I've taken the dive into the world of RDSs and picked up a P320 Carry Pro with a 6MOA Romeo 1 Pro mounted. At what distance are agencies and you LEOs running similar setups zeroing the sight at? I'm doubtful I'll be carrying the gun, at least without a couple years of uptraining, but thought it time to at least familiarize myself with the concepts and doctrines involved. I teach in multi-agency academies and figure it's just a matter of time, sooner rather than later, before they start showing up in basic classes.

I did some searching and found everything from 7 yards on out, but would be interested in knowing in particular if there are agency policies or mandates for those places running RMRs on handguns.

I can't remember what we do, 10yrd zero with 25yrd fine tune?

25 yd zero. Offset inside that is minimal, as is drop at further distances.

25 yards is pretty much the handgun standard. If you zero too close with a tall sight, your distance shooting suffers.

The Sig Academy recommends 15 yards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GrBnBiIxJo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o72UwKqocc

25 yards

Have to agree with 25 yards.

Zeroing at 15 yards, makes it more complicated to place shots accurately as you stretch toward 50yards

My 3 letter federal agency mandates a 15 yard zero with the RDS from a rest.

quote:

Originally posted by SigLaw:
The Sig Academy recommends 15 yards.

If I remember what SIG CS told me correctly, SIG only has a 15 yard range for testing pistols. I know that SIG only having a 15 yard range doesn't make sense, but there may be a connection.

I was a 25 yard guy for several years. I took Scott Jedlinski's class where he pushes a 10 yard zero from a standing, offhand position and then confirm and fine-tune at 25.

I'm a convert.

The difference in point of impact between the two (shooting your 10 yard zero at 25 or your 25 yard zero at 10) is less than 3/4". The average shooter lacks the discipline, focus, and skills to zero the gun at 25 yards in anything resembling a reasonable amount of time. Zeroing off of a rest, while good for steadying the gun puts input in to it (or takes it out) that does not exist in normal, standing shooting.

When you're introducing a new crop of people to a red dot handgun, trying to get a 25 yard zero dialed in can be a good way to burn a lot of ammo and time and hurt shooter confidence when they find out the dot alone doesn't make them an ultra whiz bang one hole pistol sniper.

I do a fair amount of B8 shooting with RDS guns and I have seen no difference in performance between the two zero distances, so long as you understand the offsets and whether or not they matter to you. Scott says that is you're a good shooter, your zero doesn't matter and if you're not a good shooter, your zero doesn't matter. I think he's on to something.

Good video from YouTube channel 1911 Syndicate showing part of the zeroing process from the Modern Samurai class:
https://youtu.be/mudA-PZ_OiA

Something else to keep in mind while getting all wrapped around the axle on this:

Most shooters are only "zeroing" windage with irons and then figuring out their holds at various distances, IF THAT. The level of adjustability in a red dot is nearly unparalleled in the defensive pistol world where adjustable irons are generally not popular. Even compared to most adjustable irons, the level of precision possible with a 1-6.5 MOA dot is much higher.

quote:

Originally posted by DaBigBR:
I was a 25 yard guy for several years. I took Scott Jedlinski's class where he pushes a 10 yard zero from a standing, offhand position and then confirm and fine-tune at 25.

I thought that was how everyone, who said they were zeroing at 25 yards, zeroed. I never occurred to me that some would start to establish a zero at 25 yards...especially with a RDS.

You always want to be sure that you're in the neighborhood at 10 yards, or even 7 yards, before you move back to your desired zero distance

First I think a 25y zero is the best solution, but I'm not an LEO agency. But that's what I do. and I've lots of experience running an RDS in competition.
As for walking back your zero from some other distance why? I've probably zero'd a couple of hundred RMR's. ON a pistol its unlikely it goes into hyperspace and you have no idea where to start. Put up a decent sized target (I use a 2x3 piece of paper with a dot in the middle) shoot a couple of rounds to get an idea and adjust from there. What possible reason could there be to start at 7 move to 10!( WTF no difference in trajectory on that) then migrate to longer.
These rounds don't drop like rocks or climb like rockets. save your ammo for fun stuff.

25 yard zero

Put me in the 25 yards club.

We've got a good cross-section of who does what, not much why here...

Why are you guys using the distance you do?

quote:

Originally posted by DaBigBR:
We've got a good cross-section of who does what, not much why here...

Why are you guys using the distance you do?

I use 25 yards because at 10 and with the dot my groups are so small and centered that there's not enough dispersion to say how close or far I am away from a true POA/POI. Groups opening up at 25 provide me with a better readable feedback in regards to where in relationship to the center I am hitting.
If I was an OCD, Id probably do at 15 and then use a ballistic calculator to see where my loads intersect with zero again, which probably will be around 35 - 40. But 25 has worked well enough.

I'm confused. For self defense purposes why would you want to zero at 25 yards? Wouldn't it be safer to zero at 10 yards, or even 7 yards?

I dunno much about self defense so I'll leave that portion to self defense experts. For my preferences I want to zero so bullet's trajectory is flattest along usable range of a firearm. 25 has done that for me.