Whats your Red Dot Zero? 25-50-100 yrds?

I have two sight aiming systems. The ACOG with Doc on top. On that rig I have the crosshairs zero at 100yrds, and the red dot at 25yrds. The Red dot is 8moa, so its pretty much built by design to CQC.

My Aimpoint M4's is zero at 100 yards. When I was practicing drills last weekend, my POI was low at 25 yard shots. I knew this would be the case.

Two questions:
what is your Red Dot Zero, & why?
If you sight in at 100 yards, what is the trajectory supposed to be at 25-50-75 yards. I will shoot it soon enough at the range, but thought you experts could shed lmore light. As always, thanks!

i'm no expert....i'll give my opinion anyway tho, cos i have nothing better to do ;)

in the Army they have you zero at 25 meters, because the 25m zero is the same as the 300m zero. at 50, 100, 150, etc you will be holding low to put rounds on target. how much you hold depends on the range in question.


i zero my red dots at 100.

up close, if my life is in danger, i'm going to zip the threat up with multiple rounds and an inch here or there wont make a big of a difference if i'm aiming for upper center mass.

Assuming its a 16inch barrel, with average sight over bore height (for an AR15), and pushing approx 3100fps with a 55grain projectile:

Here are the paths for a 25,50,100 yard zero, choose which one is more applicable to your use and go for it:


Red = 25 Yard Zero_____________________Green = 50 Yard Zero____________________Blue = 100 Yard Zero

http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/5...sticschart.png

I sighted mine at 50 m.

figure that any "zombie control" would be between 200 and 0.

At this point, the rifle shoots way better than I do, so 300+ ranges are pushing it.
I'll get better with consistent practice.
HD here would be at fairly close ranges... no 500+ meter LOS around here, and there are better options available at that range.



ETA: Nice graphic, Derek! Good job of illustrating ballistic path. I'll have to look at this again, and evaluate.

Awsome graphs!

I zeroed my Amipoint initially at 50 yards. Then I moved to 200 yards to check my zero again. I did a little adjusting at 200 yards until happy then shot a few at 50 again for confirmation. The difference between the 50 and 200 at 50 yd was less than I thought it would be.

After shooting it a while I feel comfortable with a 50 yard zero from 0-200 yards and maybe a bit further. The bullet path above and below POA is slightly more than 1" out to around 200 yards with a 50 yard zero, as Derek's graphs illustrate. Personally, if going much further I think I'd opt for a 1-4x scope or something similar.

I personally think the 50yard zero is best, thought process here is:

based off Derek's chart's,
with a 25yd zero at 0yards, you have to hold over an inch and a half (not like anyone is gonna be doing much shooting right on top of someone but that's not the point) and at 200yards, your going to be holding under around 3 and a half inches from where you want your impact to hit. with a maximum of almost 4 inches under where you want your round to hit. While one will be able to hit a target at 300yards with no change in aiming height, there's still a margin of 5 inches of change that one will have to figure out distance from barrel to target, adjust height and engage. While some of you are thinking, oh well it's just 5 inches, cant be that big of a deal. 5 inches is the difference of hitting a target between the eyes and missing their head completely. or hitting the center of the heart and hitting the stomach. In a fight your just gonna see that red dot, put that on the target and shoot, and with a 25 yard zero, there's a chance (if your aiming at a vital spot) that you may not get the kill.

With the 50 yard zero, shooting at 0yards, you have to hold over and inch and a half (same as the 25yard zero) and at 200 yards, your still only going to be holding over about an inch and a half. with the max hold under of half an inch at 100yards. well between 0 and 200yards, you have a max span of about 2inches which in my personal [not extremely experienced] opinion, is a much more acceptable grouping than 5inches, where you can still kill while aiming for the heart or eyes.

Think of it like this, your the OPFOR and engaging the enemy (a good guy) pick a point on your body and pretend that's where the dot of the good guy's aimpoint is, now assume the good guy did a 25yard zero and his aimpoint is where the point is. and at various distances, add quarters whether above or below the point is.
i.e. 2 quarters on top of the point for 65 yards, 4 quarters on top for 155. and this will be the point of impact for that distance.

now take that same scenario, and swap out the 25 yard zero with a 50 yard zero and 100 yard zero and do the same thing for various distances. the goal is to have the least amount of quarters from the point of impact as possible to retain the most amount of accuracy and least amount of hold over/under for the various distances.




but that's just a different way of looking at it. whether it makes sense or not is questionable.

That being said I had to zero my aimpoint at 25yards due to range rules (what?)

50 yard zero. Provides a flatter trajectory with a lesser amount of variance in POA / POI from zero out to about 220 yards. More practical of a range for my needs in LE.

I do zero my 4X ACOG at 100yards, however I tend to deploy that optic under different circumstances. Also keeps the internal BDC accurate. I will zero my Doc Optic at 50 also.

i do a 50 yard zero. though i've never really shot anything as far as 200 yards.

I personally have mine set at 50yds.

As mentioned before I feel it works best for what my use would be if SHTF. 25/50/100 you should be fine for anything inside the general usage. YMMV