Zeroing a rifle question

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MyCleverSN

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Okay so I guess you can say I'm quite new to guns. I've grown up liking them as a little boy and joined the Army national guard(11b) 2 years ago and went to OSUT at Ft Benning. That was the first time I ever shot a gun..

The only rifle I have ever zeroed is the standard issue M4 carbine in OSUT and drills when we go to the range(Which is practically never, it's bs, infantry unit that never shoot... how bout that). We zero I believe at 25M for a 300M range. This is where my question comes in for the M4 as well as a sniper rifle that I am building. How does zeroing at 25M make the weapon zeroed effectively at 300M? Does this mean if I zero at a further distance than 25M then the weapon is zeroed for further targets? Or is there a set limit on where to zero and that weapon is zeroed with your sights/optics and you adjust appropriately to wind direction, height, wind speed ect...?

I'm building a cheap sniper rifle for no more then $300. If I zero this rifle at a indoor shooting range to my "scope" at 25 YARDS, how far is it zeroed to?

THANKS
I'm building the sniper rifle out of a Mosin Nagant 9130.


EDIT

I forgot to say HI! =). I'm getting more and more interested in guns and thinking about going to gunsmith schooling. I was researching random things about guns and stumbled across this website through google multiple times for similar questions. Looks like I can learn some things from other members here.. Thanks in advance ;)
 
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One reason for the 25M zero is that some military bases do not have appropriate range facilities for the full distance.
The quick answer is that the arc of the bullet passes the 25 M target on the rise of it's arc and the 300M target on the declining side of the arc. This is not a perfect situation but is enough for man size targets. It is possible to set up a rifle at 25 yards and have a high probability of hitting paper at 1000 yards. This all depends on factors including bullet weight, velocity,caliber,ETC. The best zero is shooting the actual distance. Keeping a data book on sight settings for various distances can be very helpful.
 
When I went through BCT in 1967 at Fort Dix, the 25M-or 1000 inch range-was to teach you to shoot, to get your rifle-M-14 back then-zeroed, then you went to the pop-ups. Don't think it was a matter of Army posts lacking facilities so much as it was a fairly easy way of training people, easier to call a ceasefire and check the targets. When I was in the NY National Guard we several times got people qualified on an indoor range using 22 adaptor units in our M-16s.
 
dup thread

trajectorywithsightillustrationfromzrxc77.jpg


already put up other illustrations in thread quoted by kraigwy
 
See the post in Art of the Rifle.

Welcome to TFL, MyCleaver. Please post your question in only one forum. That way the discussion isn't diluted across several threads.

Closed as a duplicate.
 
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