If your bow season has been anything like mine, then I know you haven’t had much of a season. With only about four days of cool weather for hunting, I haven’t been able to pattern deer movements at all. Hot today and cool tomorrow. What are the deer going to do?
I pray that the cold weather will get here and stay and that the deer will enter their cold-weather feeding habits.
With gun season opening on Nov. 22, it’s time to get your rifles sighted in for opening day.
I prefer to shoot a bow over a gun any day, but it’s nice to let out a little frustration by pulling the trigger of my Remington every now and then.
Sighting in a rifle can be a frustrating time. Sometimes you only have one afternoon to go to a local range and get your gun sighted in perfectly. During that afternoon, nothing will go right. The wind will be blowing 20 miles an hour out of every direction and chances are your scope will have been knocked out of place since last season.
It can be a stressful situation if everything doesn’t go as planned.
But I found a solution to the terrors of sighting in your rifle–the one-shot sight-in.
This technique of sighting-in your rifle will save plenty of time and will prevent you from stressing out while you are shooting.
You will need to bring a few things with you to the range in order to accomplish the one-shot solution, but they are things that you would need anyway.
The most important piece of equipment that you need is a sturdy gun rest. Whether it is a pair a sandbags or a molded gun rest, it is imperative that your gun is stable while you are shooting.
You will need good targets to shoot at. You can use anything from a paper plate with an X on it, to a pre-printed shooting target. You will also need a 100-yard lane to shoot from.
Remember to make sure that the target you are shooting at has something to slow down the bullet behind it. You don’t want to make any farmers angry by shooting their cows.
From my experience shooting a rifle in Mississippi, you will rarely take a shot that is over 150 yards, so I sight my rifle in at 2 inches above the bull’s-eye at 100 yards. This will make the rifle dead-on at 250 yards.
You should also bring a reliable partner.
Before you take your first shot, it’s a good idea to dry-fire a few rounds and become comfortable with your shooting situation. It doesn’t matter if you shoot lying down or from a firing bench–just make sure you are comfortable.
If you shoot a scope that has variable powers, turn your scope to the highest power. Load your gun and find the target in your scope. Take a deep breath and, when you feel confident that you are online, squeeze off a round.
You should be able to spot the bullet hole through your scope, but if you can’t, enlarge the hole with a marker until you can see it.
Take off the scope’s adjustment caps and again aim at the target.
You should be able to see the bullet hole and the bull’s-eye within your scope.
Say that you shoot high and to the right. Hold the rifle steady and tell your partner to turn the horizontal adjustment to the left.
As your partner turns the adjustment you’ll see the crosswire march across the field of view toward the bullet hole. When the wire gets to the hole tell your partner to stop.
Repeat this process with the vertical wire and your rifle will be sighted in.
I know this process is called the one-shot sight-in, but go ahead and make it the two-shot sight-in just to be safe.
*Information about the one-shot technique was provided by Jim Carmichel.
Jake Fagan is a senior communication major. He can be reached at [email protected].