Sighting In for 50' 22LR Gallery Match

[Mass Shooter]

What technique do you use for sighting in your 22LR for 50' gallery match shooting? .... Using a block, ... a Ransom rest, off hand, etc.

How many shots fired before making adjustments?

Thanks for your help.

Regards

[Rover]

Put two targets together in the target frame. Shoot. Change top target and shoot some more. Do this several times. Look at the rear target. Ignore the bad shots and adjust the sights to move the group to the center. Many guns use 4 clicks per scoring ring.

This method keeps you from "chasing" your shots.

[jackh]

My usual method is to lean my arms across a solid object, usually the top of my pistol box. I leave my wrist free just forward of the box and cup my weak hand under the gripping hand. This works very well with a dot sight. For iron sights you should devise a method that sets your eye at the proper distance from the sight.

That said, experience will lead you to whatever method works. Learn the click amounts on your sight. And bottom line is always shooting offhand.

[Freepistol]

When practising, I adjust my sights based on calling the shot. This is the technique one must use at a match, so I practice it.
ben

[MSC]

I like to first sight the gun in, dead-center, from a solid rest. (My range has U-shaped, carpet-padded wood rests for the barrel, then I use a sandbag under the grip.) Good ammo shoots a ragged hole, so it's quite solid, and thus good for ammo testing, too.

From there I just shoot a relay or two of practice, and see where my 10 rd groups center - I might change a click or two from my rested setting - sometimes none. As a previous poster mentioned... once you can call your shots, you can really sight in without a rest. And... when you're at the point of accurately calling shots - your groups are small enough that you can just make adjustments by the center of the group...

[tenex]

Some people shoot offhand to a different zero than from a rest, but I zero all my .22s with red dots from a sandbag (placed under the front of the gun, not the butt) and my offhand groups are right on.

For iron sights I do things a little differently. With my air pistol, I shoot a 60 round match, then digitize the targets with a tool I made with the computer. After I have all the shot locations, I just find the average, and move the sights accordingly. You can do the same thing with a piece of paper, just turn a blank target around and in turn place all your targets on top and put a spot with a felt tip marker over all the holes. Then adjust the sights to center the shot cloud. You'll need to know how many clicks per inch you get, but most target pistols have that data in the manual.

If you first shoot 6 10 shot targets, you might be surprised at how much the apparent zero changes from target to target. Unless you're an absolute wiz at calling you shots (or your sights are way off) you'll probably do more harm than good by changing the sights every 5 shots or so.

Steve.

[tenex]

Just for kicks, here's a spreadsheet with a random 10 shot group with zero mean on the statistics. In theory this gun is perfectly sighted in, but just press F9 to update the random data and see where the center of the group moves. Sometimes it's right on, other times its pretty far out. The second tab is a 60 shot group, it's mean is much better behaved.

Steve.

[Mass Shooter]

Thanks for your replys, this is helpful. I think I'm not too far off with the methods as described. I've always used off-hand method paying close attention to the group patterns and disregarding the odd flyers. I've centered as best I can, ... also since I don't use optics, my shooting has been iron sights. .... There are some ransom rests available and was wondering if they are helpful or not.

Regards

[little_doodie]

There are quite a few shooters that beleive that benching a gun is the proper way to sight it in.
And I have also heard the terms "everyones eyes are different"
Well I have answers to both: Everything that touches your gun effects the impact area.
If you wrap your gun in a sand bag and fire it it will not recoil the same as one had open air shooting.
Thats the same reason two different people have two different groups with the same gun. My XL hand has a much greater recoil dampening than a small hands dampening effect. (nothing to do with eyes different)
Benching a gun is the proper way to sight in a bench rest gun but nothing more.

[jackh]

Dood
I can shoot a group, put the gun down, load a magazine, pick up the gun and shoot a different location group. Hopefully it is just the other side of the X ring. :) One must read the sights and call the shot, and one must be able to read their body to stay consistent.

[little_doodie]

Dood
I can shoot a group, put the gun down, load a magazine, pick up the gun and shoot a different location group. Hopefully it is just the other side of the X ring. :) One must read the sights and call the shot, and one must be able to read their body to stay consistent.

