Henry Rifle Forums

My creaky old knee gets used as a rifle rest but it would be interesting to try one sometime.

Sure would be easier to carry around a built-in rest. And the kneeling position is a good way to shoot.
Plus I've not seen many (any?) pictures of shooting booths and rifle rests circa 1860s! May have missed 'em.

RanchRoper wrote:My creaky old knee gets used as a rifle rest but it would be interesting to try one sometime.

GFK wrote:... But, I think I will just try and use a sand bag type rest and adjust the scope...

more rounds down range is more fun, too.

PT7 wrote:Sure would be easier to carry around a built-in rest....

For a forward rest there are those bolt on pogo sticks and mini-bipod or tri-pod thingies

[quote="PT7"]Sure would be easier to carry around a built-in rest. And the kneeling position is a good way to shoot.
Plus I've not seen many (any?) pictures of shooting booths and rifle rests circa 1860s! May have missed 'em.


Guess I could use Badger or Dakota; there's no "no horses" signs at the range.

ESquared wrote:I don't know what made me think I could do this by myself. It's not physically possible to hold the rifle perfectly still, look down the scope at a fifty yard target AND rotate the bore-sight at the end of the barrel.
So I didn't try, but decided to just see how well things were lined up with a decent rest to shoot from, and that turned out poorly.
Thought we had zeroed it in at about 1" high at 50 yds, but everything was landing 4-5" low. I turned the elevation knob probably a total of 12 clicks (2 at a time to start with, then 4 clicks at a time) and no change in pattern to speak of. Just wore a ragged hole at 4-5" low.
So, back to the starting blocks (the smith that helped me out is off on Mondays) to see what's what.
The effectiveness of my $33 bore sight is now not my concern, in other words...

No that it matters at the moment, but the rifle can be made perfectly still with your tripod I saw in one of your early pictures and some bags of rice if you don't get have the sand bags you were looking at to buy. You don't have to look through the scope at the same time as rotating the laser. Put a mark on your target. Viewing through the scope align your laser on that mark. Step away and rotate the laser a quarter turn. Step back in and look through the scope to see if the laser is still on the mark. Repeat at 1/4 turns.

But like implied, the scope seems to now be the concern. If you can get that rifle propped up to be perfectly still, as a sanity check, sight your rifle on a target spot. Adjust elevation and windage of the scope to see if the cross hairs move away from the target spot. Should give you indication if the adjustment knobs are functional.

ESquared wrote: yds, but everything was landing 4-5" low. I turned the elevation knob probably a total of 12 clicks (2 at a time to start with, then 4 clicks at a time) and no change in pattern to speak of. Just wore a ragged hole at 4-5" low.
So, back to the starting blocks (the smith that helped me out is off on Mondays) to see what's what.
The effectiveness of my $33 bore sight is now not my concern, in other words...

You were 8 to 10 MOA low. Then you moved the poa up 1.5 MOA higher. That probably was not enough to see a change. Depending on your spread.

Ojaileveraction wrote:

ESquared wrote: yds, but everything was landing 4-5" low. I turned the elevation knob probably a total of 12 clicks (2 at a time to start with, then 4 clicks at a time) and no change in pattern to speak of. Just wore a ragged hole at 4-5" low.
So, back to the starting blocks (the smith that helped me out is off on Mondays) to see what's what.
The effectiveness of my $33 bore sight is now not my concern, in other words...

You were 8 to 10 MOA low. Then you moved the poa up 1.5 MOA higher. That probably was not enough to see a change. Depending on your spread.

Thanks for that info. Newbie here, so still learning such things. Was worried I wasn't "doing it right," but "turn the knob" is about all it amounts to. Will circle back with the range and figure it out.

Thanks again for your help!

I can understand. The first time I had real progress at setting my scope was when I followed the advice from one of the guys at the range: "shoot one round and then adjust as required". So, I shoot one round at a time from 25 yards and adjusted the scope from about 7" left to the center. I may have shot about 10 rounds total. I did count the clicks. But, I looked at the movement also. If I did not have much movement, I turned more clicks. The greater the range (25 yards vs 100 yards), the less clicks were required. I noticed that my scope was loose before I went out this time. So, it may account for the big change (shooting low) from last zeroing until now. Hopefully, I will get a chance soon to get back out to the range to find out.

I watched this youtube video produced by the National Shooting Sports Foundation when I got my Henry H001 and mounted a scope on it (I've since removed the scope). It demonstrates how to zero a scope in just two shots and it worked as promised.

1. Using a rest, center the crosshairs on the bullseye and take the first shot.
2. Wtih the crosshairs on the bullseye and the rifle perfectly still, move the up/down and left/right adjustments until the crosshairs are positioned on the POI of the first shot.
3. Center the crosshairs on the Bull and take the second shot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiOpQY2ORo4