Springer Bench Rest - Levelness of Rifle?

[EPG]

I am bench rest shooting a .177 HW97 - off a Caldwell bag. Distance is 35 yards. Pellets are Air Arms 7.87 and 8.4 grain. My backyard range has my targets below my bench - approximately 7 degrees from a reading off a laser level. Does shooting at an incline or decline effect ultimate accuracy group size? Would best accuracy be achieved by having the rifle absolutely level from front to rear? I’m new to “springers”, I’m aware of their hold sensitivity - so that is what spurred this question regarding sensitivity to being level. Thanks in advance for sharing your experience and expertise.

 

[DennisB]

My HW 97K shoots accurate at slight elevation changes , 

A few clicks up/down but the accuracy is still there

Rifle position on the bag has bigger effect on accurcy

DennisB

 

[EPG]

My HW 97K shoots accurate at slight elevation changes , 

A few clicks up/down but the accuracy is still there

Rifle position on the bag has bigger effect on accurcy

DennisB

Hi Dennis, where on the bag does your HW97 shoot best - middle balanced or more forward on stock towards barrel?

 

[Guest]

I am bench rest shooting a .177 HW97 - off a Caldwell bag. Distance is 35 yards. Pellets are Air Arms 7.87 and 8.4 grain. My backyard range has my targets below my bench - approximately 7 degrees from a reading off a laser level. Does shooting at an incline or decline effect ultimate accuracy group size?

No

Would best accuracy be achieved by having the rifle absolutely level from front to rear? I’m new to “springers”,

No

I’m new to “springers”, I’m aware of their hold sensitivity - so that is what spurred this question regarding sensitivity to being level. Thanks in advance for sharing your experience and expertise.

The two are not related. Your rifle should lay upon the bags the same way every single time. It helps me to use two bags for the rifle and a toe bag for the toe of the butt. That gives me three points of "registration" and once you settle the rifle into the bags you should be able to place the cross hairs and remove your hands without seeing movement. At that point your rifle will be recoiling exactly the same way every time IFF you have the same stock weld, grip, and trigger squeeze. At this point it is time to remember parallax because even if you have everything set up perfectly parallax can bite you in the arse easily to the tune of half an inch at 25 yards.

SO ...

Adjust your reticle focus by setting your focus wheel to infinity, pointing at the sky or a neutral background and then adjusting the lens focus to give you a crisp reticle picture as soon as you put the scope to your eye. The reticle must be as well focused as you can get it for two reasons. First reason is fatigue, your eyes get tired when you are forcing them to focus on that reticle. It should BE in focus as soon as you look through that scope with relaxed eyes. If it isn't fix it. Second reason is it establishes a "second point" withing the optic as a reference for the parallax focus. If it is adjusted properly once you focus on an object down range the reticle will already BE in focus. The reticle will "print" on the target nice and sharp AND the target will be in focus as well. That is how you minimize parallax error.

Generally the range measurements on the parallax ring will not be exact but if you are more than about 15% out on those you should go through the process again to make sure you have it right.