When looking in most reloading manual's,ballistic charts, trajectory always looks better when the rifle is zeroed at 50yds. when shooting relatively short yardage. So I guess my question is, if the majority of your shooting opportunities are less than 200 yds. wouldn't it make sense to zero you rifle at 50yds. rather than at 100yds or futher?
Thanks
Steve

Steve. IMO If most of your shots are under 200 then to are best to zero 1.5 inches high at 100. This may be the same as dead on at 50.
This works for me.

For woods rifles where your shots tend to be on the short side works just fine. We always would site are rifles in for 50 yards for woods deer hunting most shots are less then 75. I tend too sight mine in for woods hunting about .5 to 1 in at 100yards. My elk rifles are sighted any where from 1.5 to 2.5 depending on caliber.

If you are using a scope on your rifle (1.5 inch scope centerline height) and sighting at 50 yards you are sighting in at the "Near Zero" more than likely. This would then put your "Far Zero" in the 125 yard area. (For a 2800 fps, .45 BC class rifle and bullet, 308, 30-06 etc.)

If all your shooting is restricted to broadside shots on deersize game within 100 yds, you won't have a problem. But then you wouldn't have a problem either if you followed Deerdogs advice of zeroing 1,5 inch high at 100 yds!
However, if you plan take an occasional shot at 200 yds, be aware that when sighting in at 50 yds a +/- 1 inch zeroing difference will result in a 4 inch difference at 200 yds. Also don't rely to much on ballistic tables to calculate what POI is needed at 50 yds to get a zero at 200 yds, because it depends on the actual hight of your centre of scope above the centre of your bore.

I like my rifles perfectly sighted in (pistols too).Get them close at 100yds. then move to 200yds. You wouldn't believe how far off a perfectly sighted in rifle is off at 200yds. Left and right bugs me at any distance, the up and down is up to me.

Sight the pistols in at 50yds.
Also some loads look good at 100 but suck at 200yds.
FWIW

Famous Vietnam MarineCorp sniper- Carlos Hathcock "White Feather" said you need to zero in at 700yds.
He had just won the WimbletonCup (1000yds.) at Camp Perry Nationals before they shipped him out.
He shot a pre64 Win70 in 30.06 for almost all of his kills (over100).
..didn't load his own bullets, didn't do his own gunsmithing..
..was the first to mount a scope of a 50cal machine gun and use it for a sniper rifle..

[ 08-21-2002, 22:09: Message edited by: CaptJack ]