Setting zero for hunting rifle with turrets?

Gotta be careful with those Creedmoors.

p1919695353-5.jpg
 
I sight in at 100yds., set turrets to zero. Then I spin them to 2.5". That way I'm good to around 250 yds. with no hold over. Any further and I can turn the turrets more. I have a range card taped to my stock that I trust to 400yds. After that I will use the correction provided by the Revic BR4.
 
I sight most of my hunting rifles to be zero @ 200yds. The rifles shoot very flat from 0-200yds so there's no reason to dial down from there. For greater distances I'll just dial up.

I do have a few scopes that have multiple aiming points or hash marks with 100yd increments. Since the scope manufacturer couldn't possibly know what the trajectory of my ammo will be, the various crosshairs are never accurate for correct drop.

What I do is use the 400yd crosshair and sight the rifle in "dead on" at 400yds. When you check the 200yd and 300yd crosshair they are rarely off enough to make any difference. But if you sighted in at 100yds, using the 100yd crosshair; the point of impact when using the 400yd crosshair would be way off.

For distances over 400yds, I use the 400yd crosshair, which I know is dead on, and have a drop chart for 450-500-etc.
 
Last edited:
I do have a few scopes that have multiple aiming points or hash marks with 100yd increments. Since the scope manufacturer couldn't possibly know what the trajectory of my ammo will be, the various crosshairs are never accurate for correct drop.

What I do is use the 400yd crosshair and sight the rifle in "dead on" at 400yds. When you check the 200yd and 300yd crosshair they are rarely off enough to make any difference. But if you sighted in at 100yds, using the 100yd crosshair; the point of impact when using the 400yd crosshair would be way off.

For distances over 400yds, I use the 400yd crosshair, which I know is dead on, and have a drop chart for 450-500-etc.
Well we dont live in a perfect world do we?
Dead on today, dosent necessarily mean dead on tomorrow does it?
I mean today might be 50 degrees, and tomorrow might be 5 below zero, and the ammo was left out in the vehicle over night.
And we will be hunting at a place today that is 500 feet higher than the place we hunted yesterday.
And that dosent take into account any other condition changes that didnt exist yesterday.
But back to your point.
Its easy for me at my age to look back 40 years as though it were yesterday.
And yesterday we didnt have scopes with hash marks in the reticles like those available today.
In fact most of the scopes having them didnt exist either, nor did target knobs in scopes used for hunting.
But BC did exist, and so did ways of recording velocity.
And so did people like Dick Thomas (premier reticles), who would install a custom multi dot reticle in a Leupold scope.
He needed to know the bullet being used along with the BC # and the velocity.
Now we all know that an elevation number is also important as is a temperature number in order for the data to be accurate.
So the best we can do is use average numbers for the location we will be using the rifle.
Meaning that an average temp and elevation for Driftwood Pa. will vary from those in Rifle Co. considerably.
There are ways of dealing with those things, but not without shooting in order to find out.
You might find out for example that your 400 yard hash mark is now a 450 yard hash mark.
I took a Dick Thomas custom reticle scope programed for a 3000 fps 7 Rem Mag, and put it on a 7x300 Wetherby having a 350 fps velocity difference using the same 162 gr bullet.
And by doing alot of shooting, i found that i gained a dot on the upper end and lost one on the lower end.
In other words what was 500 is now 600, and i no longer have a 300. So it starts at my 100 yard zero then next dot is now 400 instead of 300, and 1000 is now 1100.
And on real cold days you need to fudge a bit on the hold.
But thats why spotters and sighter shots are a good thing.
 
I do have a few scopes that have multiple aiming points or hash marks with 100yd increments. Since the scope manufacturer couldn't possibly know what the trajectory of my ammo will be, the various crosshairs are never accurate for correct drop.

What I do is use the 400yd crosshair and sight the rifle in "dead on" at 400yds. When you check the 200yd and 300yd crosshair they are rarely off enough to make any difference. But if you sighted in at 100yds, using the 100yd crosshair; the point of impact when using the 400yd crosshair would be way off.

For distances over 400yds, I use the 400yd crosshair, which I know is dead on, and have a drop chart for 450-500-etc.

I tried, unsuccessfully, to suggest similar earlier! 😉 memtb
 
Top