Rifles and telescopic sights question

Factual Questions
1

The sight sits on top of the rifle, say 3 or 4 inches above the barrel. When you line up the shot by looking through the sight, do you need to compensate for this gap by aiming slightly higher on the target?

2

Actually, you’re supposed to adjust the sight to compensate for the range to the target, so that when your crosshairs are on target, the barrel is automatically higher.

3

Thanks Q.E.D. for the quick answer. That makes a lot of sense now!

4

Since the bullet starts dropping the instant it comes out of the barrel, the barrel of any gun is always point ing up. The bullet acutally passes thru “the line of sight” 2 times, once on the way up, and again on the way down.

Every person who owns a gun is familiar with the exact trajectory his bullets make, and to allow for the bullet to acutally come in higher than the line of sight at a shorter range on its way up,a nd to allow for droppage of the bullet if the target is farther than the distance when the bullet again passes thru the line of sight on its final downward pass.

Thus, if you sight in at 100 yeads, your bullet will be high at less than that, and after several hundred yards, you will need to aim at least a foot higher than the actual target.

The answer to your question, is that you ALWAYS have to compensate, not only for the 3 inches you speak of(at shorter ranges only), but also for the bullet being in an upward pass, or a downward pass, and for the wind too.

Thus, if you are shooting at something 1 foot away, the bullet will hit the target 3 inches below the crosshairs.

5

Thanks for the extra info Susan. I guess that the effect of gravity on the bullet becomes more of a factor, the more distance there is to the target.

Thanks guys. Consider my question answered!

6

To simplify Susanann’s post, just keep in mind that the line of sight through the telescope is perfectly straight, and the path made by the projectile is an arc.

The two lines will exactly coincide only twice, at specific distances.

“Laser” sights- the kind that put a red dot on the target- have the same difficulty: the beam is perfectly straight, but the projectile moves in a curve.