this is a question to anyone who uses wolf or other light (55-62 grain), cheap ammo for plinking but uses heavy (70-75 grain), expensive ammo such as hornady TAP for self-defence:

do you find that that point of impact changes significantly between the two loads?  if so, do you feel that it is severe enough that you zero before a range session with your plinking ammo, then rezero at the end with your "good" ammo?  if so, does this get expensive after awhile, with the TAP loads running at around $1 per round?

or do most people just use M193 or M855 for everything?

thanks for responding.

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Sean

The change in zero at 50y is meaningless to me.  I zero with my 75gr Black Hills, but plink with Wolf and Q3131A with no problems.  Even out to 150 I can still hit the steel plates.  If I planned on plinking beyond that I'd rezero.

TAP is nowhere near $1 a round unless you are talking .308 ammo.  More like .55-.65 a round.

The zero is close enough for close in so its left on the 75 grain zero and for long range I dont use cheap plinking ammo anyway.

thanks for the replies.

Like they say, for defensive purposes it's not that big of deal.  But every ammo I've shot has a different POI and I don't beleive I've ever seen 2 different loads have the same poi.  Well I did notice once that some UMC 55 grain had a very similar impact to my hornady 75 grain match ammo.  But not nearly as accurate of course.  If you're trying to shoot  at soad cans at 100 yards it will definitely be an issue.  But for defens shooting at 25 yards and under.  No big thing.  And really, you should just try it yourself just to see.

For a carbine, it really doesnt matter. To put this in perspective, when I was hard zeroing at 200 yards at Gunsite, the instructors were fine as long as your zero put you within maybe 5 or 6 inches of POA.

Up close, use blasting ammo--you wont notice the difference. If you have an ACOG or a short dot or something at a distance, shoot the good stuff.