New Dick Miller Rifle, Sighting In

[GriscomRun]

This is all good advice. Especially increasing the charge toward 75 gr. I've played with the red dodge idea and it haas merit. But takes practice.

 

[Flint1]

From what I read some time back, the old time longhunters and the mountain men zeroed their rifles using the 13 yard rule, which was actually 12 1/2 yards but for modern purposes has been rounded up to 13 yards. I've fiddled around with it years ago but never stuck with it to get it worked out. Once I get back to shooting again I plan to give it a go once more with the same rifle. The first thing you do is work up the best load with the patch, ball, lube, and powder combo which gives the tightest group, before messing with the sights. Once that is done, begin sighting in. At 13 yards you want the ball to hit dead center. At 25 yards it should be about 1/2 to 1 inch high, 2 inches high at 50 yards, dead on at 75 yards, about 2 inches low at 100 yards, and 6 inches low at 130 yards. I may be off just a little in the rise and drop, but I do remember being on center at 13 and 75, and 6 inches low at 130. The theory was aim at the lethal area on a game animal or man and from the muzzle to 130 yards you should get a killing shot without using Kentucky elevation. I believe it was Hanson who wrote a book on the Hawken rifle, and I believe this was in that book with a statement the mountain men knew the trajectory of their round balls. I'm sure this is probably on the internet somewhere. It would probably work well shooting at silhouettes if they're large enough, but you would probably still need to use a bit of Kentucky elevation if shooting paper. It would probably keep you from having to adjust powder charges at different ranges. It does kinda tie in with the advice at sighting in at 75 yards.

 

[Second-rate Marksman]

You know, I seem to recall using the 13 yard method with my .45 Woodsrunner several months ago and achieving satisfactory results. I shot just a couple days after sighting in with some 50 other people at the Fawn Creek rendezvous in Montana and was somewhere in the top five in the rifle category.

 

[Maven]

Just to add, Sam Fadala mentioned the 13 yd. sighting in regimen in some of his ML writing. However, it does presuppose a certain velocity/powder charge for it to be effective.

 

[Robert Jeannotte]

First off, let me apologize for the fact that this is another “zeroing” thread. I realize the subject has been written about ad nauseam, and I have reviewed a number of threads on this forum and others… only to find myself more confused than ever.

I recently picked up this .50 cal Richard “****” Miller rifle, my second from this builder. I’d really like to make this my primary flintlock for rendezvous and club shoots. It currently appears to be dead nuts on at approximately 25 yards in terms of both windage and elevation with a .490 ball and .020 patch, using roughly 55 grains of FFG Swiss. I made the mistake of taking the rifle to the club shoot this past Sunday, and was feeling quite confident after spending a little time with it at the range the day before. My confidence quickly diminished as I struggled to score hits on target after target. I believe I got nine out of forty, which just isn’t like me… I took second place at last month’s shoot (using a different rifle), just a couple points away from the gentleman who is regularly “top dog”.

Most of my shooting with this rifle will be trail walk events. Our club moves to the range during the hotter months due to fire danger, and we shoot steel animal silhouettes at 25, 50, 75, and 100 yards. I’m looking for the zero that would give me the least POI deviation from one distance to another. I kind of gleaned through my reading that this might be a POA/POI zero at 100 yards. Is that correct? I don’t want to have to mess around with holdover stuff and utilize Kentucky windage. The targets are typically large enough that one has at least a few inches in any direction in terms of margin of error.

Beautiful rifle

 

[Grenadier1758]

@Second-rate Marksman, it's time to be looking at the sights to verify that they are secure in the dovetails.

Did anything change between the time it shot well at 25 yards and the match other that having the added stress of the match? Were the sighting in targets shot off a rest and the match offhand?

 

[bldtrailer]

I'm betting a charge of 3f swiss +- 70 grains will get the result you want all 50s green mtn ,hoyt or getz seem to like the load

hoyt load work up then moved sights to be 2 inch high at 50 only my hoyt gain twist needed 80grns to tighten up

hoyt gain twist right on at 50 high at 75 2 inch low at 100 no hold over

getz with 2f swiss