Over engineering zeroing-in my sight?

[trooper2216]

Disclaimer: I took up airsoft only about a year ago. I've had my own gun since May. I know enough to know that I know very little and I'm old enough to be OK with that.

But I also know that airsoft guns are by their nature inaccurate things. I have flat-hopped my gun after reading, watching and generally learning from the pros. I've cleaned and polished my inner barrel and I've secured it within the outer barrel with Teflon tape. I've checked my air seals from piston, nozzle and hop-up. All seems fine to me.

I'm thinking about a way to zero-in my sight that would eliminate *some* of the variables involved. It essentially involves clamping the gun in place, levelling it, then with a string attached to the side rail and also kept level, pull the string to a target centre allowing for the radius from rail to barrel centre. In theory the string path would represent an ideal trajectory that the BB *should* travel. (how long a piece of string is to be determined). The idea then being to adjust the sight to get as tight a grouping to that as possible given the gun's own limitations.

In practise though is there any point in going through that effort? If not, why not?

I welcome your thoughts, flames, criticism, feedback, general shoeing and eye rolling in my general direction.

 

[Callum Hornsby]

A little on the over the top in my opinion ?. My local site has a range so I just fire a few bbs and adjust and keep repeating until I cannot get anymore precise.

 

[Guest]

This ^^^^

 

[trooper2216]

All good, guys. There's a similar method used for motorcycle wheel alignment and I wondered whether it'd apply here. I'd suspected not otherwise I wouldn't have posted, so thanks taking the time to comment!

 

[Aengus]

Point it at the centre of a paper target. Shoot. Adjust to be closer to the centre of your grouping. Repeat.

 

[E21A]

Wouldn’t go to too much trouble zeroing it, the slightest breath of wind will make it useless anyway. As others have said, get it roughly right and adjust your aim while playing 

 

[Adolf Hamster]

Agreed with the above, just get her close enough then apply a ton of kentucky windage in-game.

For sure a zero helps for snap shooting but at any kind of range your more than likely going to end up taking a few shots anyway.

 

[Druid799]

To be honest if you NEED sight of some sort because you can’t hit a man sized target with a ‘normal’ gun (non sniper) by using ‘guesstimation’ for the minimal distance most contacts occur at in Airsoft , don’t think a sight is going to help that much ??

 

[Adolf Hamster]

Man size target is great, but sadly the other guys are rarely so accomodating as to give you their entire body to shoot at.

Well, until you squeeze enough range out of your gun then you get to ping the guys standing around thinking they're safe...

 

[Luke85]

I can be a bit of a perfectionist, and even though I know my zeroing doesn't need to be spot on for airsoft I'll still spend ages getting it as close as possible. I don't personally use a bore sighter myself, but for the OP it might be something worth looking at it if hes after perfect sight alignment. 

 

[Rogerborg]

Why use a string to try to determine where the BB's should go?  Adjust the sight to where they are going.

 

[Nodnol]

Bullets, pellets and BB’s don’t fly straight. 

Find a comfortable rest, shoot at a target five times, adjust, five more and repeat. 

If you’re zeroing a firearm/air rifle you’re looking at sub inch groupings (or less); with an airsoft rifle and the ranges we play at, if you can hit a dinner plate sized target consistently then it’s about as good as you need! 

 

[Adolf Hamster]

if you can hit a dinner plate sized target consistently then it’s about as good as you need! 

Also known as "minute of bad guy bonce"

 

[TheFull9]

The idea then being to adjust the sight to get as tight a grouping to that as possible given the gun's own limitations.

Zero'ing doesn't change your group size, it only moves the group.

If a person in the prone holding a firearm is good enough to zero a real rifle that could be shooting anywhere from 100-1000m or more then you holding your bb gat is more than good enough, to say the least.  Using bench rests, lasers and spirit levels is simply not going to give you any better results.

 

[Wo1f]

The way I’ve always done it is by first setting the hop to the desired setting. I usually do this with .32 tracers and get the flattest flight I can. If you want those extra couple of meters you can have it rise and drop.

Once the hop is set I walk the scope into the shots until they line up. I set the scope for my max flat range. That will have you man accurate from point blank to your max flat range. If you want a bit of lift and drop you have to account for it, because if you set it for that you’ll be way off at half the distance. 

 

[Northman]

If you want to get it as accurate as possible then go for it but remember it’s airsoft at the end of the day and sometimes a little bit of ‘spread’ can help you out! 

Then again I use AKs so maybe that’s just gone to my head...but I can’t remember the last time I’ve needed to be pin point accurate. 

 

[Adolf Hamster]

If you want to get it as accurate as possible then go for it but remember it’s airsoft at the end of the day and sometimes a little bit of ‘spread’ can help you out! 

Then again I use AKs so maybe that’s just gone to my head...but I can’t remember the last time I’ve needed to be pin point accurate. 

Ak's can be pretty spot on, certainly not notably worse than m4's.

Spread can be useful if you go for accuracy by volume but remember you can make an accurate gun spread by how you shoot it, doesnt work the other way.

Of course when we say accurate, thats accurate by airsoft standards (ie not very)

 

[Northman]

Ak's can be pretty spot on, certainly not notably worse than m4's.

Spread can be useful if you go for accuracy by volume but remember you can make an accurate gun spread by how you shoot it, doesnt work the other way.

Of course when we say accurate, thats accurate by airsoft standards (ie not very)

Yeah I know some fantastical accurate AKs but I’m not that fussed - volume works just fine for me!

You can try to perfect accuracy and zero in your scope as much as you like in perfect conditions, but come game time there are too many variables.  So long as the bbs are going towards the enemy team I’m happy! ?

 

[Adolf Hamster]

You can try to perfect accuracy and zero in your scope as much as you like in perfect conditions, but come game time there are too many variables.  So long as the bbs are going towards the enemy team I’m happy! 

This is entirely true, especially given a light breeze is more than enough to push off course.

Pretty much i only zero so far as to get a reference point and then liberally apply kentucky windage from there.

Of course i've heard plenty of "he was dead centre in my crosshairs so i must have hit him", with no attention paid to where the bb's actually going. Its why i dont like stealth bb's.

 

[Jaylordofwaargh]

If you want to get it as accurate as possible then go for it but remember it’s airsoft at the end of the day and sometimes a little bit of ‘spread’ can help you out! 

Then again I use AKs so maybe that’s just gone to my head...but I can’t remember the last time I’ve needed to be pin point accurate. 

The AK47 when everyone in the room needs to get hit! 

Love me an AK hire gun ?