Is there a general rule

[PWC]

for how the sights are set on a new in the box firearm? Is a centerfire rifle regulated approx for 100 yd with commercial ammo? Is a centerfire pistol regulated for approx 20 yd with commercial ammo? At 7yd, most any handgun is a health hazard to a bad guy or a 10 in paper plate.

I know, the owner is expected to personalize his firearm, but I just wondered of the mfgr went further than function test only.

Too much idle time......

 

[entropy]

No, there isn't. The people who should be concerned about that would never even think to ask.
You know, the guy who buys a new gun in a box and a box of ammo and heads straight for the range.

 

[illinoisburt]

Most new center-fire rifles are sold with an optical sight of some type boresighted from the factory. Someone here likely knows for sure but I suspect the scope is mounted and simply adjusted to match up with an arbor-type collimator. In theory it should be close enough to be on paper at 25 yards however I have seen a lot of people simple head off to the woods without any adjustments.

 

[Jim Watson]

Most new center-fire rifles are sold with an optical sight of some type boresighted from the factory.

Not around here they are not. Sight installation is left to the dealer or the customer.
Iron sights are put on by jig that maybe somebody sometime figured out the right height for.

 

[trackskippy]

Unless youre buying one of the "starter" type set ups, most rifles dont come with a scope mounted. So, either you do it, or the shop does it.

A lot of rifles these days dont even come with sights on them. Those that do come with iron sights, are usually reasonably close enough to get you on paper at 25 yards. Most of the current leaf type rear sights really arent all that great and anything past 100 yards would likely be a challenge, especially with the usual "ball" type front sights.

I have a couple of M1 Carbines that went through the arsenal after the war and were upgraded and had a replacement front sight put on after they put the bayonet lug on. They were never "regulated" or rezeroed to the rear sight indicators, and required a little filing to get them properly zeroed. You could fiddle with the rear sight a bit to get a fixed distance zero, if you didnt want to change them, but they werent properly zeroed that way.


I think most of the handguns, at least service or similar size, are regulated to around 25 yards. The mini pocket guns, who knows.

A number of the older German and other Euro handguns used to come with a test target showing that they were shot and how they were printing.

Sights on handguns also usually offer a lot of different adjustments, with a myriad of types, different front blades, and rear sights, etc offered. "Adjustable" rear sights are another thing too on some.

My old S&W revolvers with "fixed" sights, seem to all be right on at 25 yards, with a dead on hold, 2" or 4". The fixed sights I have on my Glocks, SIG's, Berettas, etc, all seem to shoot "to the dot" on the front sight and not the top of the blade.

Some guns you just have to figure it out, or maybe even get a file or the soldering gun out.

 

[Otto]

Wilson tests @ 15yds. Some companies go longer range, some shorter. There's no set answer.

 

[jmorris]

No. With some firearms the sights are machined into the firearm and are not adjustable and as the firearm isn’t even complete at this point they can’t be test fired to be put into the right place.

Even if they did, you would need to know what ammunition they are set for as we all know that will change the POA/POI. So even if they did and you picked anything other than what they used, you’d think they skipped a step.

 

[Howland937]

Most every handgun I've ever bought had the sights pretty well centered for L-R so figuring out how they're configured for vertical hold was the only requirement. Never got a new rifle that had sights already tuned to be "sighted in"

4 or 5 NIB scoped rifle kits claiming to boresighted from the factory weren't on paper at 50 yards.

 

[PapaG]

Bore sighting is very misunderstood. Many think it sets up a gun as ready to hunt.
No idea how many customers have asked me to bore sight a gun because they were going hunting this weekend and, when asked, where were they going to sight it in, said they didn't need to. I disabused them of that notion. "Well, why am I paying you to sight it then?"
"You're not. It is a service we provide. We don't charge and it will save you ammo."

 

[Archie]

Most new handguns - very few - to me seem to have the sights reasonably aligned. When I say 'reasonably', I'm considering 'regular' ammunition (.45 Ball, .38 Special 158 grain RNL, and so on) keeping shots on a 12x18 inch rectangle. Not stellar for 2700 shooting, but acceptable for general (whatever that is) self defense.
This pertains to 'fixed sight' handguns, either pistol or revolver. In the past I found one can 'adjust' fixed sight revolvers with the aid of small Swiss files. Most fix sight pistols have a rear sight that can be drifted for windage.
Those handguns with adjustable sights are of course, adjusted by the shooter.

In my collection of older .25 ACP and .32 ACP pistols, most shoot to the point of aim. Sometimes it take a couple minutes to find the dinky sights, and then another couple minutes to get them lined up correctly, but they shoot to point of aim.

 

[C.R.]

My experience I got a .22 Magnum and it functioned correctly , but the iron sight was no where close . took a half a box of ammo to dial it in , but hey its fun to shoot .it was way off to the left when i started , so I moved the rear sight over a bit at a time and now she's right on

 

[Riomouse911]

My experience I got a .22 Magnum and it functioned correctly , but the iron sight was no where close . took a half a box of ammo to dial it in , but hey its fun to shoot .it was way off to the left when i started , so I moved the rear sight over a bit at a time and now she's right on

It can get frustrating when they come out of the box all wonky, nice that you got it dialed in without burning up more ammo.

