Trusty II, all set for final testing and then for the ready rack.

Zeroing the AR
The standard military zero for the M-16 and M4 is to have the point of aim and point of impact at 41 meters, which delivers the downrange point of aim/point of impact again at 250 meters. The problem is, most encounters are inside 100 meters, especially in law enforcement and defensive use. With the military zero, your point of impact is under your point of aim inside 40 meters and above past that. I prefer the "competition zero," or as my friend Jeff Chudwin calls it, the "law enforcement zero." The point-of-aim/point-of-impact initial zero is pushed back to 100 yards. With that zero, every shot inside of 100 yards has the point of impact below the point of aim--but not much, as the bore is 21⁄2 inches below the sights.

Across a room, you'll have to remember that your hits will be low, but you'll have to do that with the military zero, too. With this zero, your hits will be 2.23 inches low at 200 yards and 14 inches low at 300. Most encounters will be well inside 200 meters, and across that distance your point of impact will never be farther than 21⁄2 inches from your line of sight; the greater drop past 200 is something I can live with.

For basic zero you'll find that the bullets will impact the target an inch and a half low at 25 yards. To account for that, we've designed a target with an obvious aiming point but with an indicator circle to show correct impact. Another of my Chicago friends, Loren Helwink, then redesigned the target with the sight adjustments printed right on it. The Chudwin/Helwink target is the fastest and easiest target I've ever used to get a rifle zeroed. And the Tactical Essential was no different.

I needed three groups: a three-shot for vertical adjustment, a three-shot for horizontal and a five-shot to make sure. With 11 rounds, I had the iron sights zeroed. I then turned on the Holosight and adjusted it until the dot was perched on the front-sight post. As I was all set to do the 100-yard check, I swabbed the bore with Shooters Choice Copper remover before walking to the 100-yard line to post a target. Once back, I dried the bore with patches and shot a five-shot group. Looking through the binoculars, I needed one click left and one click down to be spot-on. I then folded down the GG&G rear sight, turned the Holosight back on and fired another group. It, too, needed a grand total of three clicks to be finished.

Trusty II with the zero target. To account for the fact that the bullets will impact about 1.5 inches low at 25 yards, the author came up with this special target.

With Trusty II zeroed, I now needed to make sure it was reliable. I spent an afternoon working over the falling plates, putting 200 rounds downrange. With both the Holosight and the iron sights, I was able to easily drop the plates (90 yards downrange, roughly bowling-pin size and shape), but the Holosight was faster. The empties ejected slightly forward and seven to eight feet to the right.

For the final test before depending on Trusty II in a match, I put it away without cleaning it (yes, Sweeney the Heretic strikes again). I left it uncleaned until the next range session, so the powder residue in the chamber could harden into a tough scale. On the next session, a week later, I brought some of my old pin-shooting ammo, which uses a Winchester 63-grain softpoint over enough BL-C2 to get just more than 2,200 fps in a 16-inch barrel and almost 2,300 in a 20. The load is soft in recoil, plenty accurate (under one inch in Trusty), took the pins over with power to spare and would choke any AR that was the least bit inclined to malfunction. All my rifles shoot it reliably, and now Trusty II joins that group. Even with lightly loaded ammo it worked reliably right from the start.

I find that the Vltor stock with the battery-storage compartments installed is a very comfortable stock. One problem with the AR design, and the tele stock in particular, is cheekweld. It's a skinny place to put your face. The Vltor has enough bulk, and it uses a comfortable plastic composition that makes it a lot more comfortable than regular stocks. With the Holosight on top, I know I have spare batteries for it. On the other side of the stock I can keep spare batteries for whatever light I might be using.

The only thing left was to start using Trusty II in the club three-gun matches and haul him along to the classes for future students to use.

It's all in the wrist. The 2 o'clock postion of the one-piece JP auxiliary iron sight also allows for super-fast engagment of close targets.

JP Enterprises
When the word "tactical" gets added to the conversation, the mind immediately springs to images of black or camo guns loaded with rails, lights, sights and sometimes even a night-vision optic or laser-targeting designator. And often the image includes lots of dust, mud and finishes worn through to bright metal. John Paul doesn't hold with that, and his rifles look like they might be right off of Darth Vader's weapons rack.

He sent me a CTR-02 with all the bells and whistles for competition, but it is also useful in many tactical contexts, too. John makes his rifles by milling the uppers and lowers from billets of 7075 aluminum. They are precisely fitted, and then the receivers and the handguard tubes are hard-coat anodized.

Besides the shape of the receivers, what also distinguishes a JP Enterprises rifle from others are the colors. While this one came in basic Darth Vader black, you can have yours in a variety of eye-searing colors. On top was a Trijicon TA01 Acog with a reticle trajectory-matched to .223 match ammo using 69-grain Sierra match bullets. The reticle is illuminated via a tritium insert, so as you lose the light, your reticle appears to begin glowing red (it's always been there, just too faint to see). So in low light you won't lose your reticle to the darkness. Curiously, John said he zeroed it for 200 yards, but when I tried it, the five shots at 100 yards clustered on and around the paster I was using as my aiming point. The 20-inch barrel made of 416 stainless is a special JP barrel cryogenically frozen to reduce stress and enhance accuracy, with a 1:8-inch twist.