How to bench rest a pistol and sight it in: Wisdom from the collective

[Twangbanger]

I really appreciate your reply. To be honest, much of it is completely new to me so I’m learning a lot each time I start reading.

I now have a decent understanding of why I was hitting high at 50yd with a zero at 25yd. Anxious to get back out and practice.

Triton,

The recoil off the bench may not correlate to what you see one-handed. Although it may not seem like a satisfying answer at this point, Sloughfoot is on the right track. All bullseye shooters go through this. You are receiving a lot of helpful advice above, but likely from people who have never done the type of shooting you are doing.

You + the gun are what matters. You need to shoot a lot freehand, see where your groups are, and make adjustments based on that. If your freehand groups are wide, that's the first thing to fix. Shoot both 25 and 50 yards freehand. If the groups are large but centered, leave it alone. If you move back and forth between the distances and the centering does not change, leave it alone.

I did the same thing when I started. It was very hard to shoot groups open-sighted off a bench, and determine how many clicks to move the sights. In retrospect, I now know that if you can't measure the difference freehanded, leave the sights alone. It's not what you want to hear. As a beginner, what you want to hear is a way to bench-test the gun that will tell you exactly how many clicks to move the sights between distances. I understand. I've been there. I can tell you, the difference is small, and when you get your groups shrunk offhand, you will see that. But if your groups are large at 50 yards, you will figuratively be chasing butterflies to move the sights based on bench results.

Side note, there is no reason a handgun 25 yard zero might not hit higher at 50 yards. It could be the case. It recoils differently from a rifle, and you are not necessarily to the distance yet where extra distance correlates to more bullet drop. Depending on trajectory and line of sight height, you may need to get farther before that relationship begins to exist. My guess is, for a beginning one-hand bullseye shooter, the difference in point of impact between 25 and 50 yards, is probably getting swallowed up in the size of your offhand groups, and you might not be able to reliably discern it within the signal-to-noise ratio of your group size.

Dot sights do tend to shrink groups at 50 yards and make shots easier to "call" and the difference easier to see.

 

[Triton]

Completely agree. I’m new to many things with this. So the benching helped me to know where it is supposed to hit. From what I understand I’ll need to start shooting to find where “my POI” is and then adjust.

the guys in the club said they zero at 50. To be honest, I’m still not landing all 10 shots at 50 yet. So I’m a bit baffled. Going to focus on the 25. It’s easier for me to see. Plus, I don’t have a spotting scope so I can’t adjust on the fly yet.

 

[Triton]

I had considered putting a dot on the CZ. I have a vortex venom laying around not doing anything. A dot does help as I wear glasses and am a bit older in the eyes. Will need to see if there’s and adaptor to replace the rear sights. I don’t want to have the slide drilled to mount a side plate.

 

[gmcttr]

If your plan is to shoot bullseye and your Shadow has a fiber optic or dot front sight, replace it with a plain black front sight and use a 6 o'clock hold on the target. Use the correct NRA targets for each distance you shoot (50', 25 and 50 yards). Have glasses that allow you to focus on the front sight and aim at the bottom edge of the blur that is the target.

The 6 o'clock hold lets you see the spacing of the front sight side to side in the rear sight, align the top of the rear and front sights with the bottom edge of the bull which is a more precise point than the center of the bull and using the correct size targets (and sight set up) makes it easier to align with the target left to right.

A front sight with any type of dot is meant to align the dot over a larger target's center of mass for speed rather than for precise accuracy.

 

[natdscott]

Have glasses that allow you to focus on the front sight and aim at the bottom edge of the blur that is the target.

Actually, depending on his age, correction, and accommodation, he really needs to be focused perfectly at about 1.75-2x the distance between his eye and the rear sight.

Getting a “perfect” front sight is the accepted wisdom, but for a lot of people, the lens that does so doesn’t resolve a sharp enough image of the 50 yard bull to hold good elevation.

But great post, by the way.

OP: In addition to the correction, you really need to increase your visual depth of field. The best method is with an aperture at your eyeball.

Try it out: punch a pin hole in a stick a 3/4” black paster, re-black the edges of the hole with a marker, and then stick it to the inside of your shooting glasses where you view the sights.

If you’ve not done this, prepare to be amazed.

 

[gmcttr]

I used to use electrical tape with a hole in it.

 

[natdscott]

I used to use electrical tape with a hole in it.

Works great. Especially since Merit is no longer a thing, and Knoblochs are such a PITA.

I am young enough that I CAN shoot without it, but it doesn’t take 50 yards for me to demonstrate the effect. 10 meters is plenty. hahaha!!

