I'm looking for your tips on how to zero a cold bore. I noticed that all my points of impact on my deer are a little higher than what I would have expected. It's pretty much worked out for me thus far, but it didn't even dawn on me until a few weeks ago that I am zeroing in a warm barrel at the range. I marked my cold barrel shot last weekend off my rifle rest and it next shot was 3 inches lower at 100 yards. That seems to track with what I have experienced in the field. All my shots have been at about 120-130 yards and they all seem to hit about 3 inches higher than where I was aiming.

So what's your technique for getting zero on a cold bore at the range? Letting the barrel cool 10 min between shots? How cool does the barrel need to be? Also, do you do a fouling shot? A clean bore will shoot differently than a fouled bore right?

The way I did my last rifle was I went on morning and fired a shot at 100yds. I moved the reticles to point of impact. I put the gun up afor a few hours. Went back fired another shot and adjusted the scope. Put the rifle up for about an hour and moved out to 200yds. Fired a shot. Made adjustments. Waited another hour and verified the 200yd zero. Now I have my own range here at my house so I could do it that way. I would personally give a minimum of 30mins between shots if I could. However my new Tikka will shoot the same point of impact with a cold barrel as it does after 5 shots. I know this because I checked it on several occasions. My lighter weight Savage 110 with the thin barrel will walk after a couple shots. Not much but it does. No fouling shot or cleaning of the barrel when I did mine. I’m not saying this is the right way to do it, I’m saying this is how I did mine.

Shoot, and without moving the gun, adjust reticle to match point of impact. Once the gun is cold, shoot again to confirm. Rinse and repeat.

You have issues other than barrel temp. Id check scope base

Is it just cold bore OR a clean, cold bore?

Clean bores often have a different POI and accuracy than a fouled bore. I have some rifles that I can pull out of the safe and go hunt without issues. Some need 2 fouling shots. I have one that needs about a dozen fouling shots before it will group accurately.

How are you zeroing your weapon? At what distance?
I can boresght a bolt gun from my kitchen table looking at the corner of the living room. Luckily I have a 100 meter range at my camp so I do most of my shooting there. I set up at 25 yards with a rest and fire two shots. If they are consistent I adjust as needed to center, back up to 100, and fire two times. Adjust poi to poa. Test. I should be in the bull by now. If so I adjust the elevation if desired to account for my preferred point blank range.
If I have a number of different loads I may send through a rifle, for coyotes, hog only, target etc, I may test these at the same time and I’ll take notes on any differences in poi. Often these are more or less the same, some have been surprisingly different. I might do this over and hour and a half.

Scope base is fine. Patterns tight. Just that first shot out of cold bore.

Are you cleaning vigorously after sight in? A few fouling shots can actually improve accuracy in a lot of rifles. And if you aren’t shooting corrosive ammo most hunting rifles can go a lot of rounds before needing a patch.

First thing I do is shoot a box of shells as fast as possible and plunge the barrel into an ice chest of dry ice.

I clean it and do it again.

My first 2 cleanings are with a tornado brush and a drill

I clean it then start dialing it in. I then plunge it to cool it off between shots.

Any rifle that doesn’t group one hole at 25 and touching at 100 for me gets sold.

I always chrono, do the ballistic chart and dial it in at 25 yards for whatever MPBR I choose, then I check it at 100 and 200. If its a snap sight-in without a chrono and calc I dead zero at 25 yards with average hunting calibers and its usually good nuff to 250 yards

There’s something going on with your rifle, if it moves 3” after the first shot. I would try to figure out what’s causing that, cause it shouldn’t be doing that.

them 110's are some bad guns marsh.. all i shoot

Most of the rifles I've messed with usually handled 3 shots before the barrel heated up enough to affect POI. Each rifle is different though, so what you are experiencing could very well be 'normal' for your gun.

You have the right idea and others here have described the logical procesure. Shoot once, wait a period of time, then shoot again, wait a period of time, then shoot again... etc for as many shots as you want. Not sure what the length of time between shots should be? In cool/cold weather probably 10-15 mins? Maybe 30 as was suggested above?

If you know you are holding the gun steady, moving the reticle to match up with the impact on the first shot will work. If you are leery of your steadiness, then I'd shoot 2 or 3 shots as described above with the pause between shots, and adjust the scope to account for wherever your hopefully tight coldbore group landed with regard to the bullseye.

