How to sight in an air pistol: clicks, groups and sight width

Sighting in an air pistol, in six points:

• Shoot a group first, five or ten shots from your normal stance, and never move the sights after one shot.
• Find the group’s centre and measure how far it sits from the middle, up or down and left or right, in millimetres.
• Divide each distance by your pistol’s click value at 10 m, from its manual: about 2 mm a click on a Feinwerkbau P8X, 1.5 mm up and down and 1 mm sideways on a Morini CM 162EI, 1.2 mm sideways on a Steyr evo 10, 0.8 mm on a Walther LP500 at its longest sight length.
• Turn the screws the way the manual marks them: some letter the screws after the error, H for a high group, T for a low one, R and L for right and left; Walther says clockwise for a high or right group; Morini and Pardini describe the screw by where it sends the group.
• Make the whole change at once, shoot another group, and adjust again if it is still off; then mark or count the setting.
• Set the notch and the front sight so that you see equal bars of light either side of the blade; a wider notch or a narrower blade when the light is thin.

A single shot can be off through your own error, the USAMU’s guide says, so it will not zero after one round. The CMP’s guide to junior pistol shooting has a new shooter fire groups of five or ten shots and then adjust the sights to put the next groups in the centre; the USAMU’s guide, written for 25 and 50 yards, wants at least three rounds of slow fire before the sights move. Ten is this post’s advice at 10 m: a group large enough that its centre is the sights’ doing and not one flyer’s.

Then make the whole correction at once. Check the group against the centre of the target and, if it is off, make a bold sight change, the USAMU’s guide says; do not creep to the centre one click at a time. And never aim off with adjustable sights to compensate: if you are grouping away from the centre, move the sights.

The group has to be a group before the sum means anything. How to find its centre, with a ruler or from the mean of the holes, is in Reading your shot groups. Shooter does the same from a scanned card and says so in its own words: tighten the group first, then adjust the sights, and at least five shots are needed for a click suggestion.

What one click moves at 10 m is the maker’s figure, and the makers differ, so read your own manual. Feinwerkbau gives about 2 mm a click for the P8X at 10 m, and about 2.4 mm for the short version. Morini’s CM 162EI moves the group 1.5 mm for one click of the elevation screw and 1 mm for one click of the windage screw. Steyr states 1.2 mm a click for the side screw of the evo 10. Walther gives 0.8 mm a click for the LP500, for elevation and windage alike, and adds a line worth keeping: about ten notches, as it puts it, shift the group around the ring on the target. Pardini’s technical data for the K12 give 1.8 mm.

Walther’s qualifier matters: its 0.8 mm holds at the longest sight length. Its sight radius runs from 331 to 395 mm, and setting it, the manual says, depends on the shooter’s anatomy; the shorter the distance between the sights, the more one click moves the group, which is the geometry behind the figures, not a line from a manual; Feinwerkbau’s short pistol, with the shorter sight line, has the larger figure. If you move the front sight, check the click value again.

The sum, in millimetres. A group whose centre sits 10 mm low and 4 mm right, on a pistol that moves 2 mm a click: five clicks up and two clicks left. On the Morini, the same group takes seven clicks up (10 ÷ 1.5, rounded) and four left. In ring terms, the ring spacing of the card is on the ISSF 10 m air pistol target page; divide it by your click value and you have your own clicks per ring; Walther’s own line for the LP500 is about ten.

Shooter does this sum from the scanned card. Its sight-adjustment sheet tells you how far, and which way, your group’s centre sits from the bull, in millimetres, and, for a gun whose click values you have saved under My guns in millimetres, MOA or milliradians, how many clicks up, down, left or right would move the group toward the centre; with no gun picked it asks you to pick one to get the exact clicks, and with no click values saved it asks you to add them in the gun profile. A group that is already well centred is told so.

Not every sight turns the same way: the screws do not all move in the same direction for a given adjustment, the USAMU’s guide warns, clockwise moves one sight right and another left, and the same goes for elevation. So the manual, again. Feinwerkbau and Steyr letter their screws after the error: shooting high, turn the elevation screw toward H; low, toward T; right, the side screw toward R; left, toward L. Morini says it the other way round, as where the group should go: to move the group down, turn the elevation screw clockwise, and to move it right, the windage screw clockwise. Walther corrects a high shot and a shot to the right by turning clockwise and a low shot anticlockwise, with a 2 mm Allen key, and has you test the setting on a target. On the Pardini, one screw moves the shot right when turned clockwise and the other lowers it when turned clockwise.