 

[Twangbanger]

Completely agree. I’m new to many things with this. So the benching helped me to know where it is supposed to hit. From what I understand I’ll need to start shooting to find where “my POI” is and then adjust.

the guys in the club said they zero at 50. To be honest, I’m still not landing all 10 shots at 50 yet. So I’m a bit baffled. Going to focus on the 25. It’s easier for me to see. Plus, I don’t have a spotting scope so I can’t adjust on the fly yet.

Yours is the correct approach. Two-thirds of your match is shot at 25 yards, and that's the distance where you're first going to get that "ragged hole" in the target which gives you confidence of when and where your point of impact might need to shift. So focus on that, and treat 50 yards as a "farther down the road" goal at this point. To experienced shooters, 50 yards is where you win or lose the match. But to beginner shooters who are trying to break 2000, then 2100, then 2300...25 yards is where you're going to begin to stack up the eights, nines, and tens that get you into the pack. When you do practice 50 yards, only do it with your .22 for now. If and when you get a .45, mastering the big gun at long range will be your last obstacle to tackle. And that is hard for everybody. Most of the better competitors are going to be loading jacketed .45 bullets like the ones Aszerigan has for sale in the classifieds, just for that yardage in an attempt to get better accuracy there. It's a different world there and you don't need to overly concern yourself with it now.

Works great. Especially since Merit is no longer a thing, and Knoblochs are such a PITA.

I am young enough that I CAN shoot without it, but it doesn’t take 50 yards for me to demonstrate the effect. 10 meters is plenty. hahaha!!

I have better than average eyesight (still not wearing glasses at 51) and when I was in college, using apertures at 10 meters made the target and sights simultaneously in focus. I'm talking, I could see the white numerals printed in the black of the target, while seeing a crisp front sight on my FWB. It unnerved me like a Salvador Dali painting, and I quit using it.

Now, not a problem at any distance...

 

[natdscott]

Yours is the correct approach. Two-thirds of your match is shot at 25 yards, and that's the distance where you're first going to get that "ragged hole" in the target which gives you confidence of when and where your point of impact might need to shift. So focus on that, and treat 50 yards as a "farther down the road" goal at this point. To experienced shooters, 50 yards is where you win or lose the match. But to beginner shooters who are trying to break 2000, then 2100, then 2300...25 yards is where you're going to begin to stack up the eights, nines, and tens that get you into the pack. When you do practice 50 yards, only do it with your .22 for now. If and when you get a .45, mastering the big gun at long range will be your last obstacle to tackle. And that is hard for everybody. Most of the better competitors are going to be loading jacketed .45 bullets like the ones Aszerigan has for sale in the classifieds, just for that yardage in an attempt to get better accuracy there. It's a different world there and you don't need to overly concern yourself with it now.

Would it be correct to say you win at 50, but you lose the match at 25?

Rifle: You can lose a match at 300 or 600, but it’s best to get up early and win it at 200.

 

[Twangbanger]

Would it be correct to say you win at 50, but you lose the match at 25?

Rifle: You can lose a match at 300 or 600, but it’s best to get up early and win it at 200.

You can definitely lose it at 25, if you have a non-allowable alibi. The problem is everybody shoots so good there. Even with 2/3 of your points at 25 yards, it is still hard to make up enough points there to cover the "june bugs" that landed on the white portion of your target at 50. You basically have to hope "that guy two places to your right" has two misfires on the same gun. If he's already past the .22 match (which is known by common approbation to be controlled by the gods), he's probably home free

 

[natdscott]

hehehe... Sounds so familiar. Been on both sides of that coin a lot of times. In retrospect, BOTH sides were good for me, and I miss them both, in different ways.

 

[Triton]

Appreciate that reply and I’m right at that first stage. Just did my 1st match and working to break the 2000 mark.

 

[Ruger_Ronin]

This is some fine reading.

Thread of gold.
Still learning. Good posts from those far more experienced than I.
I have struggled with such issues as I am half blind. The line between focus and blur is quite thin. I've never used an aperture in this way before. Further research will happen (appreciated). I never had an opinion on holding one eye closed really.

 

[natdscott]

I never had an opinion on holding one eye closed really.

Using an occluder is a good idea, but holding your eye closed is not. Sympathetic muscle movement in both your shooting eye, and your shooting eye’s lid will reduce resolution.

A lesser-known fact is that reducing the light to the offside eye (ie: a black occluder) will cause the aiming eye’s pupil to sympathetically dilate as well, allowing more light in than it otherwise would...not ideal for resolution.

-Nate

 

[Ruger_Ronin]

Using an occluder is a good idea, but holding your eye closed is not. Sympathetic muscle movement in both your shooting eye, and your shooting eye’s lid will reduce resolution.

A lesser-known fact is that reducing the light to the offside eye (ie: a black occluder) will cause the aiming eye’s pupil to sympathetically dilate as well, allowing more light in than it otherwise would...not ideal for resolution.

-Nate

Bad joke. I'm half blind. Handguns righty, long guns lefty.