Quote:
Originally Posted by zachnelson
So I'm new to marksmanship, and the folks both at the range (sometimes) and on reddit's /r/guns aren't very helpful to newbies it seems.
I've had my 15-22 for a month or so now, and shot ~975 rounds through it. I've bought a Primary Arms Red Dot and a Primary Arms Green Laser as well as miscellaneous things.
My range goes out to 25 yards, not far, but I work with what I have. I have some questions/observations/comments I'd like to see addressed if I could ask for the assistance.
1. I have the red dot sighted in at 50 feet (read: feet not yards), and my shots are roughly 90% on target. However my groupings are 1-2 inches or even sometimes more at 50 feet. Why is this? I have a few hypothesis: One, I'm not exactly very strong or muscularly built so no matter where I hold the rifle I have a lot of sway, and my arms get tired after a while of holding the barrel up. Two, shooting at the range makes me nervous, of which I assume will soon subside. Three, I'm doing something wrong stance wise or something else wrong wich is effecting my shot placement. Four, good marksmanship, even at 50 feet, takes a lot of time to master and I should just keep working at it.
2. When I shoot at a target 75 feet away, my shots are an inch low but still maintain the above 1-2 inch grouping. When I shoot at a target 35 feet away, my shots are an inch high but also still maintain the grouping. Why is this such a dramatic difference with such short distances?
3. I'm not sure how to zero my green laser. Should I see the laser right next to or on top of my red dot when I look through my sight? Or something else?
4. Why are people at the range so cold and unfriendly, even the range staff have a brazen, rough attitude toward everything. Am I doing something wrong which bothers them? I follow all the safety rules and guidelines and have only made one mistake with the airlock doors which I plan to correct.
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1. Shoot from rest if you are trying for tight groups. When "battle traiing", don't worry about >1" groups, COM is what counts. Oh, and hit the gym
2. Did you mean yards instead of ft? The center of the optic and bore are usually 2-3" apart = height over bore, so if you shot something at 1ft, you'd be about 2.75" low for most AR-type setups. At some point (depending on how it is zeroed) there is a crossover of the two. Given the range of the round being fired, the shot should be low before the zero yardage, on target at the zero, and depending on the round can continue to arch and be back on again at long distances (like in .223) or can drop from there out with weaker rounds such as .22.
A lot of it depends on the distance it is zeroed.
3. Same thing for the laser. There will only be one distance at battle distances that a laer zero will be spot on. The laser is straight, and your trajectory is not. If the laser mounted on the side, let's say the right side, the crossover point will be accurate, but the laser might be to the left of the POI past that. Set at the distance you think you are most likely to use it, and you'll be good.
4. It depends on the range and who is there that day. I've met a lot of nice folks at the range. But there are that group of folks in the gun community that think they are GI Joe, and everyone else doesn't deserve to be there. Luckily, all the people I meet at my local outdoor range seem to just love shooting and often offer to let you shoot there weapons.
Good luck, and do some reading on trajectory. There are some ballistic calculators that you enter your distance, grain, height over bore, ballistic coef, etc, and it calculates you trajectory. You can also google "trajectory chart" and see what I am talking about.
The main thing is have fun.
