100 or 400 yard zero?

[Azrael]

On my long range hunting rigs with MOA turrets I'll zero at 100, but carry it dialed up for MPBR. Way to many years of carrying general purpose hunting rifles sighted like that to leave it on the table. Who says you cant have it all?

Suppose that this zeroed at 100, carried at 300 rifle is now being shot in the dead of winter and the corner that spring is theoretically around isn't even in sight yet. More than a few of my favorite rifles are down 1 MOA at 650 (odd-ball distances on my own range, perhaps I should pretend I was going metric) due to cold ammo, cold barrel, cold shooter, and heavy air. I can cancel out a lot of that just shooting my 500 yard target (very wind protected) tieing on and slipping the scale so all the lies are aligned. In other words, if I wanted to see 7 MOA instead of 7.5 on that turret loosen the screw and turn it to 7. If that means its off 1/2 minute or so at 100 who cares, fix that in July. It might mean I carry it around with 2.5 in advance come-ups instead of 3 if I thought it through that far.

Armed with that, you yardage dial guys know what to do when the sun goes behind a cloud or reality sinks in and you have to back that "Just a little hot load" to a " Just hot enough charge"

Lets suppose you're neither a MOA guy or a yardage dial guy and are slumming a B&C reticle. You might find that your 500 yard hold-point isn't working out exactly the way you want, so why not just sight in at 500 with the appropriate aim point. 200 will take care of itself.

 

[1ASSASSIN]

I keep some of my long range hunting rigs zeroed at 600 yards and others zeroed at 1,200 yards, depending on cartridge/caliber.

Drop tables are made in 50 yard increments, from the zeroed range to MY maximum shooting distance per rifle/cartridge/caliber. There is NEVER any guessing!

 

[257Tony]

I zero all of my hunting rifles, all my kids rifles, all my buddies rifles that invariably end up on my bench for load data, scope mounting, etc. at 200 yards. Can't forget which rifle has which zero if they are all the same!

 

[memtb]

I zero all of my hunting rifles, all my kids rifles, all my buddies rifles that invariably end up on my bench for load data, scope mounting, etc. at 200 yards. Can't forget which rifle has which zero if they are all the same!

Same here.....except it's 300 yards!

 

[bskusske21]

zero at 200

 

[Wild Bill G]

I like mine zeroed so at the highest piont the bullet does not go over 4 inches. That way I can hold middle chest and not worry about shooting high on deer all the way to zeroed range. I also try to figure mpbr as well takes a lot of guess work out of life with most modern cartridges.