On Sunday, my son and I packed up the gear, and headed out to Waynesville, OH (about 18 miles from where I live in Dayton) to spend a morning shooting my Smith and Wesson M&P 15 (AR-15) at Spring Valley Gun range – an outdoor range. Since purchasing my rifle last month, I’ve only shot it at Sim-Trainer, which is an indoor facility limited to about 25 yards. Spring Valley has a supervised rifle facility, with both 50 and 100 yard ranges.
I was anxious to try out the new Barska Blackhawk Spotting Scope I had purchased to assist with shot siting. I pretty much loose the ability to clearly see where my shots are landing on target at about 25 yards. So when shooting beyond that distance, a spotting scope is a real necessity. Here’s a photo of all the gear set up on the bench at Spring Valley:
I’ll be doing a review of the Barska Blackhawk very soon, but I can tell you that it was an invaluable asset for getting my Aimpoint Pro zeroed to 50 yards. Conventional AR-15 wisdom on the question of what distance to zero a red dot optic seems to point to the 50 yard mark as a good distance to use. This allows for predictable combat accuracy out to 100 yards. When zeroed at 50 yards, an AR-15 will typically shoot slightly low up to 50 yards, and slightly high out to 100 yards. Once I got the Aimpoint Pro zeroed at 50 yards, I let my son get some trigger time. Here’s a photo of him shooting the M&P 15 at the 50 yard side of the range:
After we got some time in at the 50 yard side of the range, I wanted to try shooting at 100 yards. Here’s a shot of Yours Truly shooting at 100 yards:
For never having shot an AR-15 at 100 yards before, I wasn’t at all disappointed with my performance. Here’s a photo of my target – all 15 rounds I fired are “on paper” with 8 being “in the black.”
Here’s some video footage from our morning of shooting taken with my iPhone 4:
I used American Eagle Tactical XM193C 55 grain 5.56 ammo for the entire shoot (no problems of any kind encountered with this ammo). I’ve now put about 400 rounds though my M&P 15 and have thoroughly enjoyed doing so. Look for mor AR-15 related content from me here on ThruMyLens soon!
About John B. Holbrook, II
John B. Holbrook, II is a freelance writer, photographer, and author of ThruMyLens.org, as well as LuxuryTyme.com and TheSeamasterReferencePage.com.
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