Which way the arrows on a sight point, the shots or the correction, is in Reading your shot groups, with the CMP’s note on American and European habits. Once the group is centred, record the setting. The USAMU’s guide marks the screw with a drop of nail polish, or runs the elevation screw down to its lowest point, counting the clicks, and records the number up from the bottom.

The rules first: only open sights, says the ISSF, with no fibre optic, light-enhancing or reflecting colour surfaces, no optical, mirror, telescope, laser or projected-dot sights, and no protective covering on the front or rear sight; the pistol with its sights mounted must fit the measuring box. Corrective lenses, filters or tinted lenses may be worn, not attached to the pistol.

ISSF, sights

Only open sights. No fibre optic, light-enhancing or reflecting colour surfaces; no optical, mirror, telescope, laser or electronically projected dot sights; no protective covering on the sights; no correcting lens or filter on the pistol. The pistol with sights mounted must fit the measuring box.ISSF Pistol Rules 8.4.1.2, ISSF Rule Book, Edition 2025 (Second Print 07/2026), effective 1 July 2026

Within that, the match pistols let you set both the notch and the blade. Feinwerkbau’s P8X sets the width of the rear sight cut from about 2.2 to 7.5 mm and its depth from about 1.8 to 3.2 mm, 0.2 mm a click, and comes with a 4.2 mm front sight, with 3.6, 3.9, 4.5, 4.8 and 5.1 mm as accessories. Steyr’s evo 10 opens its notch from 1.5 to 7 mm (its data table says 6.5). Morini widens the CM 162EI’s rear sight 0.1 mm a click and ships a 5 mm blade, with 4, 4.5, 5.5 and 6 mm to order. Walther’s LP500 has an integral front sight with three widths, 3.8, 4.4 and 4.7 mm, and a rear sight from 2 to 5.3 mm. On all of them, turning the notch screw clockwise, or toward +, widens the notch.

Which to choose: Walther’s manual says the sight width should ideally match the width of the bull as the shooter sees it. TargetShooting Canada, a coaching site, wants equal bars of light either side of the front sight and the tops level, and when the light is too thin to judge, a wider rear notch or a narrower front sight. Light differs from range to range and even between bays, it adds, so take it into account when choosing your sight picture and when the light changes at a match. What that picture is, 6 o’clock, sub-6 or centre, is in Sight picture.

Zero from the stance you shoot in. A bench-rest zero is a start, writes Chris Christian in Shooting Sports USA, an NRA journal, about two-handed action pistol, but the final zero should be done freestyle, from the holster, because it is the consistency of the hold that lets the shots hit the zero point: change the hold and the point of impact changes. The USAMU’s guide, on the one-handed hold, notes that errors in position and grip let the hold drift, and that a correction made at the wrist affects the grip. A rest has its use, for comparing pellets, and that method is in Airgun pellets; the zero that counts is the one your sighting shots show from your own stance.

A zero is not for ever. On different ranges and in different weather and light you may find it changes slightly, the USAMU’s guide says, and unusual changes often appear without reason; a change in the angle or the intensity of the light can move the zero you use at home, and, elsewhere in the guide, the eye does not see the front and rear sights in the same relation under changing conditions. The grip moves it too: fit it once and leave it, as Fitting an air pistol grip says, and expect to re-zero when you change it. A new sight length changes the click value, so check that too.

So the sighting shots at the start of a session are not a formality. Shoot them as a group, read the centre, and move the sights if the group is off; a zero that drifts during a session or from day to day is one of the things a group can tell you, in Reading your shot groups. A tight group that sits off centre is the sights’ fault, not yours; a group that is low and left with the sights right is a different question, answered in the pistol correction chart.

How many clicks is one ring at 10 m?

Your pistol’s click value decides: divide the card’s ring spacing, on the ISSF 10 m air pistol target page, by the manual’s millimetres per click. Walther’s manual says about ten notches shift the group around the ring on the LP500 at its longest sight length; a Feinwerkbau P8X, at about 2 mm a click, needs far fewer.

Should I zero an air pistol from a rest?

A rest gives a start, but the zero that counts comes from the stance and hold you shoot with, since a changed hold moves the point of impact. Use the rest for comparing pellets, then confirm the zero with a group shot standing.

Why does my air pistol shoot low?

If the whole group is tight and low, the sights are not zeroed: move the elevation screw as the manual says, the whole correction at once, and shoot another group. If the shots string low and to the left from a centred group, the pistol correction chart post is about that.