I worked up a new load for my 30-06 this year. I had to re zero with my new load. I used zero at 100 since I hunt mostly thick places in Georgia. Most shots are under 150 yards. I have found several places on my lease that are 200-300 yard shots with lots of deer activity. I am reconsidering rezeroing to the old 2 inches high at 100. What do most of you use for zero on your shooting rig?

Out of habit, I zero 1" high at 100 yards, then run the mumbers on a ballistics program to get the trajectory plot.
My hunting is much like yours in Georgia. Not many long shots, but occasionally one comes along. Most of my hunting here is in the swamps, where shots are like 60 yards average.

Don

I'm an advocate of using maximum point blank range (mpbr) to sight in my rifles. I shoot for no more than a 3" rise/drop. This usually works out to around a 250-265yd sight-in. That said, I almost never recommend this to others. It is too easy to set yourself up for a miss(high), if you don't remain acutely aware of the trajectory.
What I most often recommend is that the average hunter sight his rifle in to be dead on at 200yds. That at least gets them on the 200 yard line, and all-too-often makes them aware of some (ridiculous) shortcomings of their rifle/scope. We all understand they are just natural-born riflemen, so the limiting factor must be the rifle/scope/ammo!
Anyway, a 200yd sight-in works for most situations, and if the range really gets out there (300yds) everyone knows to "hold on his back line." JMHO,,,,,,,,,,,Bug.

2" high sounds perfect for a 180 gr at 2800 MV.
dead on at 200 and 8" low at 300. you can hold on the back line at 325-350 and still punch the heart out of a decent sized deer.

I have all my rifles including my 30/06 zeroed at 200 yds. I you do not have a place to shoot to 200 yd I think 1" high at 100 would get you there if your fps is at least 2900 fps.

My chosen load is the 150 gr Barnes TSX at 2870fps. I was figuring about 1.7 inches high at 100 would give me a 200 yard zero. The reason I went with the 100 yard zero was I shot over the back on a high shoulder shot at about 170 yards with a 2 inch high at 100 load last year. Hard to remember everything when those deer give you a 1-2 second window from sighting to chance over.

I zero at 200 or 225 depending on the cartridge and bullet used.

Most hunters sight thier rifles in 1-3" high at 100 and assume it's zeroed at further distances such as 200 or maybe 250...

I find it much better to actually zero the rifle at the intended zero range and then try at 100 to see how high it is. It will not always be what the ballistic calculator predicts.

I've seen rifles that were several inches off zero at the further ranges when they were "supposed" to be zeroed at that particular range based on what they did at 100.

Many of us may not have access to extended target ranges so the ole' "1-1/2" high at 100" trick has to suffice. That method's been working for decades and I'd imagine it'll keep right on working. Large vital areas help out alot when your rifle isn't just perfectly sighted.

Good Luck

Reloader

2" high at 100yds should get you very close to zero at 200yds and about 8" low at 300yds. But as Reloader accurately states it does depend on the rifle how close that actually is.

At 300yds wind can be a very significant factor. Just a 10mph crosswind can push it over 6 to 8inches.

I usuallu try to sight in at 2.5" high at 100. That usually puts me at about 3" high as the highest trajectory and dead on at about 250 yards. I just hold on hair out to 350 and it works great. This is for firing at between 2900 and 3100 FPS. It is a bit less for 2400-2900, but it still works for me.

I am old school I zero at 25 yds. It makes it easier to see bullet holes and you dont have to walk as much. I shoot at regular thumb tacks nothing any bigger. Once you get it set there move out to 100 yds and shoot to fine tune the windage. With a 30-06 it will be 2 1/2" high at 100yds zeroed dead on at 25 yds.

Great points, agree with you Reloader...

D Hunter, I always aim for the largest target, when not doing a neck shot, save a planned 200yd spine hit, intended as I was shooting an ultra accurate 6BR and wanted a DRT, but it cost me a couple of bites of tenderloin...bullet exploded on contact as I knew it would 105amax.

That said, immediately after, I shot another with a center chest hold, broadside at 400 yds. Hit exactly in center, deer went 25 yds and struggled to stay on feet from impact to being down. So, when range is unknown, I go for a center chest hit, low can get heart, high the spine, center the lungs as we all know, and usually if I hit as planned, no shoulder, backstrap, or other meat is wasted.

You mentioned 200-300, if that is your max, I'd go 2" high at 100, attempt to find a place to verify 200 yd zero, and aim on backline for your longest shots, dropping the bullet down still well in vitals at or just below midline of chest, very effective. Never have to aim off deer to 300 yds that way.

One caveat, I once had a rifle at 1.5" high for a 200 zero at the range, last minuted worried about POI for long shots so I 'bumped it up' to 3-4+ at 200, which cost me the biggest deer of my life.

Buck at 150 -200 and I was aiming where I thought it's body was walking through field with tall grass, I did I believe mis-judge where backline was, but had I left my scope alone, believe I would have connected with a spine hit. 4 shots, Ruger #1 Single shot, 270, with a rest, and I mean this buck was LARGE racked, took a long time to let that one go from my list of regrets.....

