Part III. SIGHTS AND SIGHTING IN

Chapter 9. Sighting in a Small Game Rifle

There is a best sight setting for every rifle, from .22 rim fire to the wildest wild cat caliber, a range, once your sights are zeroed in, which gives you the best possible accuracy at all field distances. Careful study, plenty of shooting, and an intimate knowledge of exterior ballistics will give you the know-how to arrive at the best possible distance to zero your particular rifle.

Your sighting in is conditioned by the game you hunt, as well as by the caliber you use. Obviously, there is not as much leeway between a miss and a killing hit when the game is tree squirrel as there is in shooting larger game. The vital area of a squirrel is covered by about an inch and a half. Just a little miscalculation in sight setting, added to the natural errors of aim, can put you off your target, or worse yet, give only a crippling hit.

A .22 rifle, sighted in for tree squirrel hunting, using the .22 long rifle high speed hollow point ammunition is working with 1365 feet second velocity. This gives a bullet drop of 5.5 inches at one hundred yards, if you are sighted in to hit point of aim at 50 yards. Such sight settings would put you off the target at around 85 yards.

Tree squirrel shooting is a comparatively short range affair, with most of the shots being taken within 35 yards. So you wouldn't be greatly handicapped with your squirrel rifle zeroed in at 50 yards. But why not sight in for the maximum range, if it will not cancel out your careful holding on the shorter range shots?

Sighted to hit point of aim at 75 yards, your bullet would be about an inch above your line of sights at 25 yards. At 50 yards it would be a full 1/2 inches above. At 100 yards it would be 3 inches low. Should you get a shot at this extreme range, and there will be some occasionally, the sure knowledge that you have 3 inches' drop of the bullet for which you must compen­sate, makes a hit relatively simple.

Ranges less than a 100 yards, with your rifle sighted in to hit point of aim at 75 yards, are even more easily estimated. Even if you make a mistake of 25 yards in your estimate, your sight setting at 75 yards will amply compensate for the error. For at best you cannot be off more than a few inches. The tra­jectory curve of a .22 long rifle highspeed, with your rifle sighted in for 75 yards, is relatively flat over a 100 yards range.

Let's trace the path of one of those shots in detail, give it woods application. Suppose it is a fox squirrel you have your sights on. The range, mind you, is not known. But from previous shooting it appears to be around 25 yards. Your rifle is sighted in to hit point of aim at 75 yards. You know that at 25 yards the bullet will strike about 1/2inch high. That measurement of one inch, as seen through your scope sight, is about the width of a squirrel's head. If it is actually 25, as you estimated it, your crosshairs must be centered a fraction below his head for a killing hit assuming the head is your aiming point, as it should be at this range.

You carefully squeeze off the shot and tumble the squirrel, the point of impact being near the top of the head. But suppose you had made an error in estimating range. Suppose, that in­stead of being 25 yards, it is 35 yards. You are still in for a killing hit for the simple reason that you have selected the best range at which to zero your rifle, using .22 high-speed ammu­nition.

At 35 yards the bullet would be a bit higher, but still touch­ing the head for a killing hit. At 20 yards with the same point of aim you would still be in, your bullet striking a bit lower than at 25 yards. You can readily see why, once your rifle is sighted in at its best range, there is no reason in trying to esti­mate your distances in yards. It is much better to simplify your shooting into short range, medium range and long range, having only three measurements with which to estimate shots.

Applying this to your .22 rifle, the target that fox squirrel offered in a beechnut at 25 yards, you made a short range shot. The bullet is not at its maximum trajectory height at the target. A medium range shot would be from 40 to 60 yards—the points between which the bullet hasn't left the line of sights by more than 1½ inches. From here on out past the distance at which you zeroed your rifle to the point beyond which you couldn't expect a clean kill, even though your holding was perfect, is your long range bracket. In case of targets as small as squirrel, expert shots would place this at 100 yards.

Applying this same system to your big game rifle, when using midrange handloads for off-season shooting, one comes up with a lot of interesting, worthwhile data. This is not only beneficial in your small game hunting, but has a pay-off also when you are elk or deer hunting.

Take my own heavy caliber, .348 Winchester Model 71. Here, with proper handloads, is an excellent squirrel and rabbit caliber. It has just the proper amount of weight for steady hold­ing, and is very accurate with midrange loads. Only difference between shooting deer or elk with it, and using it on tree squir­rel is that the squirrels are the more difficult targets. Of course, sight setting for those midrange, gas check loadings is different.

My midrange squirrel loading, taken from Lyman's Ideal Handbook, is as follows: 190 grain gas check bullet, 20 grains of 4759 Du Pont powder, giving me a velocity of 1400 feet a second.

