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Sighting Rifles In At The Factory...

trstone
In the heady days when wars were fought by hordes of soldiers carrying bolt-action rifles, I've often wondered: Were all those rifles sighted in at the factory before they were delivered to the military and passed out to the soldiers, or were they "nominally" sighted in, then fine-tuned by the soldiers during target practice? I can't imagine (given the staggering numbers of rifles to be delivered) that the factory folk could do anything more than a rudimentary job of sighting-in, because of time constraints. In fact, did they even sight them in at all at the factory? Or did they just slap the sights on, center them, and ship them off, on the assumption that the sights wouldn't be TOO wildly off?
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  • HeavyBarrel
    I belive the factory just mounts{ed} the sights, and alligned them where they are set at "mechanical zero." Every soldier {right or wrong} has a different perception of proper sight picture at any given distance, and it the shooters job to move the sights according to thier perceived ideal sight picture, {even though the military likes the 6 o' clock hold}. not a job for a factory worker.
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  • bobski
    its the responsibility for every soldier to sight in his gun for the approaching battle. the armorer repairs obvious flaws and ensures all guns are set in accordance with factory spec and milspec's. it is impossible for a factory to zero in a gun. how do they know what to zero it to? the term 'battle sight zero' is normally what all armorers set guns to. all the way down and center is usually b.s.z.. i/e: 50 to 100 yds point of aim,(p.o.a..) this way, if the shooter dies and someone else picks up his gun, everyone knows it will hit a torso target l & r, up & down within 50 to 100 yds if returned to down/center. if the target is beyond that, each soldier zeros it for the task himself. if he does it wrong...its his own fault, nobody elses. key point here to remember, all battle sight adjustments are made with rear sight clicked centered and down. the front blade is moved in its dovetail groove to achieve center l/r 'x' and the front blade is shaved to achieve center up and down 'x'. follow me? this is why so many old blades are found cut and shaved in surplus. i had an M-14 thats bbl was so far off being centered with the receiver that in order for it to shoot straight, the front blade was hanging 1/2 off the side of the flash suppressor dovetail groove! if it hadnt been set up that way, the rear peephole would have been all the way to the right and it still wouldnt have shot straight! hope i helped.

    former air operations officer SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team 2. former navy skeet team, navy rifle/pistol team member. co-owner skeetmaster tubes inc.. owner/operator professional shooting instruction.
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