While using a rifle for hunting, it is really important for you to make sure you have properly adjusted all the necessary equipment before getting started. Once you are done with the mounting process of scope on your rifle, you might want to sight in it at 50 yards. Sighting in a rifle really needed to be done in a proper manner so that you will be able to shoot at your target precisely and quickly. At this stage, it is important to know how to sight in a rifle scope at 50 yards or maybe in a longer range than that.
To help you in the sighting in of your rifle for hunting, we are here with this step-by-step guide that you might find fruitful. Before getting started with this guide, you need to make sure that you have properly mounted a scope on your rifle since it is very essential for most modern rifles.
A Few Best Long Range Rifle Scopes For You
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What Is Sighting In A Rifle Scope?
In case of a rifle scope, sighting-in refers to a method of adjusting the sights properly to shoot at the target a certain distance. Since the bullets used in rifle don’t travel in a straight line, it is essential for rifle owners to sight in their rifles. The distance can be anything depending on several things, including the type of animals. If it is a deer, you can sight in your rifle at 100 yards to shoot at its bull’s eye accurately.
Why Sighting Is Important While Shooting?
Sighting-in a rifle is really important for every rifle owners especially when you are thinking to use for hunting with the use of any ammunition. In case of rifles with scope, sighting-in can turn out to be highly beneficial. Those who don’t use a sighted-in rifle for hunting might have to ruin their entire period trying to shoot at the exact target. Here are some of the major reasons why sighting-in a rifle is highly essential:
- Sighting-in a rifle makes you able to shoot with your rifle properly.
- It also helps in making your shoot highly precise towards the target.
- Sighting-in helps to build up your shooting ability by increasing confidence.
- It makes you able to identify issues with several shooting methods.
- It makes you able to detect the farthest distance you can shoot with your rifle accurately.
- Sighting-in also prevents any sort of injuries by letting you know the exact position where you are shooting.
How To Sight In A Rifle Scope At 50 Yards
Now that you are well-known about the basics behind sighting-in a rifle scope, you are ready to get started with the sighting-in process. You can keep following this guide to know the exact same processes involved in sighting-in a rifle scope at 50 yards.
Getting Started: Ensuring Proper Setup of Rifle Scope
When you have mounted a scope on your rifle, you still have to look for any issues regarding the proper adjustments.
>> You need to ensure that the scope is securely mounted in your rifle. You also need to check whether the scope rings are properly mounted on the scope base or not. While checking, you need to look for any sort of movements of the scope rings.
>> If everything is fine, you have to look for the reticle on your scope. You should be able to focus the reticle properly. You need to ensure that the cross-hairs are in focus. If they aren’t, you need to point your scope towards the sky and look towards an object in the opposite direction and focus on it properly.
>> When your eyes are focused on the object, you can turn back and look through your rifle scope for a while. You need to look for any sort of blur in the reticle. What you will be doing here is taking an instant judgment over what you see through your scope. While staring at the reticle, your eyes will automatically start adjusting themselves.
>> If there is any sort of blur in the reticle, you need to adjust the scope diopter placed at a spot near to the shooting area until the reticle doesn’t show any sort of blur and is in focus.
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Boresighting
After mounting and setting a scope on your rifle, you might want to perform boresighting before using the rifle for general purposes. Here are all the steps you need to follow to bore sight your scope:
- First, you need to make sure that the rifle doesn’t include any bullets. The barrel also needs to stay unobstructed.
- Now, you need to remove the rifle’s bolt.
- Then, you should place the rifle securely pointing towards the downrange.
- What you need to do now is to stand behind your firearm and look through the bore to center the target by moving the firearm properly.
- The next thing you need to do is to adjust the rifle scope for centering the reticle towards the same target without moving the rifle.
While doing so, the turret at the top of the scope will adjust the reticle’s elevation and the turret located at the site will be adjusting the windage. In this case, the boresight doesn’t really need to be accurate. However, the rifle needs to be able to shoot at an object 50 yards away.
