Thread: River to Ranges to sight in rifle?

As mentioned above, I have no doubt James does a great job & for a novice having trouble getting a rifle shooting well its probably $100 well spent, but no rifle will shoot the same POI between 2 different shooters, unless both shooters somehow happen to shoot said rifle from the exact same shooting position/grip & both have identical facial structure to give the same cheek weld (twins maybe? ) The difference in POI between James & yourself may be inconsequential at the distances you plan to shoot, but theres always a difference & this variable grows exponentially with distance. If you doubt this, Set your rifle up on something sturdy so it doesn't move, pointed at something close inside your house/shed, then look through your scope and move your head left to right / up and down without disturbing the rifle and see how much the crosshair moves around. Regardless of shooting experience, 2 shooters will shoot different POI due to where their eye ends up lining up with the crosshair when their cheek is against the stock.

My wife will consistently shoot groups with her 6.5 PRC just on 1.5 inches to the right at 100m compared to when i shoot it, both of us shooting from prone position with the same bipod/rear bag setup. If you are only shooting 100m then it wouldn't make much of a difference, but if she's shooting an animal at 500m, that 1.5 inches is now 7.5 inches right, not a, insignificant amount at that distance.

Originally Posted by Moa Hunter

The obvious question is 'what happens if you shoot a rifle that has been sighted in correctly and that anyone who trys shoot well' - like my 2506 AI

my mates rifle shoots 4" left and 2" high for me...strangely enough MY rifles shoot 4" right and 2" low for him.....he must be crosseyed I reckon LMFAO

The problem with turning up at NZDA range on public day with a rifle not prepared to shoot, is that you take up all the time of the two range officers getting your rifle working.
At least bore sight it in the garden using a piece of paper.
Google the trajectory of your caliber for the sighting you want, eg. https://press.hornady.com/assets/pct...tics-Chart.pdf

Set the rifle on a stand an get the eye relief comfortable when at minimum and maximum magnification.
ensuring the rifle is held not canted adjust the rotation of the cross-hairs to line up with a known vertical line in the house e.g a door or window frame.
Tighten the scope screws like a cylinder head.
Re-check the eye relief and vertical alignment.
put up a target say 25m away. Mark it with a point of aim say 1.5 inches below centre.

Set the rifle up on a stand, line up the barrel with the marking on the target paper
Look through the barrel and align it with the marking
look through the scope and adjust the cross hairs to the same place as the barrel.
Then go to the range and start at the shortest range to ensure its on the paper.
Then move out to 100m and 200m.

NZDA recently had a newbie turn up on public day.
The guy had bought a very expensive rifle and scope from a certain gunshop in chc who have big blue signs.
the gun shop said they had set it up for him already.
The rifle could not hit the paper at 50m after many shots of trying to adjust all on his own.
The scope screws turned out to be loose as a goose.
The RO's had to start from scratch and got it within reason at 50m and at next cycle, he moved to the 100m
He got the rifle zeroed on the 100m, so moved to the 200m at the next cycle.
At 200m it was all over the place again. Shooting at a completely different point of Aim. So he called the RO again.

Turns out, the newbie had told the gun shop "I want to hunt tops but I also want to hunt bush" so they sold him two boxes in two different bullet weights and didn't explain that they would have different POA.
So the newbie shot the "tops" bullet weight boxes during the 50m debacle and the 100m checks but had run out by the time he went to the 200m, so he started using the different weight bullets at the 200m and that is why his rifle was "off".

And here is why we don't like newbies turning up at the range on a public visit and not explaining why they are there.
And why some homework would have helped him - or a good gunshop!!


Th

Originally Posted by jpurdon

Has anyone had experience with Rivers to Ranges in Rangiora to sight in their rifle?

I have a Remington 700 ADL model with a Leupold VXIII 3.5-10x40 w/ 1 inch tube. It has Boone and Crocket reticle too so I am looking at taking it to R&R for them to sight in for $100 which I think is pretty reasonable.

I know I can do it myself but I think its worth the $100 for peace of mind, plus I don't have easy access to a range.

Will supply them with some Hornady 145gr ELD-X as the sighting load.

Thoughts?

could you please just take your rifle to a range and zero it like the rest of us - it will put us out of our misery reading all this thanks

Sorted cheers team

Originally Posted by jpurdon

Sorted cheers team

How? Lot of advice here. What of it did you take?

Having a properly sighted in rifle is essential for successful hunting and if long range shooting, you need an accurately setup ballistic app or drop chart but this not something a lot of hunters can do properly, so if you can’t, why not pay for it? When setting up ballistic apps or making drop charts, take the stated velocity and ballistic coefficient on the ammo box or from the manufacturer with a grain of salt. Velocity in many cases is serval hundred FPS slower and ballistic coefficients are lower so projectile drop will be a lot more than expected at long range. Different brands of ammo and especially bullet weights can have a huge impact on where a rifle shoots. The only way to get an accurate velocity is to use a chronograph and to find actual bullet drop is to shoot at long range. The rifle needs to held rock solid on sandbags or a sandbag and front bench rest, so shooter error is removed. Once that is done, a ballistic app can be set up properly. This is the service James offers along with initial sight ins at 100 yards. A properly sighted in rifle will have the same point of impact IMO.

The Biggest problem for a lot of shooters is no where to shoot decent distances, to calulate the ballistics properly.
That's what this is about.
NZHLA ChCh has a 200 yard setup. James has his own land, lucky him, probably 80% of shooters don't have that opportunity.

Agree with all that has been said but how do you replicate the same hold, cheek on the stock etc or do the Nz Hunter sight rifles in for the shooter on each episode because as stated in other posts and my experience is you can get a big difference.
The distances they are shooting at is a bit more than I shoot at too.

