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Hunting season is approaching. What's the Best Distance to Zero A Rifle?
 [Outdoor Life] Most hunters dial in their centerfires at 100 yards, but you should sight in a rifle at a distance that fits your shooting capabilities and the game you will be pursuing.An annual question at shooting ranges around the country is "What distance should I zero for?" And the answer is... The distance that gives you the most flexibility for putting your bullet on target quickly with minimum measuring, guessing, hoping, or missing. And that’s rarely 100 yards. THE 100 YARD PROBLEM The old 100-yard zero is perfect if your longest shooting distance isn’t much beyond that. Otherwise a 100-yard zero wastes your bullet’s trajectory potential. By 200 yards you’re already needing to compensate for bullet drop. To understand this, let’s look at a trajectory that is considered "flat." I don’t know what you imagine when you hear cartridge XYZ shoots "flat," but when I was a new shooter I assumed it meant the bullet went like a laser to 300 yards or so. That’s flat! But it’s also impossible. Bullets are not light waves. Gravity begins to pull bullets down the instant they leave the muzzle. If you aimed a barrel perfectly in line with a target 100 yards away with the world’s highest B.C. rating at 4,200 fps, it would miss. Oh, it would be close, but it would still fall under the precise point of aim by about an inch. An inch is no big deal even if you’re shooting squirrels in the head. But at 150 yards this hyper-velocity bullet would already be down by 2.3 inches. At 200 yards it would be low by 4 inches. Gravity is relentless. Meanwhile, back in our real world where most of us shoot "flat shooting" rifles like .243 Win., .270 Win., 7mm Rem. Mag., and the more recent 6mm Creedmoor, 27 Nosler, and 7mm Remington Ultra Magnum, the drops are even greater. We won’t even bother with the .30/30 or .45/70. Posted by: Besoeker 2020-08-21 |
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