Moving sights and point of impact

I need some help I bought a gun that has dove tailed sights front and rear. I don't know what way to drift what sight. Do I only move the rear one or can I move the front one also. I'm hitting to the left of the bulls eye on the target.

Move your rear sight in the direction ya want the bullet to go, in your case to the left, but move it a HAIR at a time.. the front in the opposite direction. Normally I try and only move the rear sight..only moving the front if needed. :thumbsup:
I would also shoot 3-5 bullets from a solid rest after your first adjustment to your rear sights. That will give you a good idea how much to adjust your sights. Adjust accordingly and shoot 3-5 more shots. Remember, adjust only a TINY bit at a time. I would also suggest swabbing between shots with a spit patch, just down and back. Keep EVERYTHING the same while sighting in your rifle.
Hope this helps!

S.kenton is correct about moving the rear sight in the direction you want to bullet to move to but because you say your hitting to the left of the bulls eye you want the shot to move to the right. This means you need to move the rear sight to the right.

A easy way to remember this rear sight rule is to recall that if the shot is low and you want the rear sight to raise the point of impact you would raise the rear sight, right? (Remember your old .22 rifles sights? They worked this way.)

Yes, you can move the front sight to the side as well but the rules are reversed.

When you move the front sight, you move it opposite the direction you want the bullet to move.

If you are moving the front sight and you want the next shot to move to the right you would move the front sight to the left.

Just remember this acronym.

FORS

Front Opposite Rear Same

Thanks for the help guys. It has been so long since I have sighted in a rifle with iron sights that I had for got which way to move my sights. And thanks for the acronym that will help.

The front sight needs to be moved opposite to the way you want the ball to go. The rear sight needs to be moved in the direction you want the ball to go. How much to move it is the next question. Sight movements are only a few thousandths of an inch at a time. Use a sharp knife blade to make a slight scratch on the base of your sight and continue the scratch onto your barrel. This will give you reference marks to determine how much you have moved your sights. Before you fuss about scratching your barrel and sight, I am talking about a very slight scratch that will be almost invisible to the casual observer. Now, as to how far to move your sight, first you need to know the distance from your front sight to your rear sight in inches. Next, you need to know the distance from your muzzle to your target in inches (25 yards is 900 inches, 50 yards is 1800 inches, etc.) Now, divide the distance from your front sight to your rear sight by the distance to your target. Use this number to multiply by the number of inches you want to move your POI. Finally, multiply this number by 1,000 to get the number of thousandths of an inch to move your sight. It may sound like a lot of trouble but it is all simple math (use a calculator) and will get you on target faster than just tapping on your sight and shooting to see if you have moved your sight the right amount.

On my Lyman GPR's I visually center the rear sight fixed site that they send with the gun. When moving the front sight I put a pencil mark on the barrel at the edge of the blade of the side I am drifting it to, if I am moving it left, the left edge of the blade. This gives me a mark for where the sight originally was and how much I moved it. If I need to move it more I remark the blade edge and tap it again. It doesn't take a lot of front sight movement to really move the point of impact. DANNY

I have been lucky that most of my MLR's are drilled straight enough that I can move the sights a little to get them centered. I try to keep them as centered as I can and get the groups centered. I have found that moveing them both a small amount will end up with them looking better.

Ok you may think I'm nuts but the rear notch on the GPR is very narrow. I was able to shift the point of impact a little bu removeing one side of the notch. I was able to see the front sight better through the slightly wider notch as a result. Good luck. Geo. T.

Zonie said:

S.kenton is correct about moving the rear sight in the direction you want to bullet to move to but because you say your hitting to the left of the bulls eye you want the shot to move to the right. This means you need to move the rear sight to the right.

Click to expand...

YUP.. Zonie is correct..I Mis-read your initial post. Sorry for the Misinformation and any confusion it may have caused you. :redface:

Left and right is easy to fix, or un fix if you go too far. It's the up and down stuff that gets dicier. File, shoot, file a little more, shoot again. But find your sweet spot, shoot every day load before you start moving things (or filing them) first. Adding material is more difficult than removing it.

My up and down was ok at 25 yards thats as far as I had time to shoot it so far.