User Panel
Posted: 12/9/2018 11:22:03 AM EDT
I'm seeing some people zero their home defense AR-15 at 50 yards and other zero their home defense AR-15 at 100 yards.
Not sure what distance to zero it to. It is for home defense, not hunting. Regular residential home in a suburban neighborhood. |
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Personally I choose 50 yards for all red dot/holographic optics and 100 yards for anything with magnification.
There are a handful of zeros out there that make sense. It’s on the user to understand what they mean and where rounds will impact at varying distances. |
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Iron sights or some form of optic?
25 yards generally gives a much more useful zero than 100. If it's for HD only it really isn't going to change much as you'll have to be more wary of "sight stand off" the sights being taller than the bore, so your close range point of impact will be a little lower than the sights. |
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My rifle is a Colt 6920 LE with iron sites currently. I just purchased an Aimpoint Pro for it.
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MPBR (Maximum point blank range) zero.
Min/max for your AR. Reflex shooting FTW |
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My go to home defense weapon of choice is Hi Power 9mm carbine that is sighted in at 51 feet. That is the distance from my Lazy Boy to the front door. My Ar and SKS are sighted in at 38 meters.
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Probably not the answer you’re looking for but at HD ranges, there’s essentially no difference between 25/50/100/300 yard zeroes. As others have said, you’re pretty much reflex shooting.
More important than your zero is knowing the POI error as a result of your sight’s height over bore. |
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Quoted:
36/300 yards View Quote OP, if you use a EOTech or a Holosun with a similar reticle, a 100 yard zero will give you a CQB/7 yard zero at the 6 o'clock position. Put the 6 o'clock on the target and squeeze. That's all you need. You won't have to worry about holdovers for something in a home defense situation. |
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Doesn't really matter as long as you know where to adjust to. You need to commit those common distances to memory regardless.
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Do people understand what a 50 yard zero would do vs a 100 yard zero?
A 50 yard zero will put you above the point of aim in most houses. So if you aim at the chest, you'll hit a little above that around the neck or potentially over the shoulders missing the person completely. A 100 yard zero will hit below the chest in nearly all home defense situation. Personally I think it should go below your point of aim because it's a sure bet it won't go over the person's shoulder, potentially hitting others. I vote for a 100 yards zero unless someone can explain why a 50 yard zero would be better when the round would fly above the point of aim in nearly all cases. |
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50 yds is the best option for all realistic ranges as far as a zero goes. I use 25m tho as does the US mil for red dots
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Quoted:
Do people understand what a 50 yard zero would do vs a 100 yard zero? A 50 yard zero will put you above the point of aim in most houses. So if you aim at the chest, you'll hit a little above that around the neck or potentially over the shoulders missing the person completely. A 100 yard zero will hit below the chest in nearly all home defense situation. Personally I think it should go below your point of aim because it's a sure bet it won't go over the person's shoulder, potentially hitting others. I vote for a 100 yards zero unless someone can explain why a 50 yard zero would be better when the round would fly above the point of aim in nearly all cases. View Quote |
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Quoted:
Do people understand what a 50 yard zero would do vs a 100 yard zero? A 50 yard zero will put you above the point of aim in most houses. So if you aim at the chest, you'll hit a little above that around the neck or potentially over the shoulders missing the person completely. A 100 yard zero will hit below the chest in nearly all home defense situation. Personally I think it should go below your point of aim because it's a sure bet it won't go over the person's shoulder, potentially hitting others. I vote for a 100 yards zero unless someone can explain why a 50 yard zero would be better when the round would fly above the point of aim in nearly all cases. View Quote |
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Okay apologies. I was wrong here. I was thinking of something else here.
But there is still a potential you'll have to aim lower vs higher once you approach the 50-100 yards. In my opinion a 100 yard zero makes the most sense since it will always hit within the chest out to 150 yards (there's no adjustment need to be made), whereas a 50 yard zero will be going over slightly which you will have to keep in mind. |
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Quoted:
I... would love to see a ballistics chart showing how that works. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
Quoted:
Do people understand what a 50 yard zero would do vs a 100 yard zero? A 50 yard zero will put you above the point of aim in most houses. So if you aim at the chest, you'll hit a little above that around the neck or potentially over the shoulders missing the person completely. A 100 yard zero will hit below the chest in nearly all home defense situation. Personally I think it should go below your point of aim because it's a sure bet it won't go over the person's shoulder, potentially hitting others. I vote for a 100 yards zero unless someone can explain why a 50 yard zero would be better when the round would fly above the point of aim in nearly all cases. As the guy above me mentioned, height over bore wouldn't allow it in the first place. And ESPECIALLY not inside a house . |
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How long would your longest shot be in your home? I'd probably zero at 25 yds- dependent on what bullets you're using- dead on at 25 would probably print a couple of inches high at fifty.
