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.
New **** Miller Rifle, Sighting In
- Thread starter Second-rate Marksman
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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
By faith and fortitude…
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.
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.
