From our Friend Jeff who is one of our champions. Get your learn on.
There are lots of discussions on shot group sizes and how many shots you should shoot to get an idea of what you and your rifle will do.
This something I did today after resetting a scope.
I shot two, dialed it over. Shot two more, slipped the scales. Shot two more. The top picture is six rounds. Just a bag and bipod.
Then in the bottom picture, I moved the gun and shot one round. Got up, walked off with the gun touched something and came back and shot another. Got up again, moved the gun about a foot to the left and walked off and touched something. Then shot another round. Bottom photo is three rounds.
I called it even on zeroed for the day. Yes, I typically zero on the left side of the dot.
I do shoot a lot of groups working on loads, 100-1200 yards plus to see how things group. However, when I’m sighting in my rifle my goal isn’t to see if the gun will group. It groups, I proved that to myself while I did load development. It’s to see if I am repeatable behind the rifle.
That said if you don’t do load development right or don’t have repeatable fundamentals none of this matters. You can shoot all the groups you want. From a bench, from prone, from a sled, off a bag and bipod etc…. none of it will matter because the bullets won’t go in the same spot.
There is a solid portion of this discussion that relies on the gun too. If it’s not capable then it’s a waste of time to try to hold your shooting, your reloads, or your optics to a standard they are unable to maintain.
On that note; I felt this was zeroed enough for a day of positional shooting so I called it even at that and went on to every prop I could find.
All this is to said, I go to great lengths to change up my positions to ensure there isn’t an influence on the rifle or myself that isn’t changing the point of impact from the desired point of impact. Do any of you think about this or go through anything to mitigate this and ensure it’s zeroed? Feel free to share either way.
Eric Lee T-Box Barrels