Sighting Adjustments & Airsoft

Gryphon · December 28th, 2006, 10:31

Rarely that I say this, but +1 to everything Greylocks said above.

I do recommend sighting in a red dot sight or magnified optic because it's far more pin point accurate than an open aperture sight. However irons, as mentioned above, are more of a guide. I've never, ever had to adjust my irons and some aren't even capable of being adjusted to any degree, ie. stock AK sights have zero capacity for windage adjustment.

MadMax · December 28th, 2006, 13:51

First adjust your hop up for a flat trajectory or one with a slight rise (whichever you prefer). Your most frustrating limitation in airsoft will probably be trajectory range. Once that's set you'll find yourself watching your pellets like tracers for shots at extreme range to compensate for crosswinds. Sights will start guide your early shots, but your follow ups will be compensated. For indoor/CQB play, you'll find that dialed in sights are handy for picking off elbows and legs left out of cover. A well adjusted iron sight is quite useful for carefully aimed CQB hits. That being said, you still have to use your sights properly. I note that most players can figure out rifle sights with centring features (e.g. front ring and rear pinhole MP5 style), but not notch and post (pistol). Throw in combat stress/excitement and we become even less meticulous.

Rifles have much longer sight stance. A smaller deviation in misalignment (pointing the wrong way) results in a more obvious sight misalignment. Pistols usually have a stance around 6"ish which makes it much more difficult to get the tops of your sights level and equal spacing on each side. Some players also have a tendancy to jerk the trigger/flinch deflecting their impact point even though the aim point was on target.

The RDS's most obvious feature is it's bright dot. However the well defined aim point is not it's most important practical feature. The image of the aim point is reflected off of a curved optic which compensates for a small degree of aiming errors.

With iron sights, the shooter has to line up three points:

-rear sight
-front sight
-target

The alignment of the front and rear sights is critical for small groupings. It's not obvious, but misaligned front and rear sights on pistols has a greater influence on group size than lining up the sights to the target. Aligning the front and rear sights to each other assures that the gun barrel axis is parallel to the shooters eye line to the target. Without a parallel barrel axis, it's difficult to tell where your impact point will be relative to your aim point.

RDS optics allow shooters to shoot with a small degree of misalignment between the barrel axis and the eye line. The curve in the optic is designed to move the dot image to indicate where the impact point will be even if the gun is not parallel to the eye line. This is a very strong advantage in fast CQB as it's difficult to perfectly keep sights lined up in dynamic shooting situations. There are also lighting conditions which make iron sights difficult to use. Your iron sights can disappear if there's no light to illuminate them. The optics in RDS's are not perfect, there is still a bit of "parallax" error when you shoot close to the perimeter of the lense, but the apparant aim point will still be significantly closer to the actual impact point than with iron sights. Iron sights have practically zero tolerance for misalignment. You have to put your eye directly in line with both sights and the target. RDS optics give you roughly +/-5 degrees of viewable angle for your to see the dot which is very handy for dynamic shooting.

Greylocks · December 28th, 2006, 15:01

Overall, you stumbled upon the most difficult thing for real gun users to learn. The ballistics are so different that pretty much anything you know has to be tossed out the window. I know it threw me for a few loops.

That is why I said the closest aiming practice is to think about patterning for shotguns (if you ever fired one) because they are smoothbore guns too. If the ammunition's flight was more stable and consistent, then the sights would have a far greater effect.

It's all about the hopup, really. The rest is gravy.

Shinjin_MC · December 28th, 2006, 17:07

pull the trigger at a range when most of your shots will hit the target most of the time, pretty much

all the same, Ive had some wonderful funky shots in airsoft which are impossible in real steel: aimed at someone ~70 feet away with a ~15-20 knot wind, person sees me, runs to the right, I fire a single shot, wind blows bb about 5-10 feet towards the right and intercepts the person just as he makes it behind a tree

CDN_Stalker · December 28th, 2006, 17:22

I set my sights, and the sights of guns I work on, for 30ft (indoors, my basement range) and that does me just fine out to about 120-150ft. I might have to aim a little higher to get the BBs on target. Once in a while I'll take my sniper rifles to the storage hut at work, and use that to sight them in, indoor distance of 90ft measured. That'll let me get out to 200ft pretty easily.

