ZERO...legally

[pdx650]

Where can people zero or train others to use their AEG's?

[Junto]

I usually dial my hopup and zero any kind of sight or optic I'm using on-field before a game.

As for training, S4 tactical has the market cornered currently. They're in hillsboro.

Generally any land outside of city limits that you have full, legal approval to use for airsoft i the appropriate place to dial in, zero in, and train riflemen.

[Steve]

Zeroing isn't too tough. Show up at a game a bit early and see if woever is hosting it will allow you to use their 'hot' area to zero while everyone is still showing up and chronoing. Bring whatever you need to zero with you. Shoot 'n' C targets work pretty well.

As for training, what skillset are you looking to teach?

If you are looking to do woodland squad tactics, talk to a couple of field owners and see what it will take / cost to borrow their field during an off-time to do your training. I don't have as much experience setting up courses for outdoor airsoft, though, so not as much practial help there.

If you are looking to do CQB, decide how much trigger time you actually need. If you are mainly focusing on teaching new guys the fundamentals, unload the airsoft guns and pick up a couple of cheap laser pointers and some electrical tape. Practice in your apartment / home / garage using the laser pointers to show you what your gun is doing while you are moving. Get to the point where you are all on the same page for tactics and movement. Most of the basic team drills can be trained without the use of live fire. Concentrate on the basics of getting to where you need to be the correct way rather than letting it degenerate into a shoot fest straight out of the gate.

Hopefully by then Airsoft Outlet NW's / AP's indoor field will be up and running. Show up at an open play day with your team and run your stack through to get a good idea as to what your existing tactics do for you. Understand that you will get absolutely no training value out of this. All you are looking for is a basic understanding of where your skills are at currently. Evaluate your operators as they are moving and shooting and figure out what baseline skills you need to develop. Literally, take turns during play time throwing a colored vest on and following one or two of your shooters through the engagement to watch how they move. Create your training plan based on a realistic evaluation of where you are now and where you are going, concentrating on individual skills and buddy team drills.

Once you have a training outline put together, meet with your team and find out how much time, effort, and capital you are all willing to contribute. Then talk to the arena operators to discuss renting it out from them during off-peak times to get together as a team and practice. Alternatively, if one of your team members has access to an outdoor field area, you can construct your own shoot house to train in. Start simply, with a relatively flat open area. Get some 3' high stakes and a bunch of plastic engineer tape and lay out a glass house to start training in. As funds become available, knock together some 4' wide by 8' high wall segments and bolt them together to form wall segments to practice stacking up against. Frame up doorways, add doors as you can afford them. Keep it modular so you can get the most out of your training materials budget. Put together some hard silhouette targets to shoot at during training. Paint each of them one of 3 or 4 different colors so you can do shoot / no shoot training.

Sorry. Probably a bit more than you were looking for. Hope it helps anyway.

[pdx650]

Caseless,

I do appreciate the detail, but I apologize, I should have gone into more detail. I just want to show my wife how to shoot/aim/zero my aeg's. I'm a 'tard.

[Steve]

lol. Makes sense.

Pick up some biodegradeable ammo. Find a rock quarry or chunk of forest service land where it is permissable to shoot real-steel near-ish to you. And get some.

As long as you treat your AEGs like they are real-steel (safety-wise) and use them in a similar manner to real-steel (i.e. pop targets rather than each other), no one will should much of a problem if you shoot airsofts at a place where real-steel shooting is permitted. Well, you may get laughed at a little by some of the other folks shooting at the same area you are shooting in, but not too much. Chances are that some of them might actually think they are pretty darn cool, what with the fact that they go full-auto and that ammo is getting a might bit scarce for most of the fun rounds.

Probably not a bad idea to go to the ranger station where you are loking to go shoot, check their map of the area that shows where shooting is permitted, and double-check with them that they don't mind you scattering a double handful of biodegradeable pellets into the wild, but chances are they won't mind. And if they do mind, it's better to have them tell you that before you get started.