Today, I wanted to show an example target and how to use it. The target in the picture below has one inch squares. It is meant to zero in your rifle at 100 yards.

So, that means that if you are at fifty yards, your adjustments need to double or if you are at 200 yards, your adjustments need to be halved. What in the heck am I talking about?

Many scopes have an adjustment that says 1 click = 1/4″ at 100 yards. So, if you are off one inch at fifty yards, the adjustment needs to be eight clicks because the error (or adjustment) projects at a multiple of your distance. You see, if you were and inch off and the target was one hundred yards, then the adjustment would match the scope’s metering. But, because the scenario is one half of the expected distance then the correction needs to double the stated value.

OK, what if your scope is in Mils or Radians. Well, mils are 1/1000 of a radian and a radian equals pi (or 3.14). To ignore all of the complicated math, one mil adjustment at 100 yards equals 3.6 inches. So, at 200 yards that would be 7.2 inches. That means, adjust your scope according to the proper instructions to get a good sight in. The math can be figured out, but I think it would be too much for this post. For mils, multiply by 1000. For instance, what if you were shooting in meters?

When sighting in your rifle, you need to consider other factors like parallax and bullet drop. For reference, I am ignoring those factors today. But for super high level vocabulary purposes, I will address the definitions. Parallax is the distance of the scope above the barrel. Bullet drop is is how fast the bullet drops in relation to distance.

That means when you sight in your rifle, the parallax means that your scope is pointed slightly down. When your scope intercepts the bullet’s point of travel, then it is sighted in for that distance. Drop is a function of where your scope is sighted in.

I am willing to go through the math in the future, but I think that for now (I hope) that I got the gist across.