Thing with airsoft, the BBs are greatly affected by wind, so you have to watch the trajectory of the rounds and compensate for where they landed. Doesn't matter if it's a stock AEG, an upgraded GBB shooting 0.43g BBs at target 120ft away, or a 500fps sniper rifle with match grade BBs shooting 230ft away, you have to watch and compensate. If you don't you are a noob.

Shinjin_MC · December 29th, 2006, 03:19

screw sights!
shoot like this
woo woo!

ancorp · December 29th, 2006, 11:24

You suck at posting links, as they dont show up!

Woo woo!

http://quickshoot.com/videoclips.html

Cheers,
Alex

ancorp · December 29th, 2006, 11:28

WTF... it says both barrels at the same time for that semi automatic shotgun with ONE barrel???

I bet the FAL is semi auto, and the full auto magic is bump firing...

Big woop.

Cheers,
Alex

Pip · December 29th, 2006, 16:30

With my M14 i have my sights set for 100m and it is dead on accurate, i mean at about 50-75ft i can put bb's between fence boards half an inch wide...but my AK is a bit more wild

Double Tapper · December 29th, 2006, 17:25

is that due to the tolerances of the barrel or just the way the ak fires?
on average are most of these guns alittle wild or very close to center?

Greylocks · December 29th, 2006, 18:41

They are all smoothbore barrels. There's only so much accuracy you can expect.

Double Tapper · December 29th, 2006, 23:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pip

With my M14 i have my sights set for 100m and it is dead on accurate, i mean at about 50-75ft i can put bb's between fence boards half an inch wide...but my AK is a bit more wild

is your m14 modified or stock, thanks greylocks,i understood they are
smooth bore.i'm just trying to understand the groupings of these guns are
at different ranges ,or are they all vastly different between models

Pip · December 30th, 2006, 01:24

the M14 is stock...i put it down to barrel length (more time for the bb to stabilize before it leaves the barrel), nothing more than that. Greylocks is right, you can only expect so much accuracy from a 6mm plastic ball.

Greylocks · December 30th, 2006, 07:43

I did not mention shotguns just for kicks. Read up on Patterning. That is about how airsoft guns work.

And before you ask, shotguns with slugs can be accurate. There are limits to this so you should look into getting groupings in an area instead of trying to have pinpoint accuracy.

Dont try to make sense of it based on any previous real gun knowledge you may have. It is really, really, different.

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December 28th, 2006, 13:51	#17
MadMax Delierious Designer of Dastardly Detonations Trader rating Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: in the dark recesses of some metal chip filled machine shop	First adjust your hop up for a flat trajectory or one with a slight rise (whichever you prefer). Your most frustrating limitation in airsoft will probably be trajectory range. Once that's set you'll find yourself watching your pellets like tracers for shots at extreme range to compensate for crosswinds. Sights will start guide your early shots, but your follow ups will be compensated. For indoor/CQB play, you'll find that dialed in sights are handy for picking off elbows and legs left out of cover. A well adjusted iron sight is quite useful for carefully aimed CQB hits. That being said, you still have to use your sights properly. I note that most players can figure out rifle sights with centring features (e.g. front ring and rear pinhole MP5 style), but not notch and post (pistol). Throw in combat stress/excitement and we become even less meticulous. Rifles have much longer sight stance. A smaller deviation in misalignment (pointing the wrong way) results in a more obvious sight misalignment. Pistols usually have a stance around 6"ish which makes it much more difficult to get the tops of your sights level and equal spacing on each side. Some players also have a tendancy to jerk the trigger/flinch deflecting their impact point even though the aim point was on target. The RDS's most obvious feature is it's bright dot. However the well defined aim point is not it's most important practical feature. The image of the aim point is reflected off of a curved optic which compensates for a small degree of aiming errors. With iron sights, the shooter has to line up three points: -rear sight -front sight -target The alignment of the front and rear sights is critical for small groupings. It's not obvious, but misaligned front and rear sights on pistols has a greater influence on group size than lining up the sights to the target. Aligning the front and rear sights to each other assures that the gun barrel axis is parallel to the shooters eye line to the target. Without a parallel barrel axis, it's difficult to tell where your impact point will be relative to your aim point. RDS optics allow shooters to shoot with a small degree of misalignment between the barrel axis and the eye line. The curve in the optic is designed to move the dot image to indicate where the impact point will be even if the gun is not parallel to the eye line. This is a very strong advantage in fast CQB as it's difficult to perfectly keep sights lined up in dynamic shooting situations. There are also lighting conditions which make iron sights difficult to use. Your iron sights can disappear if there's no light to illuminate them. The optics in RDS's are not perfect, there is still a bit of "parallax" error when you shoot close to the perimeter of the lense, but the apparant aim point will still be significantly closer to the actual impact point than with iron sights. Iron sights have practically zero tolerance for misalignment. You have to put your eye directly in line with both sights and the target. RDS optics give you roughly +/-5 degrees of viewable angle for your to see the dot which is very handy for dynamic shooting. __________________ Want nearly free GBB gas?

