miss the target at 50 or 100 yards, but are still on the target backer, the paper you covered the backer with will tell you how far you are off.

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The 25yd, then 50yd is one way I've used, but if I have a 100yd berm and some clay birds, I also like to walk it in so that, with a 6o'clock POA, POI is in the top half of the bird. To refine it, I like to go to work on the fragments next.

I also like clay birds on a dirt bern. So can see the hits and move the scope hairs to the point of impact and you are close to done in one adjustment. We do this shooting 1,000 yards.

Bob

Inexpensive Caldwell front rest and rear bag.

Bags mostly. I have plenty of old sand-filled shot bags. They do have carpet covered blocks at the range, I sometimes use those.

Improvised rest shooting is a hallmark of military marksmanship. Never had a sled and it was considered "fancy" if you had a bipod. I have shot many rounds off of sandbags or ruck if I didn't have those. That continues now. I sight my hunting rifles off whatever I use for my range bag that day.

The same orange three legged front rest.... with a top owl ear and a rear bag I sewed up .... both filled with kitty litter.... ....

Some my best sighting tools were blue jeans legs sewn up filled with sand ....