Wirecutter posted this video over at his site:
There is another video I highly recommend from Travis Haley where he does a similar sort of experiment showing the effects of different zeroes at different ranges.
I have read a lot about different zeroes on different forums, and as people argue over which zero is the best, there is always one piece of information left out, which is the same piece of information left out of these videos.
It is perhaps the most important thing to consider.
You are not a Navy SEAL and this is not Afghanistan.
Neither am I for that matter.
Unless the shit absolutely hits the fan and we find ourselves in an ITEOTWAWKI situation, you are still responsible for every round you send downrange.
What is the worst that I’ve seen in my adult lifetime? The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, maybe the riots in Portland or Kenosha? Going back to my childhood, the Rodney King riots in LA?
Under conditions like that, do you honestly believe you are going to be legally justified in taking a 400 or 500-yard shot?
Do you have the skills to take a 400 or 500-yard shot, under stress, with a 16-inch AR carbine?
No, 99.999% chance you don’t. I’m not trying to insult you. I’m being serious.
I grew up in Miami, where a city block is 1/16th of a mile wide and 1/8th of a mile long. That means I would have to be legally justified in taking a shot the width of a city block to go 110 yards and the length of a city block for a shot of 220 yards. I don’t see that happening.
You might, in a worst-case scenario be legally justified shooting across the width of your yard. If you live in the suburbs like I do, the size of a large development plot is a half-acre. That’s a plot width of 147.5 feet, just shy of 50 yards.
This is why my preferred zero is the 50/200 zero. I zeroed my rifle for a shot the full length of my front yard. In a pinch that gives me zero the length of one city block. But I am not going to worry about 300, 400, or 500 yards because there is no way I could ever justify that in court.
It’s fun to watch videos like this, but watching special forces guys tell you about what zero they used shooting mountain top to mountain top in Afghanistan has little bearing on what you will most likely be facing and how far you will be shooting if (worst-case) you have to pop some Antifa punk on the edge of your property about to hurl a Molotov cocktail at your house.
“Will I have the proper holdover at 300 yards?”
No, but it doesn’t matter, because you will never shoot that far in a home defense scenario.
Or in my case out here in the dense woods, max I can see is less than 100 yards.
Excellent points. I’ve been offering the same reasoning in all my classes; If you find it, unnatural or difficult to learn the hold-placement for closer targets when zeroed at 100 yards, zero your rifle at 50 yards and learn the hold over-placement for targets further out.
The range we have offers 630 yards, but in reality here in central Florida, most clients are dealing with 50 feet to 300 yards on average within their properties.
Hey I can shoot the dick off a knat at 500yds with my 1/12 twist 14.5″ m4 iwith 72gr bullets and ions and with only one eye a little bit open! /sarc
For my purposes I find a 100yd zero covers things pretty good and I don’t see much change in point of impact. The soda cans explode the same at 20ft and 100yds shrug.
IIRC the military zero fro the M16 was 25yards. With the offset sites, the round was going up through the 25yard zero. This turns out to be the same zero as for 100yards. But at 100 yards the round is coming down. With a 25/100 zero, any man sized target with in 200 yards will be hit if you aim center of mass.
I don’t currently have access to a range with greater than 100yards. My line of site maxes out at around 100 yards in this area. There are a few places where I might be able to have line of sight out to 300 yards.
But there is this really cool thing with some of the red dots you can buy, they have this nifty featured called a BDC. A series of dots below the main dot. Each dot below the main dot represents where the bullet will be 100 yards past your zero.
So if you really need to be able to hit that 0.25MOA target at 200 yards, you can place you 1MOA dot under your 2MOA dot over the target and do everything right and maybe hit the target.
If you want to hit things at a distance, then use proper optics on a proper long range rifle. A Remington 700 with a good scope is almost always going to be more accurate than a 16.1″ AR platform.
On the other hand, if I need to engage multiple targets within a 100 yards, I want an AR platform, plenty of reloads, and a good battle sight.
Alol you really need is minute of asshole accuracy anyhow. Use the proper tool for the job and this isn’t even a question.
Have I made 500 yard shots? Yup.
But not with my AR.
I’ve got other tools for that job, and you should too.
That’s why the 10,5″ carbine is zeroed at 100m and the scope almost never leaves it’s minimal 1,25x setting.
The short barrel affects velocity and, with most loads, accuracy but everything I get in the center ring will get hit.
As it is for hunting varmints, for what else would it be, that’s good enough.
