How to Bore Sight a Rifle

Mount the scope on the rifle if you haven't already. If your rifle is not already equipped with hardware for mounting a scope, you will need to install scope mounts. Most modern rifles come with screw hole pre-drilled and tapped for scope mount installation. Install mounts and make sure they are secure.

• After your mounts are installed and hardware is tightened, install scope rings on the scope itself and leave loose enough to adjust their position. You will need to be able to rotate the scope and to move it back and forth after mounting on the rifle.
• Make adjustments as needed so that the horizontal line on the reticle is level. You will also need to adjust the eye relief on the scope. While keeping the gun in a comfortable shooting position, move the scope forward or backward until there is no black ring around the objective. It's also important to make sure you have enough eye relief that the scope will not contact your face due to recoil.

Create a target. A bright red dot is an effective way of bore-sighting. It needs to stand out and be clearly visible with both kinds of sights, so it helps to use something very specific with high contrast, roughly 100 yards (91.4 m) away for the optimum sighting.^[1]

• You're not going to be shooting at the target, just lining up the sights, so this is a perfectly fine thing to do indoors, if you've got the space for it. Just practice good gun safety, as always, checking and double checking to make sure that your gun is unloaded before you try to bore sight it.

Line up the front sight with the target and stabilize the gun. A gun vise would be ideal for the job, but any kind of bench or other stabilizer would be handy for keeping the gun level while you make the adjustments necessary. Obtain a good sight picture with the front sight, keeping the gun level.^[2]

Line up the scope. After the sight is leveled and the eye relief is set, tighten your scope rings and re-check all hardware to make sure it is secure, then line up the cross-hairs on the scope with the target, keeping a good sight picture and your eye at the appropriate distance from the scope. Adjust the elevation and windage on the scope until it's lined up as closely as possible.^[3]

• What you're looking for is having a perfect sight picture when you're looking through the end sight at the appropriate cheek-weld and sight picture, while at the same time you could look through the scope at the appropriate distance and be lined up with the exact same spot. It's very difficult to do this without a gun vise or some other kind of secure stabilizer, so you can make your adjustments without holding or moving the gun.