When I used to shoot a lot of BPCS friend told me he used different mechanical windage zero's on Rams depending on the way they were facing, Left or right.  This with aperture sights .  Sounded right and he is a very good shooter but had to prove it to myself.

I took a 10 M Walther Air rifle with Aperture sights front and rear.  The gun bench rest indoors will put all pellets in a single hole at 10 meters, assumed no weather or rifle related error.

Took the NRA scaled 10 M Silhouette target. It has 10 Chickens 10 Pigs 10 Turkeys and 10 Rams, 4 lines of 10.  First 5 of each critter are right facing next 5 are left facing just like in a outdoor match.  Animals are scaled so you see the same sight picture at 10 meters you see outdoors.

Zeroed the rifle on the regular bullseye 10 meter Air gun round target before going to the Silhouette target  Test was shooting 5 shot groups bench rest on each of the 40 critters no sight change

Chickens the hole is nice and centered. Pigs and Turkeys too. Rams there was a very obvious bias toward the head,  Right facing rams had the hole right of center.  Left facing rams had the hole left of center.  It's a small amount to measure but scaling the total difference was about 3 moa. That's 1 1/2 left and 1 1/2 right for 3 moa total  I could see no difference in elevation right or left facing.

What we surmised is the aperture sight centers mass. On rams and rams only there is more mass toward the head of the animal and accordingly the sight found center of what it saw not the center of the total width of the animal.

When shooting in matches moving to the next bank facing the opposite direction, Adjusted my windage 1 graduation away from the Head on my tang sight which equates to 1 1/2 moa   You might say odds of  a hit are better if you are zeroed with a bias toward the head.  But I prefer everything to be centered up.  Hit a high horn shot it's just luck better to strike center

Boats

One could adapt the peep sight gizmo from the match M1/M14 rear sight - with the 1/2 click adjustment by rotating the sight - except do it from side to side instead of up and down.   

OK, Here’s another thick-headed Dutchman that can’t figure this out.. 

In my minds eye, point of aim and point of impact are all relevant, conditional to the obvious !!! What does the image (bird, bullseye, cow, etc) have anything to do with it and as far as shooting at a miniature target in the basement, won’t the real-world elements (drift, windage, temp/humidity) affect the shot more ??? Perhaps the front aperture is too large to reduce the poa..  

Please don’t get pissed, I’m sure there are some others out there that also need to know..

Thanks: 

Ed…..

Thanks Charlie !!!

Make’s sense to me now.. Perhaps a “Pin” sight would be more in order than the aperture in the front..  I believe Ned Roberts spoke of the “old-time” sharpshooters using the course hair of a Hog to finite their front sight system.. 

Heck, I’m lucky to see the end of the barrel anymore…  

Ed….

Redwing, 

On the basement, idea was to issolate the varables to see what the optical error was. Not testing anything else but the way the sight sees the target.

No doubt envornmential conditons affect the bullet much more in acutal match.  However if your sights are centered up nice your odds of a strike are higher, much higher.   

Boats