Ninth Stage

There is some talk about point blank range going around. I’m not going to go into a discussion of definitions, everyone I talk to has seems to have their own. That said I’m going to briefly talk about sighting in range, specifically what range should you sight in a weapon.

Pistols: All pistols in a normal pistol caliber (.38 special, .357 mag., 9mm, .45 ACP etc.) will serve you best sighted in at about 50 yards. Taking the slowest of my examples, the .45 ACP in standard loads, the round will not deviate above or below the line of sight more than 2″ out to 65 yards. A fast 9mm or .357 could be sighted in at 80 or 85 yards and stay within 2″ to 100 yards.

Pistol Caliber Carbine: A sporting type carbine of the levergun or camp carbine type will shoot like a pistol because the sights are low on the barrel. A military type carbine, specifically an AR type, has sights much higher above the bore. This gives us an advantage at longer ranges at the sacrifice of low impacts at extreme close range. Sight in at 100 yards with rounds starting down range in the 1400 fps range and you’ll be within 2.5″ out to 120 yards. Rounds going around 900 fps and sighted in at 75 yards won’t fall out of the 2.5″ range till 90 yards. You can see that you’ve bought an extra twenty yards or more with the higher sights. I’ve also allowed a little more deviation since I expect you to be a steadier platform for your carbine than for your pistol (you’re not shooting 1″ groups with your pistol at 75 yards are you?)

For rifles I’m going to divide them (in rifle calibers) into two groups. In the high sights group are scoped rifles and AR type rifles. In the low sight are most iron sight rifles. I’ll also show exceptions for slower rounds.

High Sight Rifles: Sight this rifle in at 250 yards. With a rifle sighted in this way you’re projectile will not rise or fall more than 4″ trom the line of sight all the way out to 290 yards or so. The round will also be about dead on at about 40 yards on it’s way up so you could sight it in there too. You are familiar with your weapon, right? So don’t complain about those four inches. Aim about 4″ low on targets around 150 yards away and about 5″ high on targets around 300 yards away. It’s not that hard. Once you have that down the rest should be easy, out to 300 yards or so. Beyond that remember your come ups. The exception being the AK type iron sight rifle in 7.62 X 39. Sight in at 200 yards for 4″ high at 120 yards and 7″ low at 250 yards.

Low Sight Rifles: With 7.62 X 39 rounds in an SKS type rifle go ahead and sight in at 100 or 150 yards. Most of these type rifles are not accurate enough to take advantage of a longer range sight in. Sighted in at 150 yards you’ll be about 2″ high at 80 yards and 4.5″ low at 200 yards, on average.

With a real rifle round at real rifle velocities say in the 2600 - 2800 fps neighborhood. Sight it in at 200 or 250 yards, depending where in that neighborhood you are. For example, a normal weight rifle bullet at about 2800 fps from an iron sight rifle will be about 4″ high at 140 yards and 5″ low at about 300 yards, if you can shoot that good.

I learned about ballistics the hard way, by launching lots and lots of rounds at small targets at long distance. I’ve cleaned up on ground squirrels (smaller than prairie dogs and much smaller than ground hogs) at 500+ yards and hit them at more than 800 yards. The best time I had is when I missed a ground squirrel at more than 700 yards. Easy to do sure but I missed him by 4″ and it ran away. Surely a fluke right? Well maybe, my spotter and I didn’t do a good job estimating the range and comeup. The cool part was when I put two more rounds in the same 4″ divot the first round made. That’s good handloads plus a good rifle but think about it, my first round at an (mis)estimated range of 700 yards missed the point of aim by 8″, a repeatable 8″.

Anyone can do it with practice and by extending the distance they shoot at. Make a habit of shooting at targets farther than you think the weapon is appropriate for. You pistol shooters might be amazed at what you can hit if you only try.

Just my 2 cents.