Redneck bore sight, optical illusion?

[Harvey_NW]

When swapping scopes or rough zeroing a new rifle, I've always looked down the bore centered up on a target downrange, and adjusted the reticle to match. Typically that gets me on a 2'x2'ish cardboard target @ 100 yards, measure and adjust from there, and everything lines up optically. Ironically, my first custom and best shooting rifle, this didn't work. I had a spotter identify impact, and zeroed accordingly. My confusion is once I got it zeroed and the rifle in static position with the target centered in the bore, my reticle was almost 1' off the center of my target. I validated ballistics and was able to consistently hit 1-2 MOA targets from 100-900 yards, but it's always boggled my mind.

Anyone experienced this?

 

[LaHunter]

your rifle may possibly be canted a bit when you are looking down the bore. Other than that, not sure why they wouldn't line up in the same vertical plane.

 

[Harvey_NW]

your rifle may possibly be canted a bit when you are looking down the bore. Other than that, not sure why they wouldn't line up in the same vertical plane.

Good point. Forgot to mention that when I put it in static position I did level the bubble on my scope tube, and the reticle was not only off horizontally, but roughly 6" (IIRC) vertically, than eyeballed bore center as well.