Good luck.

I try and zero all my rifles close to the same a inch to inch and a half at a hundred puts most of them a couple inchs low at 200 9 to 13 inchs low at 300. That way when I pick pne up i dont have to worry about knowing each one.

I do have a couple on longer range ones zeroed at 300 put they aren't use for general hunting.

Now with the new multi plex reticles a in or so at a 100 will match most out to 500 yards. That and a laser range finder makes hitting out to 500 yards a lot easier.

I crunch a beer can and throw it as far as I can. Then I lay that Remington 7400 across the truck hood. I pop some Federal .30-06's in the mag and take aim. After I hit the can (or reasonably close) I tilt my head back and holler "She's on boy's!" Then the real drink'n starts


Seriously,
Most of the time I actually sight my rifles in at 200yds.

Terry

Jeff Cooper taught us the 200 yard zero method at Gunsite. The idea was, assuming the gun is accurate, that it would keep most high power hunting rounds in a 4 inch circle to about 230 yards from a machine rest without adjusting sights. When combined with shooter error caused by field position shooting, this circle would be expanded to 8". I think that last point is often forgotten when excited hunters take aim. They treat the shot as if their field positions allowed them to shoot up to the gun, which they seldom do.

So, zero at 200 yards by all means, but aim to impact the center of an 8" circle drawn on the target in your mind's eye, and don't assume you can hold tighter than that. Not even under conditions where you should easily do so, because if your excitement gets hold of you, you won't.

For years I used the 3" high at 100, that put it 4" high at 200 and on at 275 with most rifles. Over a time I noticed that everytime I missed was because I over shot, I noticed the same thing with most folks, about 99% to be correct...

I now use and have for years the 2" high at 100, on at 200, and hold on the top of the back beyond that, if I shoot low, the animal is too far away. Works for me.

After your sighted in at whatever you choose, shoot groups off the bench at 100, 200, 300, 400 and maybe even 500 is wise.

Ray, once again is spot on.
I've noticed over many years that a lot of folks tendancy is to shoot over animals when the excitement starts and this can be compounded with "high" sighted rifles. I kept my 30/06 sighted 3" high at 100 for years for Sheep and Goat hunts and mountain hunts for deer and elk, etc. But I noticed that in fast shot situations I was shooting lots of game in the spine (high body shots) even though I knew where the rifle was sighted. I since have been using a 2" high at 100 sight in and using my rangefinder and knowing exactly where my rifle will be at all ranges that I may shoot which for me is about 450 yards in ideal conditions, much much less in not so ideal conditions.

I always zerod 2" high on all my rifles even though where I sat the longest shot might be 150yds. Figured just in case Id have to stop and shoot across a field id be 8", (give or take) low @300.

quote:

Originally posted by D Hunter:
... The reason I went with the 100 yard zero was I shot over the back on a high shoulder shot at about 170 yards with a 2 inch high at 100 load last year. ...

Back 30-35(???) years ago there was a HUGE amount of GunRag print on sighting in 3" high at 100yds. I think they called it Point Blank Range or something like that.

Went something like, "Just imagine a 6" pipe you are shooting through at the Deer. Hold right on the center of the Deer and the Bullet will ALWAYS hit it in a good spot."(They don't like to say KILL!)

So, I decided to try it out.

I also shot over a Deer(just like D Hunter), cause my brain went into the Auto-Pilot Mode when I was focused on the Deer and got ready to shoot. Too many years of having the Sights set at a particular height. Apparently it just didn't recompute in my mind that I'd changed the sights. Pitiful!!!
-----

So, I'd encourage all of you to pick where ever you want your sights, and set all your Longer Distance rifles as close to the same Trajectory as possible. Set your Short Range rifles differently if you choose, but normally mine are darn near the same in close at 100yds.

Best of luck to all of you.

100 yds, and then either use a target turrent on the scope.. or use one that you can reset your zero point.. Like on a Leupold...

also know your trajectories out to 300 to 400 yds, and know where to set your elevation to, to be dead on at that distance...

way too many people don't know a darn thing about their scopes features, or anything ablout how to use the mil-dots on a mil dot reticle...

learning could help a lot of guys who own spendy scopes and don't have a clue about all the features that they are missing that they have paid for and are right in their hands...

Seafire, my mil dot was used at the range on the gong at 415 so when I had a deer pop out right at 400, it was easy. No clicking, I knew where to hold.

Now with most 6x and even 4x lupy, std duplex, 200 zero is about dead on with bottom post at 400, I wonder how many guys think 'hold over' vs just using their reticle-taking advantage of it? I think range time on and off the bags as Ray says is the best advice. Learn the gun.

