Range Report

Regular readers will recall that the scope on my rifle suffered a catastrophic failure of the reticle, last month. Subsequently, I purchased a Nikon Prostaff BDC*, and installed it a couple of weeks ago.

I finally made it back to range today, and took the first stab at sighting in the new toy. Gear laid out:

100 yard range

It occurred to me, as I prepared for this session, that I had absolutely no idea where the first shot would go. That was a scary thought. I figured if I couldn't find any impacts on the target at all, I could line it up, and then fire one round while looking over the rifle at the target. At least the puff of dust at impact would give me some idea which way the thing was aimed.

Fortunately, the first rounds hit here:

Whoa! low and to the right ...

The only ruler I had with me was the 8" on my Leatherman, but a quick measurement from the bull's eye to the top holes shown above yielded the results of 12±" low and 2" to the right.

After making those adjustments, my next five rounds (with more corrections on the fly) looked like this:

Better: the last three rounds were in the same one-inch square.

I had to move the scope twice: once to spin it clockwise, less than an eight of an inch, as the vertical crosshair was leaning to port. A second move came when I settled into 'the groove', and confirmed what Old NFO suspected: the scope was too far forward. I moved it about 3/8" to the rear.

It will require another range trip (darn it!) to get the thing dialed in perfectly, but I'm happy with this for now.

Thanks to those who offered advice when I installed the new optics; it never hurts to get input from folks who have been there, done that.


*Bullet drop compensator.