Learning how to adjust a rifle scope comes down to four controls: the elevation turret, the windage turret, parallax, and the eyepiece focus. Get each one right and your point of impact lands where your point of aim sits.
At a Glance:
A rifle scope is only as good as its setup, and even premium glass shoots poorly if the turrets, parallax, and focus are wrong. This step-by-step guide walks through every adjustment so your rifle prints where you aim.
Set your eyepiece focus so the reticle looks razor-sharp. The ocular lens at the rear of the scope has a ring that focuses the crosshair to your eye, not the target. A blurry reticle causes eye strain and hides small aiming errors, so this is the first adjustment on a new scope.
To set reticle focus, look at a plain, bright background like the sky, glance through the scope, and turn the eyepiece until the crosshair snaps into focus fast. Do it in quick looks so your eye cannot compensate. Once the reticle is sharp, leave the ocular lens alone, since this setting rarely needs to change again.
A rifle scope has two main turrets that move your point of impact. The elevation turret sits on top and moves the impact up and down. The windage turret sits on the right side and moves the impact left and right. Each click makes a small, measured angular measurement change, and both work together to zero the rifle.
The direction is marked for you. The windage knob adjusts the reticle left and right, and the elevation knob adjusts it up and down. Both must be adjusted in harmony to zero a rifle. A simple rule keeps you oriented: dial in the UP direction to raise your impact and the R direction to move it right, and reverse each to drop or move it left. The markings refer to where the bullet goes, not where the reticle appears to move.
Turret clicks come in two angular measurements: MOA and MRAD. Knowing your click value tells you how many clicks to dial for a given correction at a given distance. Most hunting and target scopes use 1/4 MOA clicks, while many tactical scopes use 0.1 MRAD clicks.
Here is how the two systems translate at 100 yards.
Click Value | Movement at 100 Yards | Clicks for 1 Inch |
About 0.25 inches | About 4 Clicks | |
⅛ MOA | About 0.125 inches | About 8 Clicks |
About 0.36 inches | About 3 Clicks |
The math is straightforward once you know your clicks. At 100 yards with 1/4 MOA clicks, every 4 clicks move your group about 1 inch, so a group 2 inches low needs 8 clicks up. A 1/4 MOA click moves about a quarter inch at 100 yards, and a 0.1 mil click moves about 0.36 inches, so match your click math to the turret on your scope.
Zeroing means adjusting the turrets until your point of impact matches your point of aim at a set zero distance, usually 100 yards. Fire a group from a stable rest, measure how far it lands from center, convert that distance to clicks, and dial the correction. Repeat until the group centers.
Follow these steps:
Once your group lands on your point of aim, you are zeroed. Fire one more group to confirm nothing shifted.
Two more adjustments fine-tune a scope for different distances. Parallax adjustment removes the reticle drift you see when your eye moves off center at higher magnification, and a zero stop lets you dial elevation for distance and return to zero by feel. Not every scope has them, but both help at longer range.
Most zeroing problems trace back to setup, not the scope. A loose scope mount, an unlevel reticle, or skipping the eyepiece focus will keep even a quality rifle scope from holding an accurate zero. Fix the fundamentals before you blame the glass.
Turrets and parallax only matter if the glass behind them is honest. A scope that tracks true moves your point of impact exactly as many clicks as you dial, and bright, sharp glass lets you see the small aiming errors you are correcting. Cheap optics with mushy turrets undo careful adjustment, which is why the mechanics and the glass have to be built together.
Browse the full lineup of GPO riflescopes and find glass with turrets you can trust.
Turn the elevation turret in the direction marked "UP" to raise your point of impact, and "DOWN" to lower it. On the windage turret, "R" moves impact right and "L" moves it left. The markings show where the bullet moves, not the reticle. Some European scopes flip the convention, so always confirm your scope's markings.
On a 1/4 MOA scope, about 4 clicks move your point of impact one inch at 100 yards, since one MOA is close to one inch at that distance. On a 0.1 MRAD scope, about 3 clicks move roughly one inch. Always check your turret's click value, since it sets the math for every adjustment.
A 100-yard zero suits most hunting and range work with common centerfire cartridges. You can start at 25 or 50 yards to get on paper, then confirm the final zero at your chosen distance. Match the zero distance to the ranges you actually shoot, and verify it under field conditions before you hunt.
Below about 10x and inside 200 yards, fixed parallax is fine and needs no adjustment. If you shoot at higher magnification or stretch past 300 yards, a side focus or adjustable objective sharpens the target image and removes aiming error caused by eye position. It matters most for long-range shooting.
The most common cause is a loose scope mount or scope ring, which lets the scope shift under recoil. Check that the base and rings are torqued properly and the reticle is level. Skipping the eyepiece focus or using inconsistent eye relief can also move your point of aim. Fix the mounting first, then re-zero.