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Quoted:
How long would your longest shot be in your home? I'd probably zero at 25 yds- dependent on what bullets you're using- dead on at 25 would probably print a couple of inches high at fifty. View Quote |
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View Quote |
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Quoted:
Do people understand what a 50 yard zero would do vs a 100 yard zero? A 50 yard zero will put you above the point of aim in most houses. So if you aim at the chest, you'll hit a little above that around the neck or potentially over the shoulders missing the person completely. A 100 yard zero will hit below the chest in nearly all home defense situation. Personally I think it should go below your point of aim because it's a sure bet it won't go over the person's shoulder, potentially hitting others. I vote for a 100 yards zero unless someone can explain why a 50 yard zero would be better when the round would fly above the point of aim in nearly all cases. View Quote |
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Quoted: Where on Earth did you find this. I can tell you without any reservation that my 25 yd zero is certainly not 11" high at 300 yds, in fact it's dead center at 300 yds. View Quote 100 yard is best. No question. Why? You’re never high. You’re either dead on (at 100) or low. Extremely helpful if you don’t know your targets distance. Eliminates having to guess low because you might be shooting high. |
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It’s been said here already and milspec556 has made good points.
The answer is: it’s doesn't fucking matter. What does matter is if you zero at 25, 50, 75, 100, 80, 60, 30, or 7yds you need to shoot at what distances you might encounter in your HD and know the offset. Example: if I zero at 50yds, I’m 3/4” low at 25yrds and 1.5” low at point blank. If zero’d at 36/300m what’s the offset at 20ft when a bad guy is holding your wife or child and all you have is a head shot? |
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Quoted:
Where on Earth did you find this. I can tell you without any reservation that my 25 yd zero is certainly not 11" high at 300 yds, in fact it's dead center at 300 yds. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
Did you have a specific point you wanted to make? |
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Quoted:
There are multiple charts done by multiple people like this all over the net. 100 yard is best. No question. Why? You're never high. You're either dead on (at 100) or low. Extremely helpful if you don't know your targets distance. Eliminates having to guess low because you might be shooting high. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
Quoted: Where on Earth did you find this. I can tell you without any reservation that my 25 yd zero is certainly not 11" high at 300 yds, in fact it's dead center at 300 yds. 100 yard is best. No question. Why? You're never high. You're either dead on (at 100) or low. Extremely helpful if you don't know your targets distance. Eliminates having to guess low because you might be shooting high. |
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Quoted:
Okay apologies. I was wrong here. I was thinking of something else here. But there is still a potential you'll have to aim lower vs higher once you approach the 50-100 yards. In my opinion a 100 yard zero makes the most sense since it will always hit within the chest out to 150 yards (there's no adjustment need to be made), whereas a 50 yard zero will be going over slightly which you will have to keep in mind. View Quote Here are some reasons to do 50m: - Some of the "parallax free" sights actually start having some under ~30, 35 yards or some such. 50 yards puts you beyond that distance. It's also sometimes easier to find access to 50 yards vs 100 in a pinch to zero. - The 50 yard zero is quite a bit better past ~180 yards than the 100 yard zero, while there not much meaningful difference between the two at what most of us would call typical HD distances. The differences between the zeroes get wider the farther out you go; 100 yard zero is really limiting. Shooting at clays at 300m with a 50 yard zero and a red dot is very doable as long as you can see the target. - Your point of impact is closer to your point of aim at the top of the arc than an old school 300m Army style zero |
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I zero an AR 1" high at 50, which is roughly equivalent to a 300 yard zero. This is kind of like how the Marine Corps would zero the M16A2 or A4 at 36 yards with the sight exactly on the "3/8" or "3/6" setting.