December 28th, 2006, 17:22	#20
CDN_Stalker Official ASC Bladesmith Trader rating Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Ottawa, Ont.	I set my sights, and the sights of guns I work on, for 30ft (indoors, my basement range) and that does me just fine out to about 120-150ft. I might have to aim a little higher to get the BBs on target. Once in a while I'll take my sniper rifles to the storage hut at work, and use that to sight them in, indoor distance of 90ft measured. That'll let me get out to 200ft pretty easily. Thing with airsoft, the BBs are greatly affected by wind, so you have to watch the trajectory of the rounds and compensate for where they landed. Doesn't matter if it's a stock AEG, an upgraded GBB shooting 0.43g BBs at target 120ft away, or a 500fps sniper rifle with match grade BBs shooting 230ft away, you have to watch and compensate. If you don't you are a noob. __________________ STKR Knives http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/STK...17036668380871

December 29th, 2006, 17:25	#25
Double Tapper Trader rating Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: The land of the over regulated and the banners	is that due to the tolerances of the barrel or just the way the ak fires? on average are most of these guns alittle wild or very close to center? __________________

December 28th, 2006, 10:31	#16
Gryphon Trader rating Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: MB	Rarely that I say this, but +1 to everything Greylocks said above. I do recommend sighting in a red dot sight or magnified optic because it's far more pin point accurate than an open aperture sight. However irons, as mentioned above, are more of a guide. I've never, ever had to adjust my irons and some aren't even capable of being adjusted to any degree, ie. stock AK sights have zero capacity for windage adjustment.

December 28th, 2006, 15:01	#18
Greylocks Trader rating Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Gatineau, Quebec (Near Ottawa)	Overall, you stumbled upon the most difficult thing for real gun users to learn. The ballistics are so different that pretty much anything you know has to be tossed out the window. I know it threw me for a few loops. That is why I said the closest aiming practice is to think about patterning for shotguns (if you ever fired one) because they are smoothbore guns too. If the ammunition's flight was more stable and consistent, then the sights would have a far greater effect. It's all about the hopup, really. The rest is gravy.

December 28th, 2006, 17:07	#19
Shinjin_MC Trader rating Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: sauga, on	pull the trigger at a range when most of your shots will hit the target most of the time, pretty much all the same, Ive had some wonderful funky shots in airsoft which are impossible in real steel: aimed at someone ~70 feet away with a ~15-20 knot wind, person sees me, runs to the right, I fire a single shot, wind blows bb about 5-10 feet towards the right and intercepts the person just as he makes it behind a tree

December 29th, 2006, 03:19	#21
Shinjin_MC Trader rating Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: sauga, on	screw sights! shoot like this woo woo!

December 29th, 2006, 11:24	#22
ancorp AK Guru Trader rating Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Vaughan, Ontario (near Toronto)	You suck at posting links, as they dont show up! Woo woo! http://quickshoot.com/videoclips.html Cheers, Alex

December 29th, 2006, 11:28	#23
ancorp AK Guru Trader rating Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Vaughan, Ontario (near Toronto)	WTF... it says both barrels at the same time for that semi automatic shotgun with ONE barrel??? I bet the FAL is semi auto, and the full auto magic is bump firing... Big woop. Cheers, Alex

December 29th, 2006, 18:41	#26
Greylocks Trader rating Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Gatineau, Quebec (Near Ottawa)	They are all smoothbore barrels. There's only so much accuracy you can expect.

December 30th, 2006, 07:43	#29
Greylocks Trader rating Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Gatineau, Quebec (Near Ottawa)	I did not mention shotguns just for kicks. Read up on Patterning. That is about how airsoft guns work. And before you ask, shotguns with slugs can be accurate. There are limits to this so you should look into getting groupings in an area instead of trying to have pinpoint accuracy. Dont try to make sense of it based on any previous real gun knowledge you may have. It is really, really, different.

Sighting Adjustments & Airsoft

Airsoft Guns Discussion