I have a Nightforce 5.5-22x56 that is currently set up with MOA graduations. I noticed in the owners manual, for a nominal fee, I can return the scope and have turrets with Mils graduation exchanged. I plan on using this scope in conjunction with a 300 RUM for longrange shooting. Could somebody please explain the advantages and disadvantages of the two different graduations?

Andy

Andy,

IMO the most important thing is that the adjustment knob and the reticle use the same format,

Many scopes have the knob in MOA and the reticle in MRAD.

Having said that both systems are easy to use once learned.

Some good articles from R. J. Simeone:


http://www.scribd.com/doc/4617...s-and-Moa-Simplified

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2068...tical-Shooters-Guide

another good one by Jay Williams:

http://www.snipercountry.com/Articles/MilDot_MOA.asp

and a fair article by Hawks:

http://www.chuckhawks.com/mil-dot_scopes.htm

Drew the most common method is to have your reticle in MiL-Radians, and your adjustments in MOA.

MRAD is for distance estimation.
MOA is for bullet impact adjustment.

quote:

Originally posted by drewhenrytnt:
I have a Nightforce 5.5-22x56 that is currently set up with MOA graduations. I noticed in the owners manual, for a nominal fee, I can return the scope and have turrets with Mils graduation exchanged. I plan on using this scope in conjunction with a 300 RUM for longrange shooting. Could somebody please explain the advantages and disadvantages of the two different graduations?

Andy

Andy,

Is their a problem with your set up? What reticle are you running? One of the most common reticles with the 5.5-22 is the NP-R1, an excellent MOA reticle. The easiest thing to do is keep a scope set up as MOA/MOA or MIL/MIL but mixing it up as Leupold does with their MIL reticle and MOA adjustment just makes it more difficult to work with for most.

Oh, and I hope you're not in a hurry to get the work done. NightForce is having a super bang up year and getting 4x the orders they expected. Thus they are not doing any retro fitting until September.

Alan

Just my 2 cents, but if you are shooting at longer ranges ie. 600 yards and over I would choose mils for the scope adjustments. Much fewer clicks and therefore much quicker adjustments on the come ups.
Peter.

Problem you have with mils is that they were designed by USMC for a specific purpose.

They tend to be too course for precision shooting at moderate ranges. Recently, however MOA reticles have been designed to deal with this problem;



Similarly, these 90 click elevation knobs have been developed for shooters to provide imput to the scope directly in fraction of mils. Your choice.



One concept of Mil Scale Reticle with MoA for ranging.

Two quick questions if you would:

1. how many inches at 700yds is 4.5 mil

and

2. how many inches at 700yds is 4.5 moa


it is a two second calculation to multiply 4.5x7 and come up with 31.5 inches.

how long have you been trying to calculate how many mils is an inch?

Mil measurement is so simple one manual is 40 pages long, and the whiz-wheel calculator is only slightly easier to explain than string theory...

One more question, if I may; how many mils tall is a mule deer thru the chest at 400 yds?

moa is kiss principle, mils is not.

Rich

From memory and I could be wrong:

1 mil at 100 yards is about 3.6 inches or 25.2 @ 700

1 moa at 100 yards is about 1 inch or 7 at 700

a mil at 400 is about 4 x 3.6 or 14.4" Deer depending on size is about 1.5 mils

yes, but you had to think about it and make the conversion. You know moa, you have to learn mils, and then you have to learn to think in mils.

It's like learning to think and measure in metric...

Rich

The point is that with new reticles and 90 click knobs in the same units on all my scopes, I don't have to think about it anymore, so I had gotten out of the habit.

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
yes, but you had to think about it and make the conversion. You know moa, you have to learn mils, and then you have to learn to think in mils.

It's like learning to think and measure in metric...

Rich

I'm definitely with you on this one, Rich. Americans aren't raised to think in metric, or mils, either one.

They are raised to think in inches, feet, snd yards, and MOA.

And one of the problems with mils is the same as in the problem with metric. They just aren't fine enough measurements across the whole range of things daily encountered to get the job done easily for folks trained all their lives to think in Imperial units.

One of the things I hated in Canada was when we shifted to metric measurements. I understand that an inch isn't too far off of 2-1/2 cm. Still it is easier to look at the distance from my knuckle to the next joint on my forefinger. That too is almost an inch, and it isn't coincidence. That's where the measurement came from.

But what the hell handy metric measurement is about a foot? Three "decimeters" or 30 centimeters, or 10% less than 1/3 meter?

Same way with land measurement. Is it easier to visualize instantly a Hectare, or an Acre? An Acre is close to 200 feet x 200 feet...actually a bit bigger than that, but if you put an 8 foot wide dirt road next to one side of your 200 foot square, you'll be very close. A Hectare, though, is 2.4715381 times one acre in size.

Miliradians are plenty discreet for artillery fire, but they don't get it done for me for precise rifle fire. My objective is almost never to drop bombs of HE onto the "vicinity" of my targets.

None of that makes any difference when one has time to think it through. But in emergencies people react using and relating to the measurements they were raised thinking in. That difference can cost a person his life if he has to deal with an instrument or circumstance graduated some other way, when the cheese starts to bind.

just converted to mil/mil on my ft/r gun and definitely prefer it over mil/moa setup.

I'm using a ffp bushnell ers 3.5-21x with the g2dmr reticle. holdovers are a cinch

moa/moa is something most second graders that go to good schools can do...

How many mils tall are you?

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
moa/moa is something most second graders that go to good schools can do...

How many mils tall are you?

