Tag: bore sight

January 12, 2023 – The Red/Green Show

January 12, 2023 /

Back when I had first got out of college and began my career, of course all of my co-workers were older than me. I remember one of them that could have been my dad was so ecstatic about this Red Green Show. He went on and on about how funny it was and that I should watch it. For us, it aired on PBS on Friday nights so I tried to watch it once and I didn’t get it.

Red Green was the main character’s name. I feel like Red Green was also a dichotomy; kind of two states that cannot exist simultaneously. You can’t be a handyman and use duct tape to fix everything for instance like in the TV show. This leads to today’s topic of red and green lasers.

I have had a red laser for 5-7 years. The laser is put into the bore of the barrel and used to project a dot that you would then try to manipulate your scope so that the first shot is on paper. This is the process of bore sighting a scope. After numerous uses at the range I decided that red is not adequate for range work.

The picture on the left is in near darkness. The camera flash made it seem lighter than it really was. My point is that in the dark, the red laser is readily visible up to 25 yards or so. I have used it in the basement to get a preliminary bore sight. But, I really only have 10 yards of distance in my basement. At the rifle range the closest target stand is 50 yards. Sometimes even that initial bore sight is not adequate enough.

This is when I decided that I would try green. I haven’t actually used it at the range yet but the picture on the right is outside in the daylight. I had to get close enough so that the camera could actually pic up the dots (about five yards) but I could see it at 15 yards easily. By the time I could see the green dot in the camera, I could also see the red light with my eyes.

Light in the green spectrum is easier for the human eye to see than red in daylight. A couple things to be aware of. Green light requires more power to generate. So, you will see with pricing that they are also more expensive. I have heard that you get a couple of hours of laser usage with green but double or more with red. So, a long day at the range you may run through a battery or more.

In my day (before cheap lasers) if you had one it was red. That means that red lasers are ubiquitous in laser sights and bore sights. But, now there are often choices between red and green. Pick green if money is no option. But, don’t feel bad about red. My view is that lasers are low-light tools when it comes to aiming. I suppose that my vision and skill is fine enough that in daylight I am going to use the sights and not rely on the laser for aiming.

As I said above, I have yet to use this green laser on any sight in activity. So, what I am talking about comes from colloquial wisdom and not experience. What I can say is that I can’t see the red laser at 50 yards, so there was a lot of guessing when I was working on sighting in last year.

End Your Programming Routine: This is one of those topics that I had on my list for Tacticool Thursday last year. This is an example of some of the stuff I am occasionally going to talk about still. I am going to reduce the frequency of this kind of content and I am surly going to avoid outing anything specific that could be construed as illegal in today’s political content.

December 2, 2021 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

December 2, 2021 /

Today, I am going to try and talk about a technical topic in a simple way.  That topic is bore sighting an optic on a firearm.  In order to do that, you need to think about math.  And, I should add that there are different ways to do this.  I am showing my technique.

Before starting, I would also point out that this is a simplistic attempt.  In theory, the firearm should be levelled in two directions from bore to butt and left to right.  Then the optic should be levelled on top of the firearm.  That may require shims or modification any of the mounting components.  I plan on sighting this in at 50 yards so with that, slight inaccuracies are really negligible.  

The next step is to measure center of bore to center of optic.  This is to measure how much height difference there is between how the bullet will travel versus how you are seeing it through the sight.  If you imagine two lines, one will come from the bore and one will come from the sight.  At some point, those two lines will cross and that is ‘sighting in’.   You want the two lines to cross at the right point at the proper distance you expect to shoot.  The good news for me is that it takes a lot of adjustment at short yardage to make much change so slight inaccuracies are negligible.

I have an inexpensive laser sight I put in bore.  That laser will put a spot at whatever distance you like.  Ideally, I would put it at fifty yards and then adjust my sight accordingly.  But, I don’t have that kind of space so I just point it at the wall.  A couple of other notes about the laser.  It works best at low light and the farther away it is, the more distortion the dot has.  I have done this at the range but it is far more difficult to see.

Once the firearm is stabilized and aimed, mark a point that represents the measurement of the bore to sight centerline above the laser dot.  Adjust the sight  to the mark. That is your target and in theory, at the muzzle and 2 1/2 inches high everything will be ready to shoot.

This is a down and dirty bore sight.  After this point, I go to the range and start working on actually sighting in at the range.  Start at the closest target and make sure that the bullet is hitting the target.  Adjust just enough that you can move on to the next distance if that is your goal.  Remember, changing loads can change results dramatically, so stay consistent when sighting in and always check for verification when changing.

End Your Programming Routine: Right now, I do not have confidence that this firearm will be accurate without taking to the range for verification.  This is why I have held onto this sight for over a year without mounting.  Life is super busy and this will likely have to wait until after the holidays at this point to get to the range.  But we will get there.