No 2 shooters shoot with the same application.Body build,strength differences and eye sight are not the same.

Originally Posted by erniec

Agree with all that has been said but how do you replicate the same hold, cheek on the stock etc or do the Nz Hunter sight rifles in for the shooter on each episode because as stated in other posts and my experience is you can get a big difference.
The distances they are shooting at is a bit more than I shoot at too.

when you watch..they use the hug yourself method.. so rifle sits on bipod,human touches trigger hand as normal and off hand is on toe of stock..so in THEORY it is very similar between different users..and they relatively heavy rifles so wont jump quite so much..maybe... they also have big heavy soft projectiles so have little bit of room for error/overkill in thier favour LOL.

There's a lot of talk about the assumption of different people shooting to different POI.
To be fair, yes on a scope with out parallax adjustment this will be a problem.
With correct adjustment on a scope with parallax you can take that variable out.
It then comes down to hold and trigger control and recoil management.
Most rifles can have upto a 1/2 moa change in their zero between shooting sessions hunting ect.
Most people can't shoot the difference to tell.
Pretty much rifles I set up I can get their owners out 800m hitting the gongs I can by working with them on the basics..
The one thing that amazes me is the amount of people shooting longer range with out a level of some sort on their rifle.
The talk of Duleys crew shooting other people's rifle I don't have an issue with as they all have adjustable parallax scopes and are almost always set up very well, by that I mean their data and shooting positions.
Only my opinion!

Sent from my SM-A226B using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by andyanimal31

There's a lot of talk about the assumption of different people shooting to different POI.
To be fair, yes on a scope with out parallax adjustment this will be a problem.
With correct adjustment on a scope with parallax you can take that variable out.
It then comes down to hold and trigger control and recoil management.
Most rifles can have upto a 1/2 moa change in their zero between shooting sessions hunting ect.
Most people can't shoot the difference to tell.
Pretty much rifles I set up I can get their owners out 800m hitting the gongs I can by working with them on the basics..
The one thing that amazes me is the amount of people shooting longer range with out a level of some sort on their rifle.
The talk of Duleys crew shooting other people's rifle I don't have an issue with as they all have adjustable parallax scopes and are almost always set up very well, by that I mean their data and shooting positions.
Only my opinion!

Sent from my SM-A226B using Tapatalk

Thanks for that Andy clarified it for me.
I haven't shot long range as such other that smacking magpies out to 200m but only shooting with my rifle.
Any shots that others use my rifle is 100-200m on a deer and not that difficult a shot.

Originally Posted by scottrods

The problem with turning up at NZDA range on public day with a rifle not prepared to shoot, is that you take up all the time of the two range officers getting your rifle working.
At least bore sight it in the garden using a piece of paper.
Google the trajectory of your caliber for the sighting you want, eg. https://press.hornady.com/assets/pct...tics-Chart.pdf

Set the rifle on a stand an get the eye relief comfortable when at minimum and maximum magnification.
ensuring the rifle is held not canted adjust the rotation of the cross-hairs to line up with a known vertical line in the house e.g a door or window frame.
Tighten the scope screws like a cylinder head.
Re-check the eye relief and vertical alignment.
put up a target say 25m away. Mark it with a point of aim say 1.5 inches below centre.

Set the rifle up on a stand, line up the barrel with the marking on the target paper
Look through the barrel and align it with the marking
look through the scope and adjust the cross hairs to the same place as the barrel.
Then go to the range and start at the shortest range to ensure its on the paper.
Then move out to 100m and 200m.

NZDA recently had a newbie turn up on public day.
The guy had bought a very expensive rifle and scope from a certain gunshop in chc who have big blue signs.
the gun shop said they had set it up for him already.
The rifle could not hit the paper at 50m after many shots of trying to adjust all on his own.
The scope screws turned out to be loose as a goose.
The RO's had to start from scratch and got it within reason at 50m and at next cycle, he moved to the 100m
He got the rifle zeroed on the 100m, so moved to the 200m at the next cycle.
At 200m it was all over the place again. Shooting at a completely different point of Aim. So he called the RO again.

Turns out, the newbie had told the gun shop "I want to hunt tops but I also want to hunt bush" so they sold him two boxes in two different bullet weights and didn't explain that they would have different POA.
So the newbie shot the "tops" bullet weight boxes during the 50m debacle and the 100m checks but had run out by the time he went to the 200m, so he started using the different weight bullets at the 200m and that is why his rifle was "off".

And here is why we don't like newbies turning up at the range on a public visit and not explaining why they are there.
And why some homework would have helped him - or a good gunshop!!


Th

You got any more info on that newbie? Don't really need the name but if you knew what scope and rifle it was I can look the sale up and give the staff member that sold the rifle a tickle up and make sure they are on top of the training if they are new.

This has ended up an interesting thread. I disagree a little to what has been said about different shooters using different rifles. This is only my personal experience, I have shot a few friends rifles and never noticed any difference. Even had a mate who couldn't shoot his own very well, asked if I could have a crack and put the bullet in the center. I have set a number of rifles up for friends and helped them sight in and never seen a point shift. A mate jumped behind in my 300wsm at the time. He hadnever shot it before. He shot a few goats at varying distances. I believe as long as the person knows how to set scope up properly then there won't be any difference. If the shooter is having issues then it will come down to technique, which of course can be rectified. Cheek pressure is the usual culprit.
Not every Gun specialist at those retail shops know what they are doing. It pays to ask lots of questions. Having seen these set up by Hunting and Fishing staff and Gun City staff I would never recommend them setting one up for you. River's to Rangers in Rangiora I would say would be a great option. I don't know the guy but have read his multitude of articles and heard good things about him and his store. I think this a cool option for those that are short on time and access.