That beware of the man with one gun is why military snipers do well. Training with one gun-often 308, one scope-usually mil-dot-many fixed power 10x, one ammo-often match 168 bthp, and LOTS of practice time and they do it w/o use of sandbags. Experience is a great teacher, and that is one reason I am a big proponent of cartidges that people can shoot w/o flinching, the learn more by being able to practice more, at least in my experience.

If more hunters increased range time, less game would get missed, wounded, and lost IMHO.

The two inches high theory has always worked in my experience, BUT, you should know the velocity of your ammunition so that you can punch the ballistics tables for your backup information. Time to buy that chronograph if you don't own one already. Knowing the performance of your ammunition makes all the difference in the world.

i'm zeroing at 75% of maximum shooting distance

quote:

That beware of the man with one gun is why military snipers do well. Training with one gun-often 308, one scope-usually mil-dot-many fixed power 10x

6.5 BR..

That is why I am seriously looking at picking up one or two of the Super Sniper 10 X scopes.. or else a 10x and 16 x... at $299.00 they are a bargain.. and in getting one or two, that is exactly what I am going to spend time practicing with it...

I was looking to mount the 10x on a 260 VLS and maybe another on a 223 or 22.250 with a fast twist...

I've used 1-inch high at 100 yards for 40 years, so it'd be hard to change it now. It's worked in the brush and for Muley hunting out west - an inch high at 100 yards, on target at 165, and an inch low at 200, and that's accounted for most of my lifetime of shooting. The few times I need more, it's easy to remember "5 inches low at 250, and 10 inches low at 300," and since I don't shoot farther than that anymore, that's the whole bag.

Jaywalker

Your 25 yard, 100 yard, 200 yard etc... zeroing will greatly depend on your sight height. If your rifle has the centerline of the scope 2.5 inches above the centerline of the barrel versus 1.5 inches for your friend identical rifle, then when sighted at a given distance they will not match up at the other distances.

You need to shoot at these ranges to make sure your gun is doing what you think it should be doing. Ex. if you have a 1.5" sight height zeroed at 25 yards you will hit 2.8" high at 100 yards, if your sight height is 2.5" and zeroed at 25 yards will put you 6" high at 100.

quote:

Originally posted by 6.5BR:
. . . That beware of the man with one gun is why military snipers do well. Training with one gun-often 308. . . one ammo-often match 168 bthp. . .

Wouldn't bother to bring you up to date on this, except for a bad personal experience. M118LR is now the military .308 sniper round, and is using the newer 175 gr Sierra Match King bullet design. The 168 grain SMK used in the old M852 match ammo was once the main practice ammo. So, why the change?

In 2001, a couple of friends and I took Gunsite's PR class (then PR1, or Precision Rifle 1). This is a basic sniper and tactical rifle skills school. The .308 ammo sold at The Ranch for the class was PMC, loaded with the popular 168 grain SMK, and I recall that everyone in that class was using that ammo. At one session, to practice spotter-shooter team work over real terrain, we were shooting across a small valley from the top of one side in a stiff, but fairly steady 15 mph wind. There were poppers at various yardages to estimate and practice on, and our high ground forced us to do some angled elevation compensation. Good practice.

The furthest popper, on that day, was at 748 yards half way up the opposite side of the valley. That one was a problem. Nobody could hit it consistently. I hit it once, by what I now know was sheer luck, but we all tried correcting elevation and windage correction both with the mil dots on out scopes and with scope adjustments, but the bullets would kick dust up left or right, or high or low. It all seemed pretty random. We concluded, incorrectly, that the wind out over the valley must be a lot more irregular than where we were. We thought the steady wind at our location was covering visible changes in the mirage further out, which was all pretty horizontal and stretched out from our vantage point, as you might imagine.

Fast forward a year: my dad and one of the Gunsite classmates and I and a couple more guys are all up at the Long Range Firing School held at Camp Perry that year. Shooting started at the 800 yard line, beginning with sighters. I think it must have been the first year a lot of tac and F-class rifles showed up at that school (a few Palma guns and .300 mag's geared toward the Wimbledon Cup being more common, then) because the moaning and groaning from anyone shooting a .308 or .30-06 could pretty much be heard up and down the line. Those were the only guns shooting the 168 grain bullets, and a lot of guys who had a good deal of 600 yard prone shooting experience could not even get on paper. For those who did hit paper, the pits were reporting back keyholes. Never a good sign.

Sierra's ballistic technician, Kevin Thomas, was in the class that year. We asked him what was up? He explained the 168 grain SMK was a late 50's design that was originally intended for the 300 meter international course of fire. That it worked well out to 600 yards was a bonus, and that it where it had gained its great reputation and following. But it was never intended for long range. The newer secant ogive 175 grain SMK was a different story, and had been developed in cooperation with the military for long range use.

Everyone ran to Commercial Row during lunch and bought up ammo loaded with the 175 grain SMK. After lunch, no more keyholes.

So, that's the gist of my "heads-up". The 168's start to keyhole and whiz off like berserk Frisbees when they drop into the transonic range. At .308 and .30-06 velocities,this happens somewhere around 700 yards.