I do all my shooting at 50, 200, and 300 yards so it makes sense for me. There's no 36 yard line at my range, hence the 1" high at 50. Between 35 and 300 yards I just remember that it could be a little high, for example 5" at 200 yards. That being said, for home defense or CQB it obviously does not matter whether you're zeroed at 25, 36, 50, or 100. Think about how little of a change in elevation you'll see at room distances relative to the size of the target overall. |
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Oh, plus the old school way for CQB shooting iron sight's is to look over the whole gun at the front sight, and aim hella low.
It's... an acquired skill, hard to explain, easy to show, and accurate with practice. |
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Quoted:
I'm seeing some people zero their home defense AR-15 at 50 yards and other zero their home defense AR-15 at 100 yards. Not sure what distance to zero it to. It is for home defense, not hunting. Regular residential home in a suburban neighborhood. View Quote |
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25 yards. Mainly due to the fact that’s the longest range I have regular access to.
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50 yard zero is about 1.7 inches high at 100 yards, and returns to zero around 200 yards.
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Quoted: Where on Earth did you find this. I can tell you without any reservation that my 25 yd zero is certainly not 11" high at 300 yds, in fact it's dead center at 300 yds. View Quote With my 100yd zero using .223, XM193 printed 5 MOA low at 25yds. My 300yd comeup for 75gr is 5 MOA, so XM193 should hit higher. Probably no more than 1 MOA, though. I'd use 50yd zero in OP's case. |
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50 yard zero. That puts you +/- 2" out to about 220 yards.
That is a great pic showing why the 50 yard zero is the best zero. |
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Use Infidel4life’s Targets. Plus, Read all of Molon’s Reference Links at the top of the page. I started off using a 25 m / 300 m zero. We trained to know are offsets at every distance from 5 m to 100 m. Since 2005, we have been using a 50 yard / 200 m zero and find it works the best for a patrol set up or HD rifle.
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Quoted:
Do people understand what a 50 yard zero would do vs a 100 yard zero? A 50 yard zero will put you above the point of aim in most houses. So if you aim at the chest, you'll hit a little above that around the neck or potentially over the shoulders missing the person completely. A 100 yard zero will hit below the chest in nearly all home defense situation. Personally I think it should go below your point of aim because it's a sure bet it won't go over the person's shoulder, potentially hitting others. I vote for a 100 yards zero unless someone can explain why a 50 yard zero would be better when the round would fly above the point of aim in nearly all cases. View Quote |
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Same with a 50 yard zero, except you have a farther MPBR by a pretty good margin. View Quote With 100 you at least know all hits are low. But this is more of an internet argument thread where we all get to try and look smart. For 99% of the time, with civilians, it won’t matter . It’s all way past most plausible self defense scenarios. |
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Quoted: Use Infidel4life’s Targets. Plus, Read all of Molon’s Reference Links at the top of the page. I started off using a 25 m / 300 m zero. We trained to know are offsets at every distance from 5 m to 100 m. Since 2005, we have been using a 50 yard / 200 m zero and find it works the best for a patrol set up or HD rifle. View Quote Molon : https://www.ar15.com/forums/ar-15/-/18-512335/? Easy zeroing targets : https://www.ar15.com/forums/ar-15/Improved-25M-AR15A2-A3-A4-and-AR15-Carbine-Zero-Targets-Calibrated-for-50-200M-100M-300M/18-556355/ 50/200 is best for BUIS Best for optics, depends on what type of optic - I use 100 zero, since that is what the BDC is calibrated for (but you still have to confirm POA vs POI at those ranges. |
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Quoted:
Yeah, I get that it’s closer, and it’s tempting, but for me I’d rather rule out as many variables as I can. If the guy is at 235 yards you’re not going to know if you’re shooting and missing high or low with a 50 YZ. With 100 you at least know all hits are low. snip. View Quote This image from above shows the hits. 50yz has much less guessing. Attached File |
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I zero every rifle I own at 200 yards. I'm a veteran of over 200 high power rifle tournaments and that's considered short range.
I know my clicks of elevation and windage because of 35 years of practice. Your zero is an entirely personal decision. Inside your home you don't even need sights, point and shoot. A 200 yard zero (5.56mm) is approximately 1.5 to 1.75" high at 100. Almost dead on at 50 yards. Inside your home you'll be 2" low because the bullet hasn't traveled far enough to make up the difference from the offset of the sights. Most scopes or red dots are centered around 2.7" higher than the bore. Some are higher, some are lower. 2.7" is average for iron sights. You will never miss inside your home no matter how you zero your rifle. |
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