I absolutely agree ...You must stay consistant.
The point I was trying to make was to not set the zero on the bench and think thats the end all of zeroing the gun.
Bench shooting is good for ammo testing or getting the gun fairly close to zero.

I have had shooters ask me "what am i doing wrong" and i look at there group and its a 2 oclock 8 +-
I tell them "adjust the sights!" And there reply is "i just benched it"

[Tom]

Hiya,

I have a method that I came up with several years ago and has helped me.

For the initial sight in, benched to get it in the black then the rest of the process is off hand.

After a few strings to get into the rough center of the target, I switch to a fresh B3 and fire 2 rapid strings, take down the target. Now, using a ruler or another target as a straight edge, make a big + on the target with the center being the x. Now you have divided the target into 4 quadrants, add up the hits in each quadrants using this method:
1) A hit in the quadrant counts only for that quadrant
2) A hit on a line between 2 or more quadrants counts for each quadrant that shares that line.

So for example a perfect x hit at the intercept of all quadrants would count as a hit in all 4. A hit on the x axis line would count for both the quadrant above and below the line.

Write the number of "hits" in each quadrant. (don't worry about it not adding up to 10, it should be more than 10 almost every time because of hits on the lines)

You will see a quadrant with a higher number of hits either high or low or left or right, this is the "trend" of your group. Adjust your sights so that you "trend to the center"

Using this method, you can clearly see how your group "trends" on the target and make a better choice of sight adjustment. I have found that this method helps to count the "out of the group" shots if they trend with the rest of the group as valid indicators and not count them as much if they are counter to the trend.

My 2 cents,
Tom

[Mass Shooter]

Hiya,

I have a method that I came up with several years ago and has helped me.

For the initial sight in, benched to get it in the black then the rest of the process is off hand.

After a few strings to get into the rough center of the target, I switch to a fresh B3 and fire 2 rapid strings, take down the target. Now, using a ruler or another target as a straight edge, make a big + on the target with the center being the x. Now you have divided the target into 4 quadrants, add up the hits in each quadrants using this method:
1) A hit in the quadrant counts only for that quadrant
2) A hit on a line between 2 or more quadrants counts for each quadrant that shares that line.

So for example a perfect x hit at the intercept of all quadrants would count as a hit in all 4. A hit on the x axis line would count for both the quadrant above and below the line.

Write the number of "hits" in each quadrant. (don't worry about it not adding up to 10, it should be more than 10 almost every time because of hits on the lines)

You will see a quadrant with a higher number of hits either high or low or left or right, this is the "trend" of your group. Adjust your sights so that you "trend to the center"

Using this method, you can clearly see how your group "trends" on the target and make a better choice of sight adjustment. I have found that this method helps to count the "out of the group" shots if they trend with the rest of the group as valid indicators and not count them as much if they are counter to the trend.

My 2 cents,
Tom

Thanks for your reply, Tom. Sounds like a logical approach to "center the trend" based on a quadrant system as you outlined. .... Good stuff!

Regards, ....

[Freepistol]

Hiya, . . . . . Using this method, you can clearly see how your group "trends" on the target and make a better choice of sight adjustment. I have found that this method helps to count the "out of the group" shots if they trend with the rest of the group as valid indicators and not count them as much if they are counter to the trend.

My 2 cents,
Tom

Thanks for your reply, Tom. Sounds like a logical approach to "center the trend" based on a quadrant system as you outlined. .... Good stuff!

Regards, ....

Sounds like a lot of extra work to me. I just look at the goup, mentally calculate the center, and adjust the sights. I can disregard any shots that were obvious "goofs" on my part. If a group is so large as to be in several quadrants, precise sight adjustment has less value.
Ben

[Chris]

keep it simple...shoot offhand just like you shoot all the time. Trust yourself you can shoot a group and call your shots. If anything it is good practice at focusing on the basics. If you do this all of time it should help you call your shots and teach you how to adjust your sights. Some people can start making sight adjustments from one shot and some take more to determine where the zero is.

You do have to remember once you have found your zero on one range it could change when to get to a different range. Do not be afraid to touch your sights.