Sighting in your .22LR

The long range .22 thread reminded me of this sticky I did for the other site a few years ago, but thought people here might find it useful.


This has been unashamedly pinched from the Gunsmoke website (link further down).


One of the better methods for sighting in a .22lr is the point blank method.

I'll give a summary if you just want to get out and shoot, and a link to the web page with all the details if you are stuck at a desk at work, or want to do some tricky stuff.

Point blank range is the distances between which a bullet will hit inside a defined vital zone when aimed smack in the middle of that zone. This method of sighting in aims to maximise that range.

For small game, a 25mm (1 inch) radius zone (that's a circle 50mm or 2 inches across) makes most sense as it caters for head and chest shots on most common small beasties we shoot her in NZ.

So, for subsonic .22lr ammo (40 gr) if you sight in at 47.5m (52 yards) you will hit inside the vital zone between ranges of 16.5m (18 yards) and 54m (59 yards).

For supersonic .22lr ammo (40 gr) if you sight in at 54m (59 yards) you will hit inside the vital zone between ranges of 18m (20 yards) and 60m (66 yards).

For hyper velocity .22lt ammo (CCI Stingers in this case) if you sight in at 78.5m (86 yards) you will hit inside the vital zone between ranges of 6.5m (7 yards) and 89m (98 yards).

Beyond those ranges, you need drop charts, or a bunch of practice (guess which one is most fun?) :P

If you put 40 gr supers in a rifle that is sighted in point blank for 40 gr subs as above, then the supers will be point blank between 5.5m (6 yards) and 62 m (68 yards)

That means you don't get much extra distance with the required accuracy, just a round going faster and making more noise!

For all the details, and the drop charts, have a look here.

If you want to have a play yourself, try these links:

This is a simple, metric, web based ballistics program

And this is the imperial version

These don't have drop charts but give you the basic results in a table.

You can lift the basic starting data from the page on point blank sighting in, or you can use this info on basic ballistic coefficients for .22lr rounds.

Hope that is some help to people and have fun out there. :cool:

Cheers for putting this up, i have seen it at the other pub, just playing with my second hand, new to me EM332

First 100m magpie in the bag

Yeh thanks for this Vanman. Surprising stats actually

Big thanks Vanman, i will make good use of this......

I have a JW15, Airking Gold scope with mildots. I sighted it in at 50m using 40gr win X subs. And at 50m, 40gr power points are the next dot up on the vertical scale, which equates to a 75m zero.

I know I'm covered at 4x spotlighting with the subs 35-60m straight on the crosshairs. Hold one dot under for under 25m. With the powerpoints I know I'm good out to 90m and anything further is usually too windy during spotlighting on the farm.

Yeah, sighting in for max point blank is one thing but knowing how these two positions covers most of my shooting - I can walk right up to within 50m on most of them using a red LED lamp. If it's not windy one dot holdover on the subs will give my 75-80m easy at 4x.