Doing sighters right starts with watching conditions. After your first one, you need to make a full correction if you’re going to learn what’s happening to your bullets downrange.

We get two sighting shots prior to each event in an NRA High Power Rifle tournament. These sighting shots are the only ones we’re allowed that don’t count toward score, but they largely determine our success. The outcome of those two sighters provides feedback the shooter uses to determine a sight setting that he will use to start the string.

Last issue we covered the “no-wind zero,” a sight setting that will, under calm conditions, produce a centered group at one yard line. I use the 300-yard prone rapid-fire event to determine my no-wind zero. Each “event zero” is the routine change from this setting that will, under the same conditions, produce a centered group for each specific event: 200-yard standing, 200-yard sitting and 600-yard prone.

Let’s now think about going from the 300-yard line back to 600. First, I take the rear sight to my 600-yard event zero, then I try to figure out what’s going on with conditions. I rely on many inputs to determine initial correction for the first sighter. I’ve been watching the wind, watching other shooters’ targets come up--always experiencing and gauging the environment. There’s a lot to look for, and some things are of more significance under different prevailing conditions.

When I get to the line and prepare for my first sighter, I have a setting in mind, and I put that on the sight for my test shot. I fire it and immediately get back to watching conditions. When the target comes up and I see the location of the shot, I get the first piece of the puzzle. I make a full correction off the impact location of that first sighter. Always make a full correction. That means move the sight the number of clicks that would have resulted in a center X.

I may have noted a change in conditions from the time I fired that first round and when the target came up, but I will still follow that advice even if the condition change might have been worth a click or two. I’m not playing a sighting-in game. I am determining the value of prevailing conditions. Then, on the second sighter, I confirm my decision. If it was too much or not enough, then I’ll know, and now I’ll have the odds in my favor that my third round--the first record shot for score--will be centered.

The only exception to this advice is when conditions are changing rapidly or shifting toward extremes. From watching beforehand, I will already have seen this and will attempt to fire one sighter at what I have determined is the high end of the change and the other at the low end. This is a good process to follow when the wind is fishtailing.

Too many shooters second-guess themselves--and the conditions--too much. Sighters are for learning about condition effects. It is far better to over-correct than to under-correct after the first sighter. If you fire it on the same setting as the first, then you didn’t learn as much.

This is the procedure I follow when I’m on the firing line, but there are things I do beforehand that are equally helpful. For one thing, you need to know whether that first shot from your rifle is providing accurate feedback.