Sighting in.

Do you sight your gun in at zero off the bag and force yourself to shoot with that being your baseline or do you zero your gun based on your hold?

No. Don't "force" yourself to use the sandbag zero as your one handed zero.  Your bag zero should be close to your one handed zero, but you might be seeing stuff differently one day from the next--maybe the lighting is different, or wind is an issue, or the temperature has sped up your ammo.  If your shots are "on call" and you have a group that is not in the center, dial in some adjustments.

Now--there is an exception.  If your groups are significantly off of the bag zero, you might be consistently breaking your wrist or heeling, or pushing or something....don't make a zero adjustment for shots like that.

i would get your zeros off shooting in position but off your pistol box.  then dialing it in from there in position. Start at 25 then do 50 take 3 shot groups, move one setting at a time

Thanks for the advice guys.

One way to help steady during a sight in is to use a tall camera tripod.  Run it up so that it can help support your shooting hand in the normal position.  After that, verify without using the tripod.  That has worked for me.

With a dot sight you should be able to get an X ring hold off a rest.  With good trigger control then you should learn what to expect from your gun/ammo combination plus you the operator.  I actually think this is better knowledge than machine rest information.  It's all about expectations and how you handle them.

I usually get my rough zero with a few shots at close range. Then it's all offhand.

I'm a beginner but what I do is get close off the bench and then check again on the hold with one hand  in Bullseye fashion. Yiogo