Sighting In AK
Contents
Sights and how to hit your target
Irons
A lot can be said about using iron sights. They will always work, and once they are sighted in they are not likely to lose zero. That being said many users find irons hard to use for various reasons. Before a new user starts to buy bolt ons for the rifle, I always recommend shooting the rifle as it, then decide what you want to change. This goes for sights as well. Using the rifle and getting to know it before you decide what need to be changed is very important. You may decide you like it as it stands and will save you money for ammo down the road. If you decide irons are not for you, then you might want to look at the world of red dots. That being said it is a good idea to get a sight tool to make sure your irons are setup correctly in case something happens are you are using a red dot or scope you have irons to fall back on.
AK Operators' Union has a couple of videos on how to go about setting your AK Iron Zero:
AK Operators' Union also sells a great "Bootcamp" guide as well as the recommended Magna-Matic sight adjustment tool directly on their site.
Red Dot
I won't go into which brands are good and what are not. What I will cover is why a red dot might be better for some users and what advantages they offer. The red dot can be great for users that have troubles seeing the notch of the irons, which can be hard to see by some. They offer a more direct POV at what you are aiming at and really help with getting on target fast. You can also get a 3-4x magnification for many popular red dot systems that help with getting a little more distance out of your rifle.
A common misconception is a magnified optic is required for shooting up to 100 yards but with form practice there is an argument for a red dot actually being the best option for under and up to 100 yards.
Magnified Optics
If you decide that using irons is not for you and you want a little more magnification than a red dot can offer, then a scope is what you want. The AK is not a sub MOA rifle and it was not designed to be one. It is on the other hand a very capable rifle of hitting targets out to 500 meters. Also with a scope the AK makes a great hunting rifle. Very capable of taking down small to medium sized game.
Mounting solutions
When getting the right mount, its important to match the mount to not only the AK model, but to the optic type. Failure to do so can lead to some pretty common issues such as an optic riding too high above the dust cover or failing to maintain zero over time.
Mount options include single piece and multi piece option. In a multi piece option, the lower is typically matched with the desired biased and the upper is matched with the desired optic.
The two common mounting solution companies are Midwest Industries Inc and RS Regulate, with RS Regulate representing the golden standard among most AK enthusiasts.
For more information, be sure to check out theAK Accessories page.
Optic Examples
"TXZen" (a well known combloc optics fanatic) hosts his own sight showing various combloc optics, how to use them, how to zero them, and how to mount them at Russian Optics
