Bore sighting with the help of LaserLyte...... close enough to start with

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Mounting an optic on a weapon isn't really rocket science. Start with an accurate rifle, add in a quality scope, put it together with a decent mounting system, and shazaam.... you are 'almost there'.

'Almost' is the operative word. Volumes can be written about how to properly mount a scope on a rifle, but lets skip past all that for now and discuss bore sighting.

Carteach mounted his first scope when he was 14 years old. Back then, .22 ammo was expensive, there were lots of critters on the farm that needed shooting, and the gift of a lowly used four power scope was a cause for joyous celebration. Putting it on the rifle was left up to me, and at that tender age and wallet condition, believe me... even duct tape was considered.

In the end a set of rings to fit the Marlin Mdl 25 pest eradication weapon system were procured, and scope mounting commenced to happen.

I can still recall the impression I had as a young man, knowing for certain that .22 was going to become a laser-like precision bullet application device the moment the scope was attached. One might imagine the consternation on firing the first round after scope installation surgery, only to clean miss the entire target set across the garden.

Combine a cheap .22 rifle, a very cheap set of rings, and a cheap used scope.... and suddenly thin air seemed to be the only target in danger. It was certainly the only thing I could hit. Not willing to accept that, a plan was quickly hatched to bring bore and scope into alignment. The rifle was firmly bedded on the bench (WORK bench... in the barn), and the bolt removed from the rifle. Lining up my young peeper with the chamber, I looked down that bore and kinda sorta got it pointed maybe about near the target paper way out there. Trying real hard not to move the rifle, the scope was adjusted until the crosshairs were kinda sorta almost maybe like sitting just about near where the bore kinda sorta looked like it was pointed.

Believe it or not, that worked. The next shot from the rifle was on the paper, and from there the point of impact was walked over to the intersection of the crosshairs by turning those mysterious magic thingies under the neat screw on covers on the scope.

Later in life, when rifles with larger bores came into the young man's life, the height of sophistication was reached when said 'bore sighting' now came to involve a fired case with the primer punched out being placed into the chamber, creating an aperture sight of sorts. Oh my, wasn't I just the smartest chubby kid on the block?

Fast forward about (mumble) years, and now the much older, and still rather penny pinching shooter has mounted a lot more optics on shooting irons over time. While the old method of just looking down the bore still works, there are better and more sure ways of getting on paper fast, while saving ammunition.

Enter the Laser Bore Sighter. A device that is simply shoved into the rifles muzzle (after a might bit of fitting), and instantly turns the rifle into the very laser spitting space blaster the young man from long ago thought his .22 was.

Bore sighting has been around for a while, and in much more technically competent fashion than what I did as a young man. Many gun shops have offered bore sighting as a service for generations, using kits that involved small optical devices mounted on expanding arbors mounted in the rifles bore. These were relatively expensive, and not something individual shooters would typically buy themselves.

Now, enter the Buck Rogers future where lasers are an everyday device used to point out things during business meetings and entertain cats. Naturally they were quickly mounted on weapons as sighting aids, and just as naturally some smarty figured a way to shove one in a rifles bore in a fairly accurate way, and use it to align a scope to the bore. Wham! Laser bore sighting for cheap! Welcome to the future!

Today, at a cost of roughly two wal-mart grade boxes of big bore cartridges, anyone can own Their own laser bore sighting unit. Shucks, there is even room to spend a silly amount of money, and get oneself an incredibly powerful super duper brilliant green laser bore sighter that's visible at ridiculous ranges and can probably shoot down Soviet spy satellites.

In use, the regular bore sighting laser is inserted snugly in the muzzle of the rifle, which is then carefully placed solidly on a bench rest. Laserlyte supplies their units with a highly reflective (and effective) aiming target to be placed down range, and it's marked with a grid to help with scope adjustments. The rifle is moved carefully until the brilliant laser dot is reflected back from the target, and then the scope is adjusted as desired in relation to the bore-aligned laser dot. Easy peasy, there you are! Your scope is now bore sighted and on the paper (DON'T forget to remove the unit before firing the rifle! In fact, don't even have ammunition anyplace it can be reached while the bore sighting is going on.)

Does this mean the rifle is now sighted in? Not by a long shot (bad pun intended). There is still the process of dialing it in exactly where it needs to be. Still, the hard part is over once the rifle and scope are both pointed at the same piece of target paper. Everything after that is simple math...... the bullet hits six MOA to the right so dial six clicks to the left... etc.

The point is... exactly what that farm boy needed so long ago, for exactly the same reasons... is available now to every shooter. A cheap and easy way to bring scope and rifle together in rough alignment, without spending a fortune in ammunition and time.