If you hunt, you know how important it is to take the time to sight your rifle. Doing this will help you catch a meal and so much more.

Sighting it properly, however, is almost as important as spending the time to sight it at all; here are a few tips.

Bore Sighting

Always remember that just because you or the gun store bore-sighted your rifle, it does NOT mean that it is sighted in. Bore sighting is great for getting you on paper right off the bat, and reducing ammo waste, but it’s just that, a place to start.

Shooting Groups

When sighting in a new rifle or scope, it’s a good idea to shoot groups to calculate your adjustments, rather than chase single holes all over the paper. Usually, for the first couple of rough adjustments, I’ll fire one round, but for any kind of fine tuning, you want to shoot a group of at least 3 rounds.

Cooling Your Barrel

When you’re sighting in your rifle, it’s important to let your barrel cool down between groups. Every rifle barrel is different, and accuracy and point of impact can vary greatly when the barrel gets hot.

Finding Your Cold-Bore Zero

After you get zeroed in at your desired range, let your barrel cool completely down completely to ambient temperature (this will take a while). Fire one round, and note how far off you are. If it is more than an inch or two at 100 yards, I would measure the windage and elevation difference, and adjust, let cool back down, and repeat, until your first shot hits exactly where you want.

Sighting your rifle, even if it is not new, is one way of vastly improving your accuracy when it counts.

If you neglect to do so, you are taking your chances that when you fire the rifle, the shot will ring true; for more info on properly sighting your rifle, check out Outdoor Life.