You might also want to use a laser boresight to place at the chamber of the rifle for boresighting. The only thing you need to ensure is that the reticle should be properly centered towards the rifle’s target. While using a laser boresight, it can be easier for your scope to be more accurate. This doesn’t mean that the above processes of boresighting are totally useless.
Sighting In A Rifle Scope At 50 Yards
Now, you can get started with the shooting. However, you need to ensure that you are using suitable ammunition with your rifle before going for hunting. If you are using your rifle with a certain ammunition and using a different bullet weight for hunting, it is nearly sure that you won’t be able to shoot at your target and instead shoot at a different point
Sighting in a rifle at 50 yards can be a little tougher than doing so at 25 yards, but when you have aimed properly with a rifle sighted-in at 50 yards, it will be a lot more easier for you. It is recommended for you to try out a dedicated zero target using an easier grid format so that you will be able to find out your adjustments. However, you might also want to use bull’s eye target. While sighting in a rifle, you need to be able to shoot from a proper spot with the use of sandbags or rifle rest for support. However, it isn’t recommended to use your own muscles for support since it might be less effective and not so accurate.
When You Are Ready
When you are in a proper spot, you might want to fire a few shots at the center of your target at 50 yards. While doing this, you might see the holes of your bullet in the target with the use of your rifle scope. It doesn’t matter where the bullet holes exist as long as the exact spot where you have aimed stays the same. You can keep aiming at bull’s eye target even though you may not shoot at it precisely for the first time.
Check The Shots
When you have fired a few shots, you should look at the target to find out where you are hitting. Now, you can measure the distance from the center of your shots to the bull’s eye target so that you’ll be able to adjust your scope properly. You can find most scopes with 1/4 MOA adjustments which means 1 click will move the impact of bullet by 1/4″ at 100 yards. For 50 yards, you should have double number of clicks to move the same 1/4″ distance. When you have a 1/4 MOA scope at 50 yards, there will be 4 clicks left and 8 clicks down.
The turret lying above your scope will move the impact of bullet at the elevation and the one on the side will move at the windage. You will be able to see measurement increments on your scope’s turret including proper information regarding the direction to turn the turret in case it is similar to most scopes available. While we performed our research, we had to turn the turret clockwise to move the bullet’s impact upwards or towards the right. It depends on what kind of turret you are adjusting. In our case, the first few shots at 50 yards hit 2″ towards the right and 1″ to the bottom. The top turret had to be turned 8 clicks clockwise and the side one had to be turned 32 clicks anti-clockwise to move the bullet’s impact up and to the left.
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Ways To Adjust
You might want to go past several clicks the required number and later revert back. If you have to adjust 8 clicks clockwise, you might want to go 10 clicks clockwise and 2 clicks anti-clockwise on the upper turret. With that being done, you can press the turret so that the adjustments can be locked in, which really needs to be done to create large adjustments. You can also do so while you are using low-quality scopes. When you have made the essential adjustments, you need to shoot a few shots again at the bull’s eye. In case the bullet holes appear at the aimed spot, you might want to sight in your currently 50 yards sighted-in rifle to a longer distance. If the bullet holes didn’t appear at the aimed spot, you need to make the essential adjustments again at the rifle scope and keep shooting until the rifle gets dialed in at 50 yards.
When your shot hits the exact same spot where you have aimed at a distance of 50 yards after the final adjustment of your rifle scope, you have successfully sighted-in your rifle scope.max
Final Words
Now that you have successfully reached the end of our guide, you might have found proper information on how to sight in a rifle scope at 50 yards or any distance. You can follow the similar process with a correct calculation for fine tuning your rifle scope to sight-in at other distances such as 25 yards, 100 yards or even 200 yards.
When you have successfully sighted-in your rifle scope, the rifle scope might stay in the same sighted-in situation for a long period of time. It really depends on the material used to manufacture your rifle scope. However, if you drop your rifle scope or it loses its strength, you might have to sight-in it again. When you are using your rifle the next time, it is highly recommended for you to check out whether the rifle scope is sighted-in or not.
If you have any issues regarding the sighting-in process of your rifle scope, please feel free to write down to us in the comments. We will get back to you right away.