Sighting in new gun

[fnq22]

The new Black Mamba has arrived and I'm wondering what is the easiest way to sight it in...

I was planning on just using my rifle sandbag but wondered how others did it..?

and just start at 10 metres and move out to 25 ..?...

Should I clean it after 1 or 2 hundred rounds and resight..?

I have a feeling i am going to enjoy this little gun...

[Wapiti]

What a great looking handgun!

Does anyone just use one of those high front combination sandbags? Like the ones that come in a kit, with the rear bag too?
I just settle the pistols in on one of them to take out all inaccuracies from movement, and fire a few groups.

Then check the POI by shooting an unrested offhand group, to make sure that your technique doesn't result in a completely different POI from on a rest.
It might just do that.
Another big POI shift can happen under artificial lights, when compared to plain open-air daylight. That surprised me first time I was exposed to that one.

I can only comment about my own stuff, but I find in 44mag and 9mm, different brands of ammo/projectile types/weights does result in different POI's.
I'm only a bush shooter, but having something spot-on in sight alignment and point of impact is important because of an animal welfare point of view. I would have more 15-20m shots with a handgun than up close as I imagined I would when first starting to use these things.

[ob1]

Don't waste ammo. Set up at 5m and fire a group of 3 or 4 supporting off a bag or rest or whatever to get a group on the aim point. Adjust until you are on the aim point. Then move out to 10m, adjust as needed. Finally, use your final distance, for me it is 50m. Observe if you are high/low or L/R and adjust. Everything between 50m and zero should now be OK for L/R, with close targets requiring a bit of offset from 50m targets. Starting near to far will be a quick process, because closer aim points to start will be quick to find and will tolerate imprecise aiming much more than trying to dial in at a distant target at the outset.

Also, expect occasional flyers in your groups, it is .22 pistol ammo and unless it is match grade it will vary by manufacturer in group consistency.

[Bugman]

Don't waste ammo. Set up at 5m and fire a group of 3 or 4 supporting off a bag or rest or whatever to get a group on the aim point. Adjust until you are on the aim point. Then move out to 10m, adjust as needed. Finally, use your final distance, for me it is 50m. Observe if you are high/low or L/R and adjust. Everything between 50m and zero should now be OK for L/R, with close targets requiring a bit of offset from 50m targets. Starting near to far will be a quick process, because closer aim points to start will be quick to find and will tolerate imprecise aiming much more than trying to dial in at a distant target at the outset.

Also, expect occasional flyers in your groups, it is .22 pistol ammo and unless it is match grade it will vary by manufacturer in group consistency.

My advice, exactly.

[fnq22]

No worries ..did more or less what was suggested..

Set up a 10m target...1st group was high and left...18 clicks down and 2 right..

Still a little high and left....4 more clicks down and 4 right..

Then I could see the next 3 shots go inside the inch bullseye so moved onto the 25 metre target...

I think its shooting pretty straight now but I'll clean it and try it at 50 next time when I have a more solid rest...the tables were too low to use so the higher plough disc thingy I was using was pretty wonky..

My best offhand group also was inside the inch dot at 10m which is better then i usually shoot so i think the gun itself is beautifully accurate ..the only deciding factors will be me and the ammo..

I also had an issue with the mags after a while sometimes the new round would fail to be picked up from the top of the mag..When I played with the mag knob it sometimes feels a bit sticky ..not as free'd up as they should be...maybe they just need to loosen up a bit but I sprayed silicon lubricant on them so I'll see how they go next time..

Only other issue was ammo...got the 3 last boxes of standard velocity .22 at one shop and then drove half an hour and got the last 2 bricks of CCI standard there and a box of 400 Brownings which seem to have few duds in them I have found....Dont tell me we are having another ammo crisis....?

[bladeracer]

I would zero it the same way you intend to use it. If you're going to shoot it from a bag then zero it from a bag, if you're going to shoot it one-handed ISSF style then zero it that way.

I took my new (to me) Browning HiPower to the range this arvo. I just wanted to ensure it runs so I put 90rds through it very quickly, two-handed (we were starting a Rapid Fire match in twenty minutes and we still had to set up the targets). Everything worked fine, slide locked back on all five mags, mags dropped free nicely. I wasn't at all concerned about putting rounds on paper as this is factory ammo. I'll work up my own load with cast bullets, and then I'll work on accuracy and zeroing. But the interesting thing is that shooting very fast (five mags in probably ninety seconds max, then reload all the mags) the rough centre is perhaps four-inches low at 25m.

20250122_171810bb.jpg (236.17 KiB) Viewed 828 times

But when we finished the Rapid Fire match, two of my mates each put a mag through one-handed ISSF style (but they held at 6 o'clock so they were all just below the bottom of the target page), then I put a mag through ISSF style, but holding on target centre, and my shots also grouped below the bottom edge. So I want to play with that next time to see if the different shooting stance really does affect point of impact that much.

90 rounds fired on the target, and I count about 60 single holes and the big chunk that is shot away, so they were in the ballpark, I'm sure I threw away a lot of the double-taps. On the weekend I hope to do some shooting resting on the bench to get an idea of the accuracy of this ammo in the pistol. But for now I know this ammo runs the gun fine. So I'll chronograph it in the 7" 9mm Chiappa 12ga. barrel, then work up loads that match that velocity, and they should run fine in the gun as well. From there I can tweak it for best accuracy, and then I can look at zeroing the pistol with that load to point of aim at 25m, from a modified Weaver stance.

[fnq22]

HI Larry...sounds like we both had a great day..how good is it getting a new gun..!

Will message you when I get a chance..

[bladeracer]

HI Larry...sounds like we both had a great day..how good is it getting a new gun..!

Will message you when I get a chance..

It was a good one
We quickly put some ammo down range with the Browning and a mate's Uberti Schofield .38 and S&W 686-6 Performance Centre .357, then hung around while they shot the Rapid Fire match so another mate could have a play with the Browning
And then I got a call inviting me to attend another pistol club next week, I'll tell you about that when we chat.