Probably an easy question for the AK crowd.....

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tjhands

New member
Howdy again gang. :)

I'm a handgun guy, so my rifle skills are rusty at best. I have a 30-yard range at which I shoot and today I tested out a semi-auto AK clone for a friend who just bought it. He wants it set accurate at 100 yards, but with my range limitations at 30 yards, I had only guesswork to go by. It shot perfectly from a windage point of view, but 3" low in elevation. Would this be approximately dead-center at 100 yards? The ammo was Wolf if that makes a difference.

Thanks a million!
 
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ar15chase

New member
In my opinion Wolf is crappy ammo. Is that what he is going to shoot? I was always taught to sight my guns in with the same ammo I shoot with.
 
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mrray13

New member
wolf/bear and just about any import ammo is good ammo for a russian gun/ clone. maybe not quite as accurate as a match brand, but i have yet to see a failure of any sort in my saiga or my sks, using wolf/bear. and personally, with what i use the saiga or sks for, i won't run anything else through them. wolf is good enough ammo for anything russian, lol.



as to the original question..i know there are specific targets made to aid in sighting in in a situation like yours. during patrol rifle coarse we sighted in at 50 tards, which according to the instructors, translates into a 100 yd zero as well for the .223/5.56 rd. i'm sure the 7.62x39 will have a different path, one can look into trajactory plots and see what zeros overlap with each other. of course nothing replaces actually going out and shooting at that distance.
 
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tjhands

New member
Thanks so far, but I know that a LOT of AK guys shoot only Wolf ammo.

Would a group 3" low at 30 yards at least raise the group a couple of inches at 100 yards? I'm ignorant as to the trajectory of the 7.62X39 round and would appreciate even an approximate guess that these rounds will rise up in that last 70 yards.
 
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Brian Pfleuger

Moderator Emeritus
There's no way that you should be low at 30 yards. The typical zero distance is somewhere between 20-30. What is the height of the sights above the center of the muzzle? The bullet should be rising steadily from the muzzle, reaching zero somewhere in the 20-30 area and continuing to rise from that point until reaching peak at any given range depending on when you want it to be zero again.

Check here for some numbers to play with:

http://www.eskimo.com/~jbm/cgi-bin/jbmtraj-5.0.cgi


I'm guessing it should look something like this:

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B. Lahey

New member
Can you ontain accurate groups at 100 yards with an AK?
Click to expand...

My Romanian will shoot 4" groups with Brown Bear. My Vector can shoot close to 3" with S&B.

Not stupendous, but not terrible for a rifle with 15" of sight radius. Could probably do a little better with optics.
 
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myhres

New member
My Rom will shoot a 4 inch group with my handloads of m-62 tracers if i do my part, as for your question i sighted mine in at 50 yards to start with at that put me on target at the 100yd mark.
 
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Double J

New member
Pull rear sight to the rear, or battle-sight setting. Adjust front sight to dead on at 30 yards. Then adjust rear sight to 100. It'll be pretty close at 100.
To answer the accuracy question, most AK type will shoot inside 4" at 100. Some will shoot inside 4" at 300. Just depends.
 
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mrray13

New member
my saiga prints well, easily in the area of 2-3 moa, as mentioned in the above link. my yugo sks is even better, though i'm sure that's due to longer barrel/sight radius.



Double J, what part of southern illinois? i'm just south of carbondale.
 
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Rifleman 173

New member
Okay a couple of things...

1. If you sight your AK in at 50 yards, which is what most American troops are doing overseas with theirs, the rifle is good for shooting and hitting silhouette targets out to 300 yards with no trouble. If you are looking for extreme accuracy from any AK, then you have problems. AKs are not meant to be sniper rifles. They are meant to be very reliable rifles easily used by an illiterate peasant who can only follow diagrams for instructions.

2. If you mount a simple 4X or 4 power magnification scope on your rifle, from the side and not on a dust cover mount, you increase the over all accuracy of the firearm by improving the sight system. It works well. Try it.

3. The metal sights on top of most AKs are graduated to 1,000 meters or 1,200 meters. Whoever put those markings on top of an AK was an optimist who prayed a lot, carried a 4-leaf clover and a rabbit's foot on him at all times. Those sights are not really meant to be accurate, just work. The AK was sort of designed to replace the old PPSH submachinegun and a lot of other firearms. With the old PPSH you got close to the enemy, waited for them to exposed themselves and then you sprayed them with automatic fire. It was a simple tactic that worked well for the Russians in WW2 in urban fighting. The AK merely improves upon that tactic by giving the shooter a little bit more accuracy and a little bit more distance when needed. Once you figure out which tactics to use with the AK type rifles, you're going to love them because they are almost perfect for general duty use.
 
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popeyespappy

New member
3 Inches low at 30 yards is too low for an AK.

It is going to put you about 6” plus low at 100 and around 24” low at 200 yards. The front sight height of an AK is about 2”. So if you are shooting 122 grain FMJ at around 2330 FPS and zero your rifle at 50 yards you’ll be .65” low at 30, 0 at 50, .2” high at 100, 6” low at 200 and 23” low at 300 yards. 50 yards is a good zero range for an AK.
 
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ndking1126

New member
I was going to guess about 1" low at 30 yards should put you about dead on at 100 yards. I came to this conclusion because that's how my .30-30 shot when I sighted it in. Although that sighting it in with a scope, iron sights will change that some.

Don't forget one big factor here is bullet weight. That would be one more variable we would have to know about. Maybe a someone who is specialized in the AK could answer, but for the average and probably even above average shooter you'd just have to get it to a range w/100 yrds.. IMO.
 
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