Load Shooting Question

[Bitman]

Bear with me guys, I'm about as green as they come, to this rifle shooting stuff.
Finally got to the range today. New rifle, Rem 700 VSSF, with the Leupold VariX-3 scope, 6.5X20, Varmint reticle. I'm doing the break in, shot-clean, shot-clean, at about 25 yd target.
Then move to 50 yds, shoot 2 or 3 and clean,etc, etc. After I've got about 40 rounds through her doing this. I move to 100 yds, and try some 3 shot groups, with various loads I loaded with 39 grain SBK's and Benchmark powder. Holly Cow, I'm not good enough to tell the difference between groups. I mean the gun will shoot better than me. Can you do preliminary test at 50 yds, then move out to 100 yds. I might need glasses, when I focus the scope, either the target is clear or the crosshairs are clear, can't have both.
Also, when I got home, I adjusted the X-Mark Pro trigger, which is going to help.
Anyone know how much torque to put on the two bottom r4eceiver screws?
Thanks, Dave

[Glen]

You should be able to set the parallax to bring both into focus. At 100yds you might need to go down in power a tad but I doubt it. I did load development on mine on 18x with a VXII at 100yds & fudged the parallax to get in focus. HTH

[OldTurtle]

I've found that most of the marks on the objective lens adjustment are for guide lines/reference only.... the setting at "100 yards" may, in fact when backed up with a good rangefinder, be +/- to a varying degree....

Set your eyepiece against a blank, light colored background, or the sky, so you can see the cross hairs very clearly, and then set your objective so that when you move your eye position slightly on the scope, the center of the cross hairs don't drift off your point of aim and your parallax will be correctly set.

The higher the power you are using, the more critical the parallax becomes. Be sure that your scope is leveled to your rifle bore and isn't canted to either side.

I've found that a 1/4" group at 50 yards will usually hold true to a 1/2" group at 100 yards.. Shooting at 25 yards, other than seeing that the scope is 'on paper' is a waste of ammo for making any other kind of determination.

[Glen]

DUH me!!! You can also try focusing on the ocular bell.

[Bitman]

Thanks Guys, I will get my scope's manual out and read it, so I know exactly what your talking about. Probably should have did that in the first place.