I'm not sure it ever closed ...

We are fortunate to live in a "non-lottery" state and enjoy bow, black powder or rifle seasons from September to January. Deer hunting is a family event and the week after Thanksgiving (first week of rifle season) is prime vacation for us. White-tail and Sika are abundant on our farm so we not only harvest for food but to also reduce crop damage.

when is too early to sight in your rifle? I was thinking I may do mine about three weeks before hunting

I just go out the week before, shoot some paper plates (50, 100 150 yds) , and say, yep still good.

Ohio uses shotguns, so nothing further than that.

you use a rifled barrel though and slugs, right?

I sighted mine in last week but I'll shoot it several more times prior to the opening day. Since it is a new rifle/caliber for me, I want to be thoroughly familiar with it before opening day. Once it's sighted in it's good unless something happens and the sights/scope get bumped hard or you change ammo. The only way the length of time comes into play is that the longer it is the more time there is for something to bump the sights.

My son shot his first squirrel on Saturday. Ended up getting it with my late brother's old 16 gauge single shot. He was very proud. We'll see how he likes squirrel this evening...

I will run a few slugs through the gun to ensure the scope is still on this weekend. It will probably just take a couple of shots.

My new rifle was supposedly bore sighted at the gun shop. It was shooting about 15 inches low and about a foot to the right when I took it to the range. I had to bore sight it myself at the range to even get it on the paper. Once I did it zeroed in nicely.

No deer for me this weekend Yesterday was so cold and rainy that the deer were all bedded down. We had friends pushing through the sagebrush and that didn't even get the deer moving. I've got Friday off so I'll have three days to try and fill both my buck tag and special draw doe tag.

Had a scary incident yesterday with some hunters that weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer. We were sitting up on a knoll above a field and my dad and son were sitting on the next two knolls over from us. This group of about 6 hunters all started shooting at some skylined deer. Well, they didn't realize that right behind the field where the deer were standing, were 6 people on hills overlooking them. They started shooting right in our direction. Sounded like a war zone with all the shots going off and the whiz of bullets flying past us. My dad actually ducked for cover because he thought for sure he'd be hit by a stray bullet. About 20 minutes later, we saw their truck on a road about 1/2 mile away and heard one of them say, "Oh, look, there's some hunters right where we were shooting!" Man...we could not believe how dumb these guys were. Oh, and they missed the deer!

Years ago I foolishly let a clerk at a local gun shop talk me into allowing him to verify the already sighted-in rifle which I was carrying hunting in a few days with a bore-sighting collimeter he'd just gotten in. I'd never seen one before. He proclaimed my rifle's scope to be way off and proceeded to crank and crank on windage and elevation adjustments.

Skeptical, I ran out to the gun club range on my lunch hour on Friday, the day before the big hunt, and shot the rifle off of the 100-yard bench rest in order to verify his adjustments. The scope was hugely off, similar to your description, thomasj, only it was at 25 yards! I couldn't find the paper at all at distances of 100, then 50 yards. Didn't know an old Weaver K-4 had so much adjustment built into it. Why it'd practically shoot around a corner!

Nope, I have an old 1971 500 Mossberg. I do have a slug barrel, but it is not rifled like the newer barrels.

Mine isn't bad at 150 yards, slight drop, but accurate enough to drop a deer.

Busy Bee, Exactly why we quit hunting in WV. Dad and I were on stand, saw a deer, pulled up to shoot it, then from over our head from the next hill some idiot with a 30.06 blast it from over our heads.

"I just go out the week before, shoot some paper plates (50, 100 150 yds) , and say, yep still good.

Ohio uses shotguns, so nothing further than that."


Hi DD.

I like reading of your consistent results using slugs. Slugs can apparently be usefully accurate at distance with the right equipment.

I usually put out a bowl of beer (a good use for one that has been fruited) and collect the slugs latter

But, do you salt your slugs, Ed?

I thought that salt was for the shells

Only the ones for the watermelon patch.

Tried that when I was a kid, just as a "ballistic experiment." Pried open a shell, poured out the shot, and filled with rock salt.

Was a bust. Upon firing the shell made a white dust cloud with no particles that had any range to speak of.

It is strange, my gun really likes Winchester Super X shells. Can't shoot Remington worth a hoot

Now others I hunt with won't touch a Super X shell. I call the Remington's "green wobblers". Never know where it will hit.

I always thought that bore sighting would get you "on the paper" at 100 yards so you could dial a rifle in but I don't think I believe that anymore! I had to bore sight my new rifle in myself at the range. I removed the bolt and sighted down the barrel at a bulls eye target 50 yards away and adjusted the scope until it was on the bulls eye as well. It got me on the paper at 50 yards so I could start dialing it in. I had to remember that the adjustments I was making at 50 yards required twice the amount of turns on the adjustment screws as I was used to in sighting at 100 yards (1 click=1/4 inch at 100 yards but only 1/8 inch at 50). Once I had it on at 50 it was pretty easy to move out to 100 and finish zeroing it in.

I had never bore sighted a rifle nor knew how it was done, I just learned something. I've bored plenty of people and been bored by plenty of people but that's a different issue.

I use a Remington 770, it was pretty accurate out of the box. Just a couple of adjustments and I was on the bulls eye.

I'll be testing it for this year in a couple of weeks but it shouldn't be difficult to adjust if necessary.

I have a tendency to go to the range and jump right to the 100 yard mark and get frustrated if the gun is not on the paper. It saves a lot of ammo and swearing if you start at 25 or 50 yards when you are sighting in a rifle for the first time or one that you know is way off.

Of course once it is zeroed in from the bench I make sure I shoot as I would in the woods, free hand or with a shooting stick or with what ever rest I will have with me. My son actually shoots more accurately off of a shooting stick than he does from the bench.

I've never used a bore sight on my own guns (my excuse for the Mrs. when I want to go to the range), but I do use them at the gun shop I work at in the evenings (up to 25 yds so it's only a rough sight). But don't really have another means to sight in customer scopes unless they'd let us take them to the range but that could pose some liability issues lol

Hunting is a useful seasonal extension of a passion for shooting sports competition and handloading. I admire rifles and riflery most of all. Love tinkering with accurate rifles and feeding them especially prepared handloads. Every firearm is a law unto itself with regards to the way it will perform with a certain ammunition. Two identical firearms may not (probably won't) have identical ammunition preferences and cannot be expected to produce identical velocities or accuracy when fed the same ammunition.

Have shot scoped rifles and hunted with them since the mid-1970s and have yet to discover one that has materially changed its point of impact from season to season. Before the season, I always go and verify the sights or scope and may give a minor tweak yet, even despite some hard hunting use, have never had a rifle turn up to be wildly off when bench rest testing one. This includes the ones I've had since the mid-1970s.

Daughter got her second deer this past "youth deer-hunting season." (Written in quotes, lest Ed think it's youth season. )

Illinois is shotgun only too, DD. She shoots a Remington 11-87 20 Gauge, and shot beautifully. And since archery season began this week too, we've butchered two deer in the garage so far this season.

I'm jealous of you QCL! I just moved in Illinois and haven't been able to find any places to go deer hunting yet. I do have a few farmers though that said I can use their land for coyote hunting! I guess they have a problem with them killing their chickens and smaller animals.