I have a customer with a very light, easy to carry, custom rifle, in 7mm STW. He has shot it four times, 2 Elk, 2 Mulies.... I sight it in, and hope to do it last so the flinch won't affect me on everyone elses...

If I don't have anything better to do, sighting in a gun can be a lot of fun.

It gets me out of the shop, and out at the range... That's not so bad.

I don't mind sighting in so much but as mentioned above, I hate having other guns around me. The worst is when non hunters get out there with their new AR toys and start blasting away. With bolt guns you can kind of get in a rhythm with everyone around you and are almost guaranteed silence when you go to squeeze the trigger. I've had guys empty 10 round mags in their black guns while I was on target.

Not saying they don't have the right to be there but I wish the ranges would provide separate areas for guys who are really trying to fine tune things and those that are there just to practice or have fun blasting away with their buddies.

It can be a little frustrating at times. A while back I took my .243 out to work on some loads but first needed to sight it in because I'd changed scopes,I had used my bore sight at home in order to get it on paper, and I fired a shot at a pretty big target....and nothing! Ugh! I remembered having my laser bore sight in the bag and used that and dialed it in....and you guessed it...didn't even hit the paper! Ugh! So now I'm pretty agitated! So I went down range and put up four targets in order to enlarge the surface. Went back and fired my third shot and it barely caught the top left target...16 inches high and 5 inches left...wow! Dialed it in and the next shot was within an inch of dead center.

And thats why I shoot at home and not at a range.

I've never dreaded sighting in a rifle. It usually gives me something to do between shooting strings with my own rifles.

I zero a different rifle for someone almost every week. It helps that there isn't a public range within 90 miles of me so I never have to deal with another guy seeing how fast he can burn up ammo right next to me.

I do get frustrated with a few rifle/scope combinations though. It's usually a rifle that someone bought second hand that has never been cleaned or one that has a $100 scope on it that isn't tracking correctly and has terrible parallax. Even when one of these shows up I still manage to get it zeroed to the best of it's capabilities and make sure I'm explaining to them the how's and why's of what I'm doing.

You just make sure whatever group it's capable of shooting is centered around the bullseye.

This brings up a point that I never thought about.

The safety issue aside, an arguement might be made that the ability to ignore the sounds of nearly shots helps condition the shooter to focus more on proper shooting mechanics. There's no question that anticipation of the shot is the primary driver behind flinching. When a shooter hears a nearby shot, he flinches just as he might if the shot were his own. That being said, it would only make sense that conditioning oneself to ignore nearby shots helps the shooter have less anticipation for his/her own shot. If so, there may be good reason to practice shooting at a range to avoid flinching.

Dan,

In my experience, that is correct. I've shot with multiple braked rifles on both sides of me, and we were literally shooting thumb tacks at 77 yards, simultaneously.

The ability to tune out external distractions makes one much better with a rifle. Much of people's problems with shooting consistently lies between their ears. .338 Lapua Mag, and .50 BMG are the biggest I've shot 1 MOA or smaller. Behind those big boomers I repeatedly remind myself of the fundamentals, so that I break as good of a shot as I can.

watched a guy at the range, shot 6-7 shots all low about 6" & right about 8" (100yds) ask if i could help him, he said it was fine, never did he touch his scope.

watched a guy at the range, shot 6-7 shots all low about 6" & right about 8" (100yds) ask if i could help him, he said it was fine, never did he touch his scope. maybe where he wanted it

Place the rifle in a gun vise and remove the bolt center the target in the middle of the bore. Move the crosshair to the target and start at 50 yards. The last one I did last week I was dead zero on the first shot at 50.

I actually enjoy it as long as it's under 70 degrees and I don't have an AR next to me.

I use a Caldwell brass catcher when I'm at the range for just that reason. I don't want to be that guy...