Best way to sight in a scope??

Question

I recently bought a Marlin 30/30 30as with a scope. The person I bought it from said it was sighted in for 200 yards but when I shot it I adjusted it a little bit so now its off. I just replaced the scope anyways because it needed a new one, but anyways whats the best way to sight in my scope without buying a boresighter or anything like that? I want to sight it in 100 yards and before this coming deer season.

Answer 1

Bore-sighting is the best way to get you on target

#1 - place target at 25yds

#2 - fire 1 shot(from rest)

#3 - (From solid rest)-Place cross hairs of scope on hole - move cross hairs until they center the target

#4 - fire another shot(from solid rest)

#5 - if you're centering the bull, move target to 100yds, repeat from step #2

Fire 3 shot group to confirm you're sighted in

Practice-practice-practice

100yds is "generally" a good range to sight-in with a 30-30

Answer 2

Boresighting saves ammunition. If you don't have a boresighter or want to shell out the money for a shop to do it for you, you can always do it the old fashioned (and more fun) way of just shooting it. I would put the scope on the lowest power and fire one round at 100 yards at a fixed object in the dirt. See where the bullet impacts by using a spotter. Adjust the scope accordingly. Whenever I've not used a boresighter, my first shot was usually VERY far off. So you'll need to use the scale appropriate to your scope's adjustment to bring it back in line. Fire again and see if you're significantly closer. Then I'd fire at a larger target, preferably a 200 yard high power target. You can even use this for your initial two shots, but they are not reactive and you may need a spotting scope depending on your vision or scope's power.

Fire and adjust your scope to the bullseye. Its not that difficult, just don't start cranking blindly on your scope's turrets and you'll be fine. Good luck with your scope!

Answer 3

If you are reasonably confident in your mechanical skills remove the bolt from your rifle. The screw at the hinge at the front of the lever is all that holds the lever and bolt on.
Then with your rifle on a good rest that will keep it reasonably still look through the barrel and see where it is pointing on a target you have placed at about 20 yards. Then adjust the scope until it is aiming at the same place as where you see the bore is pointing. Be sure not to move the rifle between when you look through the bore and when you look through the scope. This is crude compared to having a bore sighter, but it will get you on the paper so can finish sighting the rifle in.
I have done this on several rifles, including my Marlin 336-C.

Answer 4

to tell you the truth the only way is to buy or make a paper target and shoot it if you have some way of securing the gun arm rest or try pod or if you got a steady aim shoot the gun and use the turn dills on the scope to re-site the gun only turning a little at a time to much may effect your result watch how the gun hits the target to determine witch way you need to adjust your scope this may take some time to perfect your rifle a handy tool to take is a tape measure you want to get your scope to fire dead center or as close to center at 100 yards or even 50 yards this method is a good way of knowing how close you come to the target if you have a step counter or a pedometer you can use this device the same way as a tape measure both are good for measuring distance once you have your target at desired distance and the height of target should be at least 3 to 4 feet tall the deer vitals are in this range the sweet spot i like is to the near right hand spot of the shoulder (back behind the arm pit) if the deer's head is pointed left but if deer's head is pointed right sweet spot will to the left of the shoulder in this spot you will bring him down with a thud 30/30 are excellent rifles for bagen the big one with one shoot i prefer to use the hollow points over the solid slug why ? simply because they do more damage to the hart and lungs he will take may be 2 steps and then fall or fall on empact well i hope i have helped you solve your problem holler

Answer 5

Without a bore sight-er get it centered horizontally at short range, say 25 yards, then see how it shoots at 100 and adjust from there. You might want to sight it 2" high at 100 which would make useful to 150 yards or so. Dead on at 100 yards will be about 8" low at 200 yards. Shots at deer are not usually at a known range.

Answer 6

Go to a shooting range and set up a target at 100 yards and shoot it. Make sure the gun is on sand bags on a table and will not jump around. Now shoot it twice and go look at where the bullets hit. They should be close together.. Now adjust a bit at a time and soon you should have it sighted in for the yardage you want... Good luck and good hunting... Grant M in Pennsylvania

Answer 7

This is the way i do it. I set up a big chunk of plywood, like a 6x6' chunk and then put a peice of paper in the center, and aim for it. If i miss, i can look at the wood to see where it hit and then adjust it. Most scopes are 1/4'' per turn at 100 yards. Keep shooting till you get it where you want it. then you can always use a the wood for a ventilated roof.

Answer 8

Because I make my living working with guns and everyone expects their rifle/pistol to be sighted in for them I use technology to save myself a lot of driving to the range and a lot of expensive ammo.
1. Drive to range. LOL
2. put up dark paper on back board
3. slip laser bore sighter into barrel per instructions in 4 languages.
4.Put rifle/pistol on solid bench rest that you have clamped down to bench.
5. Look down range and see where the laser is hitting target. 6. Look through sights or scope and move the cross hairs or adjust the rear iron sight to coincide with the red dot.
7. Put up target on back board.
8. Fire three shots at bullseye.
9. Adjust any small increments needed to super tune sights for center of bull.
10. Fire 3 more shots and if all is well load everything into truck and go home.
(that is if you can go home without pulling out your car gun and just running a few rounds through it just for fun.)

Answer 9

Get close to your target--make sure you have a safe backstop and will not get shrapnel flying back at you. A 150 gr flat point bullet sighted in to be about an inch low at 10 yards will be about dead on at 100 yards. Actually it will be about dead on at 50 yards too. Anyway, sighting your rifle in at a close distance will prevent a lot of wasted ammunition. The Federal Premium Ammunition site has ballistics charts that will help you determine where to site it in a various distances to get your 100 yard shot.

Answer 10

find a dirt hill, pick a target on the hill, shoot at the target, notice the difference and adjust. easy as pie. oh yea, make sure you're 100m/yds away. 100 yds is the best distance to zero any rifle because (1) the scope is already set to adjust from there (2) wind will have minimal effects on zero....well don't do it in a hurricane...the same with temp, humidity, elev...etc etc. so if you go to a different location to hunt you can still have accurate zero. also, zero with the same ammo you hunt with...*very important*