The hog and deer rifle packs more punch and is expected to, and does, perform with sub-MOA accuracy but that is another story and not “tacticool” 😀
I’m not an AR kinda guy. I chose 7.62X51 (M1A) for the ‘reach out and touch somebody’ aspect of craft. I agree with your in the city perspective, but out here in bum-fook Tennessee not being able to bring a target to bear 4 or 5 hundred meters out (outside of their ability to return fire with an AR) is poor planning. A scope and mount that will hold up to the thrashing/slamming of the bolt is now an age related requirement. There are a bunch of us out here in the relative wilderness that, owing to our age, prefer sneaky over daring. A good zero supports this approach!
I Had a comment but yours covers my thoughts better than what I was going to write, so thanks.
Hate to be “that guy”… if you want a stable scope mount, choose something other then the M1 *cough*
It’s a fine rifle but it’s a PITA to mount a scope on that thing. 😀
The Bassett is actually a decent mount for the M1a without having to permanently modify anything.
Here’s a link to a video by TonyBen, a great M1a gunsmith, on the Bassett mount.
https://youtu.be/BOdjYjOUFd8
I hear you just as I’ve heard a zillion 7.62 fans over the years: “My shit falls off when I shoot”. I don’t normally intervene in their journey to enlightenment (each of us must live through the hell we create for ourselves!) but I sorta owe an explanation when I jumped into the conversation. I purchased a single point mount from a Bassett Machine out of Dripping Springs Texas roughly 5 years back. I fired for 2 years (maybe a 1000 rounds) without ever having to tighten the bolt to the weapon. I did have to re-tighten the bolts on the rings, but that’s not part of the mount. The manufacturer claimed that you could remove the mount (with scope attached) and remount it using their torque tool (a tiny wrench with a length of parachute cord attached to the end) and be within 1 MOA of where you were before you removed it. I did that about 3 years ago just to see if it would work: bingo. I’ve fired another 6-7 hundred rounds or so since and have not had to tighten that bolt. “sumabeech holds zero”. As far as I can tell these folks only make 1 thing (in 4 varieties): scope mounts for M1A/M14. Here is a link to their place: http://bassettmachine.com/prod_home_buynow.htm
When you think about all that is going to happen when you fire a M1A, with that heavy ass bolt slamming back and forth several times a minute (the way I like to fire), its amazing that this simple, inexpensive, sight mount can support the scope cantilevered above the port the way it is without coming loose or loosing zero. I will also note that I do not use lock-tite.
Every other review I’ve read on every other scope mount for the M1A talks to the hell and fury the 7.62 unleashes on the mount and the eventual loosening or failure.
No one pays me for my opinion or an endorsement, cause folk are much to smart for that !
Funny you should mention Miami. Back in, I believe, the 70s, the Florida POST (Police Officer Standards and Training) mandated firearm qualification at 50 yards to be certified. They were promptly sued by the Florida Department of Corrections and by the Miami PD. The stated reasons were: FDOC mainly shoots from towers, a 200-yard shot is not uncommon, and a 50-yard qualification was useless for them. Miami PD’s reason was, Miami is a densely populated city, and it is virtually impossible to get a clear unobstructed field of fire for 50 yards, so any Miami copper who took a 50-yard shot would probably be up on charges. So the POST changed their rules.
Back when I actively hunted big game (whole ‘nuther story that), I zeroed my ought six at 200 yds, even in Idaho with wide open spaces. It was minute of deer out to about 250 yds, and my eyes weren’t good enough for shots much beyond that.
My ARs? 36/300, Marine Corp. standard. Why?
I have clear sightlines out to about 300 yards. More importantly, any shot inside 300 yards will hit within 6″ vertically, if I do my job. All I have to do is place the dot mid torso, the biggest target, and I have effective hits. If they’re closer, the shots tend to climb a bit, but that’s fine: if I aim center torso (just about the bottom of the sternum) and the shots climb, they climb right into the most effective combat incapacitation zones. “Combat effective,” as the gentleman put it. And I don’t have to think about ballistic tables or holdover to do it. Dot on target, right in the middle of the largest body mass, squeeze. Done.
And I have three sons who are Marines. That might have had something to do with it. There’s a reason they chose that combat zero.
I’ll have to try that one — for some reason I hadn’t heard of it.
I zero my AR using a 25 meter/ 300 meter because the reduced size targets are easy to print and use and I can reliably hit 12″ steel plates at 100 yards. My .308 rifle is zeroed at 100 yards because that works with the scope’s BDC reticle. The good news with a 5 56 AR is that 0-50 yards is effectively point blank as long as you account for parallax
“This is why my preferred zero is the 50/200 zero.”
Ditto. I don’t have a need or do the training otherwise.