How do you guys zero your ar? With your good defensive ammo? With the stuff you shoot the most? I don't see a huge difference with my handgun shooting 124gr gold dots or Speer lawmen. Wondering if I planned speer 64 gr for defense and m855 for plinking how I should approach it

Zero it with what you use as defensive ammo and don't adjust but know the differences for your training ammo. Differences in ammo in a rifle will have much bigger changes than you would have in a pistol. I would just use the same ammo for a rifle. M885 vs speer 64gr I don't see much of an advantage. I usually use M193 for everything. I would say just use m885 for everything. I feel comfortable trusting my life to the M885 from lake city.

Zero it with what you use as defensive ammo and don't adjust but know the differences for your training ammo. Differences in ammo in a rifle will have much bigger changes than you would have in a pistol. I would just use the same ammo for a rifle. M885 vs speer 64gr I don't see much of an advantage. I usually use M193 for everything. I would say just use m885 for everything. I feel comfortable trusting my life to the M885 from lake city.

Why limit yourself to a projectile with inferior terminal ballistics?  A proper JSP/JHP is going to do so much more damage than FMJ.  M855 is designed to poke holes in lightly armored targets while a Speer Gold Dot is designed to wreck tissue.

 

As to the original question, I zero with plinking ammo and I don't worry about the difference in POI between plinking ammo and defensive ammo because for my purposes, the odds of having to deploy a carbine in a situation where mechanical offset is less than the difference in POI between the two rounds is essentially zero.  I'm not LE/MIL and I'm not training to pop targets at more than 50 yards with my primary training rifle.  Can I do it?  Sure but do I worry myself over knowing the holds at 100, 200, and 300 yards or further to compensate for the difference?  Nope.  I get more POI shift out of having a suppressor on or off the rifles than I do as a result of switching between plinking and defensive ammo.

zero with what you normally shoot.. there is not going to be some ridiculous issue at SD range inside a home.. I have 50 yard zero guns but can shred the target at SD distances... you are aiming center mass feet away..

I assumed you plan to use the carbine at intermediate distances 25-300m because thats what I use mine at. If your using it for >25m its not really going to matter. If you ever need to use it past 100m it will start to become an issue. For instance if your hunting you don't want to zero with m885 and then hunt with the speer.

Why limit yourself to a projectile with inferior terminal ballistics?  A proper JSP/JHP is going to do so much more damage than FMJ.  M855 is designed to poke holes in lightly armored targets while a Speer Gold Dot is designed to wreck tissue.

 

As to the original question, I zero with plinking ammo and I don't worry about the difference in POI between plinking ammo and defensive ammo because for my purposes, the odds of having to deploy a carbine in a situation where mechanical offset is less than the difference in POI between the two rounds is essentially zero.  I'm not LE/MIL and I'm not training to pop targets at more than 50 yards with my primary training rifle.  Can I do it?  Sure but do I worry myself over knowing the holds at 100, 200, and 300 yards or further to compensate for the difference?  Nope.  I get more POI shift out of having a suppressor on or off the rifles than I do as a result of switching between plinking and defensive ammo.

I don't prefer the m885 rounds ballistics. If money was no object I might go all speer. I personally like the m193 because it has pretty good ballistics in tissue, is dirt cheap, and can be extremely reliable depending on manufacturer. I don't like to mix training ammo and defense ammo without a re-zero because at the distances the carbine is meant for you can have some issues with POI. I want to be sure of my POI. Although m885 does have inferior terminal ballistics, it is cheap, and reliable, and will still kill things dead pretty effectively.

I would zero with the ammo I use most. If you pop in SD ammo at home you still have to worry more about offset than poi from ammo. I don't even bother buying m855 cause a lot of places you can't even shoot it.

i'll zero with my plinking ammo.  I wasn't really considering zeroing with some none existing HD ammo.  i was just wondering what people do.  asking for academic purposes only.  my AR will not be accessible for HD due to my situation it not fitting as the right tool

What ammo are you going to shoot. Plug the  BC and MV into your favorite ballistic calculator and after weighting your choices for whatever personal preference you have, then pick something that is at or near the sweet spot for the zero to be similar. My bulk plinking load is a 55gr JSP with a flat base loaded to mid 2800 fps. it's a reasonably close proxy for an m193 zero from 0-200. It also works out to be pretty close to the nosler 60gr cannelured varmint rounds over a slightly different range as well as the 62gr winchester hollow point bullets I managed to get a decent supply of cheap. It's also not horribly off for 55gr wolf or the 60 grain nosler partitions. 

 

I have to see how the new 64gr nosler bonded stuff works with that zero. 

At HD range your sight over bore will play more of a part than your zero. And to be honest a combat effective hit will be well within any zero for whatever round you can get. Zero with what you have and shoot it. If you stock up on something different zero with that.

im not sure what i'll be shooting.  seems your choices are 55gr or m855 for cheaper stuff.  then for $1 a round there is like 5000 different options.  

Buy in bulk and zero for that. If you switch the type of ammo then just re zero.

Yesterday I zeroed my AR with cheap steel case plinking ammo because thats all I use.    

zero with what you normally shoot.. there is not going to be some ridiculous issue at SD range inside a home.. I have 50 yard zero guns but can shred the target at SD distances... you are aiming center mass feet away..

right there

 

zero what you shoot