Finding your zero
One of the most common issues I have seen with new Carbine students is their lack of knowledge about where their point of impact is at close ranges. I spoke with a student who could shoot his M4 out to 600yds with his ACOG, but did not know where his POI was at 50yds. Just about every 5.56 gun is going to be capable of hitting a man size target at 600yds, but the Carbine is really meant for close quarters combat. I’ve noticed a move away from magnification on many M4s because you really undermine your speed if you are relying on pin point accuracy from 100-600yds and don’t realize that you are completely missing a moving target that is 40yds away from you because you can’t track it.
One thing I do not recommend for an M4 is magnification over 4x. If you go hunting with your M4 and are fortunate enough to be able to do that in your State, then go ahead and put a 3-9×40 scope on it, but that will be a hinderance in a combat situation under 100yds. I still believe the best CQB combat optic is the Eotech, although I’d like to see a reticle that doesn’t fail when the batteries go dea. The Leupold CQT is a nice optic, but the FOV is not as good at the Eotech rifle scopes. I hear a lot of BS about people complaining about how the front posts on their rifles cover targets at close range, but I recommend that people keep a front post available. There have been so many times that I have forgotten to flip up my rear sight and just used the Eotech glass as tool for getting a sight picture and just used the front sight post for targetting. I did a test a few years ago where I saw virtually zero change in accuracy between just used my Eotech and front sight post and using a flip up rear sight.
It seems that the M4 AR15 variant is hands down the most popular carbine in existance in the United States. There are plenty of AK and European military style rifles out there, but the accessorized M4 is king. When I first stepped into the high speed tactical carbine school, I was going there from previously owning only Kalashnikov variant rifles. The biggest promotion I heard from all of those owning an AR15 was how accurate they were. It is true that the M4 and AR15 family of rifles ARE the most accurate combat rifles, but that doesn’t make them the most effective. Ever since the Iraq invasion, the notion of just sending in a group of guys with M4 Carbines or M16s without a 7.62 DMR is not common. There was a lot of hype about the military digging up M14s and giving them this role, but now that several years have passed, the military has been working with newer models of 7.62 rifles to eventually fill that role.
It’s always up to the operator to determine which configuration works best for him, but with the reliance on battery operatored optics and high mounted optics, it’s really a good idea for a user to consider the what ifs. What do you do with your Eotech if the batteries die? What happens if the optics come loose ? Scope mounts can come loose and even break, I’ve seen this happen on M1A rifles, AK, FAL and AR15s on several ocassions. Sometimes its a good idea to train yourself to be able to hit a target without even a rear sight. There have been several times where I actually forgot to flip up my rear sights on my co-witness configuration and just used the sight picture from my Eotech optic and the front sight post. I never missed what I was aiming at and it was actually good practice for me.
Today I took my newest LWRC rifle to the range to break it in. This is a combat rifle and I expect that it eventually get pretty beat up, but it’s always a good idea to run through some firing drills before you rely on it. Some of the biggest malfuntion problems I have seen on the firing line were with supposedely brand new out of the box rifles. Sometimes there are bugs or issues that are easy to fix, but you really need to put some lead down range with your rifle or pistol before you rely on it. I’ve mentioned before about a time when I saw a guy show up with a Beretta 92FS inox pistol and it jammed after every round. The shooter was very frustrated because this was it’s first range trip. Well, turns out that the pistol was bone dry and had absolutely zero lubrication on it and with one wipe down, the gun ran flawlessly. The same should go for any firearm. I strongly suggest cleaning guns every once in awhile, even if you haven’t shot them. Lubrication can run off of guns or drain off, and I also highly recommend using a small level of grease on even pistols, especially if they may sit in a gun safe for long periods of time.
Another issue you may run into when using hunting style optics on a military style rifle is this. What are you going to do if the optic fails or breaks? Are you going to need to u se a screw driver to remove it or can you detach it quickly? Quick detach optics and accessories can become very important if you have a failure of some sort. For instance, I’ve seen plenty of incidences where soldiers in Iraq took bullets in their optics but the rifles still worked. Always have backup irons on an M4 is a good idea. Not only can batteries on something like a Eotech gun sight go down, but sometimes that can actually get broken from being slammed around or from fragmentation. The Mini 14 ranch rifle is a very manueverable Carbine. Even though the Eotech optic is primarily for military purposes, I’ve found the Eotech to work very well on a Mini 14 Ranch rifle. The MOA dot works well with a gun that can shoot MOA as long as the rifle barrel has not heated up, which normally occurs after the 3rd shot, but from a hunting standpoint, I rarely know anyone that takes 3 shots on any hunting trip.
Another evolution has occured in the 
Adding the extra security may mean that your scope won’t come loose after a few thousand rounds. I’ve seen guys with battle rifles with $1000 optics on them and after a few thousand rounds, the mounts came loose. None of these individuals were using loctite. Over torquing screws is something to be concerned about because screwing a mount in as tight as you possible can does not mean more security, it actually means more stress. Loctite doesn’t add stress to your gun mount it just helps keep the grip on your screws so they don’t rotate after long firing periods.