Sighting in techniques?

[Jbrown69]

I can understand the desire to use a rest, but know that "where" you rest the gun can greatly affect the point of impact. Know your gun through experimentation on the range before heading to the woods. It's a huge issue with the black powder cartridge rifle guys. They often shoot from crossed sticks and have several methods for finding the harmonic point of the barrel.

I never rest my barrel just the forearm and especially, with a muzzleloader I do what I call follow through. Nothing more than hold my form for a second or two after the bang. Seems to help my accuracy.

 

[Far Sighted]

Who here uses a Harris bipod and a rear sandbag for stability while sighting in a rifle or muzzleloader? I’ve found that specific set up to get me the best groups and most stability. I’ve tried lead sleds but I don’t care for how they feel on the shoulder. Any one do something else that works for them?

Thru experiment with less than steady rest I came to my best acceptable shooting using a Caldwell Ledsled II mounted on my custom portable shooting bench.
My shooting methods work for all my weapons including ML, crossbow, rifles, and shoot guns off this steady bench. Without this setup it would be a mystery as to what's going on causing so much scatter.
No it's not used for hunting but is for proving accuracy, sighting in, and long range target shooting fun.
Good luck!

 

[Wildrangeringreen]

Sight it in how you are going to be shooting it mostly (particularly if it isn't free floated). if an off hand rifle, you can rest your hands on a bag in the spot where you are normally going to hold it. If it's a bench gun, use whatever bipod or directly rested bag arrangement you are planning to use.

Otherwise, do some research on what trajectory your loading is most likely traveling on out to your selected distance, and set up a target on grid/graphing paper at 25 yards to have a black aiming point, and a light gray (so you can't really see it when shooting) impact point on the target. Aim at the black, adjust so you hit the impact area. Saves a lot of walking, stray shots, and frustration when it comes time to fine tune the sighting at the true distance you want. (ballistic calculators give you trajectory in +- inches from line of sight (your aiming point)).

on my open sighted guns with folding leaves, it saves a heck of a lot of walking lol.

 

[goco4game]

I do my target shooting in a remote part of the Pawnee National Grasslands in northern Colorado, so I have to provide all my own equipment. Several years ago, I made a "portable" shooting bench and it's been working very well. The reason for the quotation marks is because it weighed right at 70 pounds, adding a whole new meaning to the definition of portable! All that weight made it very stable, but I would strain my back most every time I went to use it. I'm getting older, so the time came to replace the original thick and heavy top with a lighter one, cutting the weight down to "only" 46#. I also modified the opening from a radius cut to a 45 degree angle. The intention for that is to allow me to press into the table with my chest as much as possible when shooting to reduce movement in the sight picture. I also added a brace underneath the table to press my right leg against.
I got to use it last week and it worked very well.