With that velocity figure, I sight this load in to hit point of aim at 75 yards to get maximum coverage at all squirrel and rabbit ranges. Sighted in at this distance, the bullet flight above or below line of sight is about as follows: 25 yards, one inch above line of sight; 50 yards, 1¼ above; on at 75 yards; and 100 yards, 3½inches below point of aim.

The trajectory curve of this 190 grain gas check is not so great but what you can take head shots out to a full 50 yards —if you remember the point of aim necessary for each easily estimated distance: short, medium, and long range shots.

When you step out of the woods, a sniping rifle in your hands, long range shooting with ground squirrel or woodchuck on your mind, you still have the same yardstick of measure­ments for your range estimating: short, medium, long. But you are playing in the big league now. Different calibers and veloci­ties make a short range shot something else than those obtained with a .22 rim fire. Your rifle must be sighted differently to take full advantage of its ranging potential.

My Marlin Model 322, .222 caliber has plenty on the ball, and must be sighted in carefully to take advantage of its superb accuracy and ranging ability.

The range table out to the practical limits of its effectiveness on such game as woodchuck and ground squirrel, using a 50 grain bullet is as follows, sighted to hit point of aim at 200 yards: at 25 yards the bullet is 0.5 above line of sights at 50 yards; 2.5 above at 100 yards; on point of aim at 200; and about 4.5 inches below at 250 yards.

Sighted to hit point of aim at 200 yards, a short range shot with my Marlin .222 is any distance out to 100 yards. You can hold directly on any of the ordinary sniping targets such as woodchuck or ground squirrel. From 100 to 200 yards would be in the medium range bracket, with your holding still on your point of intended impact. From here out to the short distance of 250 yards would be in the long range bracket, with some holding-over indicated.

Properly sighted in at 200 yards, you could be as much as 50 yards off in your estimating of range and still make a killing hit at all practical field ranges with this caliber. And for the simple reason that your sighting takes full advantage of this splendid flat shooting .222 caliber.

The same things may be said of the many wildcat calibers. Divide their practical range up into three easily estimated distances. Apply this to their trajectory curve; sight in to keep bullet drop within the limits of your intended target size, and about 90 per cent of your unaccountable misses are com­pensated for, especially in the medium and long range brackets.

It holds good for big game shooting. It holds good for small game plinking—long range sniping. Any type of field rifle shoot­ing will benefit by this simplification of range estimation, and proper sight setting.

The actual mechanics of sighting in a rifle are well known to most hunters. You know that a minute of angle, for all practical purposes, is about one inch for each hundred yards of range. If you are sighting in a rifle with receiver sight calibrated in one-half minutes of angle, as most of the better grade sights are, each click of elevation or windage moves your center of impact at 100 yards a half inch, two clicks for each inch of movement. Most scope sights are also calibrated in one-half minutes of angle.

Usually, after mounting scope or receiver sights, the simplest procedure to get on the target is to bore sight your rifle. This, stripped of its esoteric nonsense, means that you bring your sights and the bore of your rifle into adjustment by sighting through the bore, and centering it directly on your target, usually at one hundred yards. Then the sights are brought into adjustment on the same aiming point.

To do this properly you must rest your rifle on two sand­bags, or in a cradle, made by cutting two V notches in a box to form a stable rest for your rifle. The bolt, of course, is removed for bore sighting, and in the case of lever action rifles, a Bore-scope must be used in order to see through the barrel.

You get nothing more than an approximation of your actual bullet impact by bore sighting. But it does help to get on the paper with that first shot.

Barrel vibration, differences in holding and all intangibles of rifle shooting make each rifle and loading a bit different. What you are actually doing when you sight in a rifle to its final accuracy after bore sighting, is to bring your sight into relationship with the bore under the stress of firing. It is alive then and very sensitive, responsive to the least change of ammu­nition, powder charge, bullet weight. Once you are on the target bore sighting, the final adjustments of sights must be made with live ammunition.

Of course you know that you move your rear sight setting in the same direction you want to move your grouping. If you are out to the right of your aiming point, or at three o'clock, you naturally click on the proper amount of left windage to move your center of impact in to your point of aim. If you are shoot­ing low, the correction is made by moving your sight up, giving it more elevation.

In sighting in a rifle for field shooting, the center of impact and point of aim should be the same for the range selected. That gives you a reference point for those sub-divisions of field ranges: your bullet being slightly above point of aim at the short ranges, on at medium distances, and slightly below at the longer ranges.

Each rifle, even at the expense of reiteration, must be sighted in at its own best distance to cover its maximum range latitude most efficiently; all the rest is routine.

Sighting in, however, is a job which you must do yourself, for no two ever see their sights the same. They hold their rifles differently. These peculiarities of eyesight and holding causes rifles to group differently—enough so that you could very easily miss a squirrel's head when your target is half concealed in the multicolored autumn leaves of an oak.