Don’t know if has been mentioned but I had a guy tell me to have a target for his first shot each trip to the range and another target for the rest of the shots. That way you have a true cold bore first shot for comparison.

Yall must be shooting some new cheap built pos if your having to worry about that. Cheap scope or loose mounts would be my guess. Another possibility is your ammo.

I've never even thought about any of this. Sight gun in and hunt. I've done just that with a lot of different guns and killed a lot of deer with no issues.

I believe this is correct a huge majority of the time. A warm/heated barrel typically won't have a huge POI difference compared to the first shot or two.

Could be any of these listed ^^^. Sometimes heat can be the culprit. Use bags, coats, or sled to get the most stable shots. I seen a guy at the range with a no touch lead sled with a bulb to squeeze to the trigger. Thought this is possibly one of the best setups, but I just use bags or anything to get a solid rest. I was using some 180 grain blue box and thought I had my rifle on zero. My grouping starting getting eratic the more I shot. I decided to rest on every shot until the gun cooled down to shoot again. Next shot was dead center of the bullseye. Some guns have a suggested ammo and just like certain ones. I try to buy at least two boxes of the same ammo. That way if something seems to be off with the ammo I will know. I will say it again, I hear some folks say certain guns can like certain ammo too. I can say I have seen that to be true. Always try to shoot some freehanded if you are sitting in an area deer can sneak up on you. Sometimes the deer don't know they shouldn't come from any direction. It is better to be more prepared than not.

POI should not be changing that much with just a few shots. How is it sighted in? depending on how it is sighted. you probably will be hitting a little higher at 120-130 than at 100. and could explain why you are hitting deer higher than expected. another question is when are you cleaning. if you are making that first shot with a clean oiled barrel, that might be the culprit. For a hunting rifle, you do not have to clean barrel very often. You should not clean or oil barrel between sighting in and going hunting.

I think those of yall asking about the scope were correct. I got out to the range this morning. 1st shot 2.5 inches high on the lead sled. Next shots start grouping at the right elevation as before. Went through a box of ammo before another guy that being helpful suggested the scope mounts. "Nah, can't be that" But I thought I might as well try. I did have a couple of hex screws on the rings move a lot more than they should have when tightening. Same with my side screws on the rail. It wasn't loose enough to be obvious, but looser than what they should have been.

I did a lot of experimenting with letting the barrel cool. Waited 30 min with a cool rag on the barrel at one point. Once the screws tightened up I got 1 inch groups at 100. Things became much more consistent. I didn't have enough time to let the barrel cool more than 10 minutes again. I just ran about another 15 rounds to see where things get hot enough to make a difference. Seems like after about 5 shots in a row I start to get some drift mostly about an inch and a half to the right, but that doesn't concern me too much. The good news is every shot that came out of that gun before and after tightening the scope were kill shots at 100.

Here's a kicker. The guy helping me had a sweet 300 Win Mag and excellent grouping. He said he never ever cleans the barrel. He wants as much fouling as possible for accuracy. What say you guys on that hot opinion?

I only shoot stainless guns so after that sighting treatment I give it, the bore gets cleaned (blown out 😂🤣) with every kill shot. I clean the bore maybe once every 2 years, the rifle maybe 6 years.

A blued gun looks 100 years old with me in about one season.

I pay no attention to torque specs on mounts and optics, its crank the piss out of it for me.

Fouling is just carbon and lead on your lands. It builds up slow on most rifles. It also can fill in imperfections in the rifling(takes the slop out of your barrel).

Fouling ain’t just carbon, would be lead or copper too. I find it builds up faster depending on caliber.

Depends on several factors. A rough barrel that has not been lapped will foul quickly. Some bullets like Barnes bullets copper foul heavier and faster.

Took mine outa the safe, one shot, 1” high at 100, go hunting.
Every year.
I’ve never even considered cold bore, etc.
I have a 1996 Abolt and Leupold scope on it that I haven’t touched since 1996.
Scope is a little cloudy now, but accurate.

So this morning (with the scope screws all tight) my POI on a truly cold bore was at the right elevation
First shot grouped about half an inch to the right of the others at 100 yards. Nice tight groups. First shot could have been the wind or the shooter. Either way, I'll take it. Good lesson learned, tighten down those scopes after pulling it put of the safe. Thanks for all the help Aldeer

Yep, several factors. I don’t lap barrels I just do my first cleanings with a tornado brush and a drill

I use blue loc-tite on my scope mounts and rings screws.