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Time to sight in deer rifles

West Virginia’s traditional two-week deer/buck gun hunting season opens in less than 10 days. For more than 300,000 hunters in the state, this is the best day of the entire year.

Like all years, a few thousand hunters will have purchased a new centerfire rifle and are dreaming of getting that big buck that other hunters have bragged about for several years. The trouble is, one just cannot buy a deer rifle and start hunting. It simply does not work that way. Each rifle has to be sighted in by the individual who is hunting or using it. There is just no “one size fits all” when it comes to deer hunting.

It was several years ago when a friend of mine purchased a new 7mm Remington Magnum. This is a caliber rifle that is very capable of killing a West Virginia white-tail in its tracks, along with just about all non-dangerous game animals of North America. My friend had done a good bit of hunting with other centerfires, but he only wounded the deer and ended up having to chase the crippled animals for a distance. The first year hunting with his 7mm Magnum he ended up having the same experience. Chances are, he shot too fast or he did not have the rifle sighted in properly.

I have emphasized in past columns that the bullet or shot placement is far more important than what caliber rifle the hunter is using. A good example of this was about 20 years ago when I dropped a large deer in its tracks using a .357 Magnum short-barreled carbine. This little rifle packs less muzzle energy than the popular .30/30 Winchester. At about 40 yards, the bullet hit the deer where the head and neck join and exited through the face.

The animal fell the moment the gun cracked and never moved.

Now, the best place to sight in a centerfire rifle is on a shooting range (public or private). In West Virginia, many deer hunters prefer to be do-it-yourselfers. There is nothing wrong with this idea if one can find an open area that is large and safe enough to shoot at a 100-yard target with a centerfire rifle.

Here in Randolph County, there is a state public shooting range at Kumbrabow State Forest. For most greater Elkins residents, this nearly an hours drive away. Just about all of us have friends who live closer in the country. Maybe they should try asking them if they could come out to where they live to sight in their new deer rifle if it could be done in a safe manner.

When sighting in a centerfire rifle, it is imperative that the hunter use the same ammunition they plan to hunt with. It was several years ago when another friend of mine would sight in his deer rifle with hand-loaded ammunition and then go hunting with factory-loaded ammunition. At the end of the deer season, he just couldn’t figure out why the rifle was not shooting well, when it shot so well when sighting it in. All bullets and loads perform differently. This simple fact holds true with all of the various types of .22 rimfire ammunition.

In all my years of deer hunting, most of the deer I have taken have been with hand-loads mainly, because this is a hobby that I still enjoy. However, in this day and age, factory loaded ammunition has improved to the point to where it is nearly as good as the best hand-loads that are used by competitive target shooters.

Here are a couple of other suggestions when it comes to sighting-in a centerfire rifle:

• Always wear hearing protection. One can get permanent damage when they don’t.

• When a youth or female hunter is sighting in a deer rifle for the first time, don’t start using a firearm that has a lot of recoil, like one of the .300 Magnums or even a .30-06 Springfield. Use a rifle that is chambered for a smaller cartridge, like a .22-250 Remington or a .243 Winchester. Once they get used to shooting the smaller rifle cartridges, then the recoil won’t be scaring them away or possibly developing flinch, which is detrimental to accurate shooting.

The bottom line is this: Once you can get your rifle properly sighted in and can keep most of your shots inside the 10 ring on a standard 100-yard paper target at 100 yards, then the rifle and hunter is most likely ready to go deer hunting.

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