Kyle Defoor on zeros

[Wondering Beard]

I thought you guys might find what Kyle Defoor posted about zeros on his blog (http://www.kyledefoor.com/2010/12/12-days-of-zero.html).

As I am still quite new to the AR, it was food for thought to me.

Any comments?

Edited to fix the link.

[Paulo_Santos]

I've been preaching about the 100 yard zero for years.

[AR-10]

That's a good read, and confirms what others on this forum have advised.

[Stickman]

A good portion of the need to zero should have the shooter understanding how they are going to actually shoot the weapon. Zeroing at 25 yards is great, if that is all you are every going to shoot. If you are looking to round things out a bit more, other options come into play. Kyles article is a good read, and he certainly has the knowledge base.

[UDT]

Thanks, for the link. Good info.

[rob_s]

I like most of what he has to say there. It is somewhat interesting to see so many of the young guys discovering things for the first time that so many of the now out-of-fashion old guys k ew for a long time.

[Cameron]

Just how old are you Rob?

Cameron

[rob_s]

When I say "old guys" I'm not referring to myself, I'm referring to guys like Cooper and guys of his era, and comparing the "young guys" (meaning the current generation of trainers starting out) to them.

[thatdamngoat]

It's funny you mention Cooper, Rob. I was reading some comments on a Youtube video that was talking about the Isosceles Stance, and one poster actually started saying that Jeff Cooper was irrelevant to todays warfare. My jaw dropped. How could you think that anyone with that much real world martial experience was irrelevant?

[Wayneard3413]

I would never go as far as to call Jeff Cooper irrelevant but we have learned a lot about this whole gunfighting thing in the last 20 years. More still in the last 10.

A smart man will never forget where we came from but we also have to be continually updating our knowledge base and trying to use the most recent experiences to help direct our training efforts. Since the "war on terror" we have a ton of guys coming back with real world experience that hasn't been seen in years. We would be severely handicapping ourselves to blow off that information simply because it does not coincide with the status quo of how things have been done in the past.

[Paulo_Santos]

I would never go as far as to call Jeff Cooper irrelevant but we have learned a lot about this whole gunfighting thing in the last 20 years. More still in the last 10.

A smart man will never forget where we came from but we also have to be continually updating our knowledge base and trying to use the most recent experiences to help direct our training efforts. Since the "war on terror" we have a ton of guys coming back with real world experience that hasn't been seen in years. We would be severely handicapping ourselves to blow off that information simply because it does not coincide with the status quo of how things have been done in the past.

That is very true. We also babe to understand the differences between Military, LE, and Civilian training. What works in the Military doesn't always work in LE and/or Civilian and vice-versa.

[Wayneard3413]

Without a doubt.

But with the threats that LE face changing everyday the line at some times start to blur. While there will always be vast differences in the ROF that each are held to when it comes down to an active shooter situation be against a larger number of trained and properly equipped Mumbai style terrorists or simply a 15 year old whose daddy didn't hug him enough then a gunfight is a gunfight.

[thatdamngoat]

I would never go as far as to call Jeff Cooper irrelevant but we have learned a lot about this whole gunfighting thing in the last 20 years. More still in the last 10.

A smart man will never forget where we came from but we also have to be continually updating our knowledge base and trying to use the most recent experiences to help direct our training efforts. Since the "war on terror" we have a ton of guys coming back with real world experience that hasn't been seen in years. We would be severely handicapping ourselves to blow off that information simply because it does not coincide with the status quo of how things have been done in the past.

The point that I believe Rob was making, and I whole heartedly agree with, is that lots of people run for the new and shiny, rather than learn the fundamentals. Before my second deployment to Iraq, my battalion was advised by British military in SASO training, experience from the 70's and 80's from Northern Ireland and the Falklands. When things started getting rough in Iraq and Afganistan, people where rushing to read the Marine Corps Small Wars Manual that was published in 1940 with hard learned lessons from things like the Boxer Rebellion and the Philippines Insurrection. The new guys are great. Better than me for sure. New ideas are fantastic, but you lose out on lots of knowledge when you just skim the things from prior to 20 years ago.

[Wayneard3413]

I couldn't agree more. I might not have expressed myself clearly.

What I meant is that we should take in all the information we possibly can from as many sources. If not we get stuck in a lockstep of simply doing things the way they have always been done.

In the end we end up shortchanging ourselves by missing out at either end of the spectrum.