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Sight in distance for hunting

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Lockjaw View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Lockjaw Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Sight in distance for hunting
    Posted: December/19/2016 at 14:46
What do you guys use for your sight in range and POI? 

I used to go 2 inches high at 100 Yards, with my 270, and that seemed to serve me well. When I moved up here to the Birmingham area, I switched to dead on at 25 yards. That usually puts me a little higher than 2 inches at 100 yards, but it is easy for me to run to the indoor range and sight in that way. 

Years ago, I sighted my 708 in at a local outdoor range, and I think it was dead on at 50 yards, and that seemed to be a great range for that gun, since the barrel was only 16.5 inches. 

Currently my 270 is dead on at 100 with Hornady Superformance. My 708 is 1.5 inches high at 100 yards, since I had it sighted in by the gunsmith at a local shop. My 2 308's are both dead on at 25 yards with their respective ammo's. 

Main reason I like dead on at 25 is because I can run to the local indoor range and as long as my bullet speed isn 't over 3200 FPS, I can sight in there. I just take my range finder and range the target.

Thinking about moving it to dead on at 35 yards and seeing how that works out for me. 
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supertool73 View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote supertool73 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: December/19/2016 at 14:53
My rifles that I dial elevation with I always go 100 yards.  Rifles that I don't, I typically do 200 yards or 2ish high at 100 as well. 

There are ballistic calcs that will help you figure your point blank range based on the size of that target you are shooting.  Thats always a good way to go.  WIth your .270 is you shot 130 grain at a velocity of 3000 you would sight 3.8 inches high at 100 yards.  So your near zero would be 21 yards, far zero 305 yards.  Then your PBR for a 10" vital 0 to 359 yards. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Urimaginaryfrnd Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: December/19/2016 at 16:21
I set X at 200 yds.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote jonoMT Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: December/19/2016 at 23:01
With a number of common cartridges/loads hitting dead-on at 25 yards is probably going to be correspond with a max. PBR zero. That's okay for getting on paper, but whenever possible, verifying a longer-range hit (whether a zero or whatever means of compensating with dialing or holding) is going to build more confidence. Personally, I set zero at 100 and dial. If I can consistently hit a 4" gong at 400 I feel like my hunting isn't going to suck since I rarely shoot anything over 200.

If you don't dial, I'd recommend using the JBM (or similar) ballistics calculator to calculate a max. PBR zero. JBM has everything you need to do this well, provided your inputs are correct. If you set a low vital zone radius, say 2" that will shorten max. PBR but it will basically mean anything out to that distance is basically a point and shoot directly at the target. For example, with my .308 load and a 2" radius, my zero would be 205 yards and max. PBR 239 yards.

If you put in the numbers and get them right and still don't feel like you're getting an adequate distance then it's time to consider a scope that will allow dialing and just stick with a 100 yard zero. BTW, with most hunting rounds anything affecting air density doesn't matter at all at that range. You don't need to keep track of temperature, altitude and barometric pressure when zeroing at 100. The time those things matter is when you're out past 300 yards. THEN you enter those variables.
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Lockjaw View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Lockjaw Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: December/20/2016 at 09:04
Originally posted by supertool73 supertool73 wrote:

My rifles that I dial elevation with I always go 100 yards.  Rifles that I don't, I typically do 200 yards or 2ish high at 100 as well. 

There are ballistic calcs that will help you figure your point blank range based on the size of that target you are shooting.  Thats always a good way to go.  WIth your .270 is you shot 130 grain at a velocity of 3000 you would sight 3.8 inches high at 100 yards.  So your near zero would be 21 yards, far zero 305 yards.  Then your PBR for a 10" vital 0 to 359 yards. 

I need to chrony it, but Hornady says the superformance round is going 3200 FPS. It's dead on at 100, and then I have a Nikon BDC scope, so I usually use their program to calculate the data for hold over. 

It is not my preferred gun though. I like to take either of my 308's the most. The Ruger with a 16.5 in barrel is dead on at 25 with American Whitetail 165gr and my 700 Tactical is dead on at 25 with Horandy 150 grain SST's. 

I don't have a good range close by that I can go to 200 yards. I could at my hunting club, on a powerline. I just prefer the 308's because they are more compact, the ruger is very small. I have one in 708 stainless too that I like, and cannot sell unless I let some guy in my hunting club have first shot at it. 

I hate being in a shooting house and having a 42 in long gun, when I can be in there with one around 36 inches or so. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote RifleDude Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: December/21/2016 at 13:29
My hunting rifles are zeroed at 250.

You cannot always trust the "25 yd zero" rule, because at that distance, minor deviations from POA that will bite you at longer range are hard to detect, and as scope centerline height above the bore line increases, the amount of error that invalidates the 25 yard zero likewise increases, causing you to have high misses at distance. The only surefire way to ensure zero at a given distance is to actually zero your rifle at that distance. There is no shortcut.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Kickboxer Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: December/21/2016 at 20:36
If you zero at 25 you ALWAYS have to check the other end of the zero.  If you do not, you are just setting yourself up for failure.  You can do some "in between" checks at 100, 200, 250, etc, but if you use a "battlesight zero" you always have to check both ends.  Failure to do so is just that...
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote nralifer Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: December/27/2016 at 02:49
You should take advantage of the various trajectory calculators out there. The simplest one I use a lot is Shooters Calculator.com using their bullet trajectory calculator. It gives you a nice table that calculates the bullet drop from any zero distance you chose. One thing is you have to know the BC of the bullet you use and the muzzle velocity of the load you hunt with. All the bullet manufacturers specify their BCs, but in general they are optimistic.  Reduce the published BC by about 5% and you will be closer to reality in most instances. If you keep your shots within 300 yds a 200 yd zero is good. With the Hornady Superformance GMX in .270 you will be at 0 drop at 40 and 200 yds, 1.3 inches high at 100 and 6 inches low at 300 yards assuming your MV is 3150 and the published BC is 0.460 for the 130 grain GMX.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Lockjaw Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: December/28/2016 at 07:48
I have the Nikon spot on app on my phone and use it. Nice thing is it lets me just pick the bullet and tell it my MV and zero and then calculates trajectory. It lets me pick g1 or 7 for BC too. So for my 308 700 tac I picked Hornady 150 grain SST with BC of .415 and since barrel is 20 inches instead of 24 I set velocity at 2700 instead of 2820 listed.

That puts me 2.5 high at 100, essentially dead on at 200 and about 7.5 low at 300.

I need to get a chrony and check them all and see and tweak from there. The sst is pretty sleek so I feel it would do well.

Maybe I need to load some berger vld for it and see what I get.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote JGRaider Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: December/28/2016 at 08:54
Originally posted by RifleDude RifleDude wrote:

My hunting rifles are zeroed at 250.

You cannot always trust the "25 yd zero" rule, because at that distance, minor deviations from POA that will bite you at longer range are hard to detect, and as scope centerline height above the bore line increases, the amount of error that invalidates the 25 yard zero likewise increases, causing you to have high misses at distance. The only surefire way to ensure zero at a given distance is to actually zero your rifle at that distance. There is no shortcut.

Amen.  I sight in for MPBR with all my hunting rifles.  
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