Scope adjustment ?

I finally found the time to get a scope mounted on my Muzzleloader. I had a brief window of time while up North this last Sunday to take a few shots to try and get it sighted in. My First 2 shots at about 25 yards were 5″ right and 1″ Low. I made what I thought should have been the correct adjustments to the scope ( 20 Clicks to the Left and 8 Up ) Took a shot and it did not seem to move. Took another shot just to be sure, Same point of impact. Made about 1/2 the needed clicks to adjust. It seemed to move just slightly up and left. At this point was losing light and wanted to clean the barrel before wasting more powder and Ammo. My buddy says the reason why the adjustments were not working correctly due to the 1/4 ” click adjustments are assuming you are shooting at 100 yards. Basically he said if shooting at 25 yards you need to increase the clicks by 4X more than when shooting at 100 yards. Is that correct? I guess most of the time I normally sight in at closer to 100 yards and with high powered rifles. I knew where I wanted to be at 50 yards so I thought it would be best to just start at 25 yards to make things simpler in the time I had. I guess the other possible problem could be with the scope itself. It is a older Banner light sight that I used for many years on my 375 Winchester and it always worked fine on it.

If you remember geometry, assuming you had it, this problem can be solved with similar triangles. A triangle with a 5″ leg and a 25 yard leg has the same angles as a triangle with a 20″ leg and a 100 yard leg. Therefore, 5″ off at 25 yards, correlates to 20 inches off at 100 yards.

To answer your question mathematically, you need to divide 100 yards by your actual distance and then multiply by the number of clicks as if you were at 100 yards.

In your case 100/25 = 4 * (4 clicks/inch) * 5″ = 80 clicks
By only moving 20, you only moved your crosshairs 1.25″ at 25 yards.

This works at yardages greater than 100 as well. Say you are 6″ left at 300 yards: 100/300 = 0.33 * (4 clicks/inch) * 6″ = 8 clicks will put you on target at 300 yards.

Sorry if I threw a lot of math in here, but the engineer in me couldn’t resist!

jake47 wrote:

If you remember geometry, assuming you had it, this problem can be solved with similar triangles. A triangle with a 5″ leg and a 25 yard leg has the same angles as a triangle with a 20″ leg and a 100 yard leg. Therefore, 5″ off at 25 yards, correlates to 20 inches off at 100 yards.

To answer your question mathematically, you need to divide 100 yards by your actual distance and then multiply by the number of clicks as if you were at 100 yards.

In your case 100/25 = 4 * (4 clicks/inch) * 5″ = 80 clicks
By only moving 20, you only moved your crosshairs 1.25″ at 25 yards.

This works at yardages greater than 100 as well. Say you are 6″ left at 300 yards: 100/300 = 0.33 * (4 clicks/inch) * 6″ = 8 clicks will put you on target at 300 yards.

Sorry if I threw a lot of math in here, but the engineer in me couldn’t resist!

Ya. Math was not my strong subject as you can see. I guess I’ve never sighted in a gun at this short of distance before. I hope there is enough click adjustments to make it get to where it should be. Next outing should go better now that I’ve been educated.

Also be sure that the scope is aligned with the barrel. Both for windage and elevation.

Glenn wrote:

Also be sure that the scope is aligned with the barrel. Both for windage and elevation.

OK. May be a silly question. But how can you be sure the scope and barrel are aligned?. The bases mount were the holes are and the rings align based on the base. Not a whole lot of adjustment to work with on either

I’ve seen it where the rings were not tightened equally and that shifts the scope tube slightly one way or the other. Be sure the gaps are equal on each screw.

I also had a scope be bad from the factory and just would not zero because the adjusters were bad.

Now that the scope is attached and the gun has been shot a few times I’d go back and check the screws you can get to, to be sure the recoil hasn’t loosened them at all. Tighten where needed. I loktite all my mounting screws with the firm setting formula, not the hard setting.

Today’s guns and hardware are pretty good about aligning fine so I guess I’d assume that everything was until something showed up to suggest otherwise, then I’d hit the targets again using your new info and a good solid rest. Remember that if you hunt with the gun’s ramrod in the ferrules to replace it after every loading before you set the gun on the rest. Not doing so can have an effect of point of impact if you shoot from a rest while hunting. If you can get it to shoot inside 2″@100yds you’ll have good field accuracy for deer.

Fishthumper – I just mounted a scope on my 50 cal inline muzzy and this is what I did to sight it in with only 4 shots. The first thing I did was do a quick bore sighting to make sure I would hit paper at 13 yards (yes 13 yards is where I shot from, I talk more about this later).

To bore sight I took the breach plug out and looking through the barrel I centered an outlet on my wall that was 10 yards away, next without moving the gun I looked through the scope and aligned the cross hairs with the outlet.

Now to shooting (this works the best if you have a lead sled or some other means of keeping the gun in one spot while shooting, sand bags will work also), I setup my shooting table at 13 yards, you might ask why 13 yards? Well that is roughly the first point for my gun where the bullet crosses your line of sight, the second is around 75 yards.

I shot my first round aiming at the bulls eye, it hit 5″ low and an inch left with out making any adjustments I put the gun back on the sand bags and placed the cross hairs right on the bulls eye, with my other hand I adjusted my up/down adjustment and watched my cross hairs until they were aligned with the bullet hole in the target. Then I made my left/right adjustment until the cross hairs were in the bullet hole.

I ran a wet patch and a dry patch through my barrel and loaded another round, took the shot and my bullet hit 1/2″ left and dead on in line with the bulls eye. I didn’t make any adjustments since there was a stiff breeze coming from my right.

I cleaned my gun again and moved back to 50 yards and took a shot, perfect left to right and 2″ high.

I cleaned my gun again and went back to 100 yards, took the shot and it was again perfect left to right and 1″ low.

So in 4 shots I was able to get my muzzleloader sighted in and ready to go, this is the first time I tried this method and after shooting 15 rounds last year trying to get it sighted in, this was much easier and better for the shoulder.

I’m shooting a .50 cal Traditions pursuit G4 ultralight with 1 – 100 grain pioneer gold stick and a 250 grain Thompson center shock wave with the black sabot

Broth82 nailed it. I even bore sight my bolt action centerfires the way he described. I always use a lead sled and chase the bullet hole with the crosshairs for sighting in. Line the hairs up with the bullseye, shoot. Line them back up with the bullseye and chase the crosshairs to the bullet. Line back up with the bullseye, shoot again and you should be about set. There’s all sorts of ways to sight-in a rifle, but if math isn’t your strong suit, this way works the absolute best.