It took me about 15 shots to get this red dot to hit an inch high at 25 yds. (Started at 3-1-2 and finally 4 in lower right)



Thats about average for me with my rifles, 10-20 shots or so to get it right.

Stay safe.

 

[C.R.]

It can get frustrating when they come out of the box all wonky, nice that you got it dialed in without burning up more ammo.

It took me about 15 shots to get this red dot to hit an inch high at 25 yds. (Started at 3-1-2 and finally 4 in lower right)

View attachment 1100751

Thats about average for me with my rifles, 10-20 shots or so to get it right.

Stay safe.

shooting up a bunch of rimfire is fun BUT if I was dialing in a 300 Win Mag or a .338 Blasting through fifty or a hundred rounds could get painful quickly both the billfold and shoulder !

 

[Riomouse911]

Indeed! Ammo just about anywhere can be pricy and sighting in shoulder-knockers gets old very quickly.

But even WMR ammo is 100% more expensive today than it was a couple of years ago, and its pretty rare, too. I haven’t seen much variety locally, and it hasn’t been sold for less than $15-16/50 on the shelves around here in a long time.

I am glad I put away several thousand .22, magnum rounds over the years, I still like shooting mine.

Stay safe.

 

[Slamfire]

Not around here they are not. Sight installation is left to the dealer or the customer.
Iron sights are put on by jig that maybe somebody sometime figured out the right height for.

My 38 Specials, the old ones with fixed sights, they were regulated for 158's such as these





then S&W made a change, and these are regulated for 125 grain bullets





I called Smith, they guy I talked to said self defense ammunition had changed and the market wanted the lighter bullets.

No one told Taurus, and these are regulated for 158's



Nominally, this Remington 1911 was regulated to point of aim with 230's



for me, it shot low






had a taller Colt dot sight from an earlier project, it was taller






That brought the group into the middle.

If you get a fixed sight pistol that shoots to point of aim, don't change a thing and don't trade it or sell it.

As for rifles, iron sighted rifles took the same amount of work as pistols do, to get them to zero. Scope sighted rifles, well scopes are wonderful things, until you run out of adjustment. Hopefully a modern made rifle will be straight enough that won't happen.

 

[bearcreek]

Bore sighting is very misunderstood. Many think it sets up a gun as ready to hunt.

It does..... as long as they don't take any shots past 15 yards.

 

[Smaug]

It does..... as long as they don't take any shots past 15 yards.

Re. going hunting after having a rifle/scope bore-sighted, I think this type of thing is why some states have these minimum caliber requirements that seem excessive.

A bit of a tangent, but .243 is a common minimum caliber for Whitetail Deer. Is .223 less lethal with correct ammo and any kind of decent hit to the boiler room?

Similarly, will a gut-shot deer die faster from a .243 hit than a .223?

 

[PapaG]

I've had several snubbies that were incredibly high with 158 grain lead. One, a 36 with adjustable sights, 3" barrel, couldn't be dialed in with the rear as low as possible. I went to 110 grain bullets to get close.

 

[Madcap_Magician]

For handguns I really only notice a marked difference between point of aim and point of impact with revolvers in .38/.357 when switching between very light and very heavy bullets, since the range of bullet weights and velocities is very high between the mouse fart .38 Special and the barn burner .357 load.

Other than that with semiautos it's mainly whether the POI is regulated to be at the top of the front sight blade or with the front sight entirely obscuring the target, which Sig does.

 

[Jim Watson]

Re. going hunting after having a rifle/scope bore-sighted, I think this type of thing is why some states have these minimum caliber requirements that seem excessive.

A bit of a tangent, but .243 is a common minimum caliber for Whitetail Deer. Is .223 less lethal with correct ammo and any kind of decent hit to the boiler room?

Similarly, will a gut-shot deer die faster from a .243 hit than a .223?

Multiple Anecdote Alert:

1. A friend's 11 year old had shot his first deer.
I asked what with?
He said "A .223."
Me "Good job."
Him "Most people ask how many shots it took."
Me "OK, how many?"
Him "One."

2. Another friend thought his .243 was The Thing for deer hunting. But one day he lost one, hit badly. He knew it was a poor hit, but he could not get over the thought that his .243 was Not Enough Gun. So he bought a .270.

3. Another friend's adolescent went hunting with little knowhow or preparation. I think with a .30-06. He shot at a deer at extreme long range and was unlucky enough to hit it. It limped away while he emptied the magazine at it with no more hits. He had no more ammo and no idea of following a trail, so that deer was lost, too.

 

[JohnKSa]

In my experience, handguns with fixed sights tend to be set up so they shoot pretty close to point of aim at around 15 yards. Those with adjustable sights usually require some work to get them shooting right. There are always exceptions. Got one handgun with fixed sights years ago that was shooting about a foot low and 6" off to one side.

 

[I6turbo]

The only new guns I've bought in the past 30+ years have been CZs, and one Armalite. I never tested the open sights on the Armalite, so I don't know how they were set.

5 new CZ handguns were all spot on at about 15 yards or so.

All of the CZ rimfire rifles that had sights (about 6 or 7) were spot-on at some reasonable distance (25-50 yards or so, IIRC).

Two CZ centerfire rifles were very close to being on at about 50 yards, but not precisely so with the ammo that I used. Those two were pre-owned, but appeared to have been fired little or none, and I expect the sights hadn't been adjusted.