If I am being shot at I hope to be less than a tenth of a mil and moving away in a zig-zag pattern fast. (That would be less than 1/3 MOA and moving away in the same pattern just as fast. (21000 yards and going away)

I wrote for Precision Shooting Magazine from 1988 to about 2000. One of the projects was a dedicated long range live varmint rifle in 1991. It was the 257 Banshee, a necked down and blown out sharp shouldered 6,5x68 Shuler case. Jerry Simonson made a set of VLD dies in 25 caliber. 110gr BTHP with a BC over .650. Close to 4000fps from a 30" barrel. 17 pound sleeved Rem 700 in an early design Unlimited stock I got from Manley Oakley in the Seattle area.

Dick Thomas at Premier Reticle boosted a 6.5-20 Leupold scope for me. He boosted it to 18-42X and converted it to first focal plane reticle. Then he put windage lines 10moa left and right of the vertical crosshair. He also put 1/8th moa dots at 3 and 6 moa above the crosshairs junction, and 3, 6, 9, and 12 moa moa below it.

I went to Ken Oehler's Chronograph School in Austin and bought an M43 chrono system. I also got a copy of his ballistics software and ran it. Rifle was zeroed at 500. The dots gave me fairly precise aiming points out a bit past 1000yds. Those dots made a very simple rangefinder. 3 moa between dots makes ranging a very simple 10 second calculation.

I started killing Rockchucks out past 500 yds on a regular basis.

That next January PS split a booth at SHOT Show with NORMA. Leica was next door, and had just released the Geovids to the civilian shooting public. They let me take the second set in the country home to Idaho with me for six months. That was the last piece of the long range accuracy puzzle for me.

If you read this post carefully, and had the above or equivalent equipment and the Geovids; people-sized targets are in jeopardy out past 1200yds. Quick and easy and simple.

I hit several 'chucks with the first shot at ranges out to 1007yds that summer. Not all the time, but about 1 shot out of 5.

That barrel is burnt out, about 700+/- of those hotrod rounds. So, I set it aside for several years. Right now, it is in the process of being bored, reamed, polished, and rifled in 338 caliber. Gonna be a 338 Edge.

I spent a couple hours at the Horus Vision scope guys booth at SCI. They are going to let me use their Predator 8-26X by 50mm with the H130 reticle calibrated in moa this spring when the rifle gets back.
It's about five generations advanced on similar principles from my old design. They tapered the windage lines out in a pyramid shape where mine were a constant 10moa.

The Edge is about 100fps slower than the Lapua, and much gentler on barrels and shoulders. It's going to be a rough summer for Rockchucks and Coyotes in Idaho.

Rich


Check out www.horusvision.com Dennis Sammut has created a monster, especially when you combine it with the new Terrafix Weather Meter+GPS+Ballistics calculator.

quote:

The Edge is about 100fps slower than the Lapua, and much gentler on barrels and shoulders. It's going to be a rough summer for Rockchucks and Coyotes in Idaho.

I think it's just the opposite, actually.


.

The milliradian is the traditional angular measure used by military forces in laying in of, and adjusting fire of, indirect weapons like artillery and mortars. There are approximately 6283 mils in a circle but that number is so awkward that it has long become convention to use 6400 mils per 360 degree circle. The minor difference gets spread out and becomes insignificant. Degrees are too big to use and 6400 mils can be marked on a military compass, especially those used in artillery. Mils have long been used in distance and height measurements. Mil reticles are commonplace in military binoculars for range and distance estimation and for calling in adjustments of fire.

Minutes of arc or minutes of angle are too small to be used on a compass. There are 60 moa in a degree, 21600 moa in a circle.

Because of its widespread use in the military mils made their appearance on military scopes. Today, it is commonplace for military and law enforcement shooters to use mils for range estimation and to determine lead, and then make adjustments on a scope that has fine adjustments of 1/4 or 1/8 moa per click. But if you are a sportsman and you use a rangefinder there is no advantage to using mils. In fact the close approximation of 1moa as 1" at 100yds makes an moa reticle and moa click turret the easiest and quickest way to go.

I am familar with Mils. I have used Mill dot reticles in my work scopes and I have a spotting scope with a Mil dot reticle in it...
Back then you could not get MOA reticles...

However I am with Rich here [ISS], I prefer MOA "knobs" on my scopes.

I think, and dream in MOA.

When buying one of them "fancy pants" long range scopes in the future it will definately have an MOA Reticle vs a Mil reticle...

Once you said that the Marines were involved in the design it became crystal clear to us all...

I can say, from nearly 25 years of shooting Rockchucks at random unmarked yardages from 100yds to as far as I can find them in a spotting or rifle scope; that a multi-dot reticle with dots 3moa apart is a very good tool for calculating distance. Geovids make it almost unfair out to a thousand yards.

Rich

Agree a simple reticle is almost always better.

What I have not seen covered in this thread is first vs second focal plane scopes.

Using a complex reticle is a SFP scope has a big downside as it is only correct at one magnification setting. With a FFP scope you can use the reticle for holdover/holdoff at any magnification setting.

As for dialing the scope in, that is just one more thing to break. Once you send your fixed power or FFP variable off to TK Lee and get multiple dots installed, you'll see that all this concentration on mils, MOA or inches is wasting time you could be wearing out your barrel.

A nice simple Schmidt Bender reticle that the dots are always the same distance apart from 4-16X.

bps10,


well said, and welcome to the forum.

The issue with first VS second has always hinged on POI shift against cross hair magnification.

ISS

Mils is easier for me. The average adult males torso is 2 mils high @500 yards and 1 mil high at 1,000yards. Like wise his torso is 1 mil wide@500 and half a mil wide @1,000.
That's ok for general knowledge. With a MilDot Master slide rule calculator it simplifies figuring as does the MilDot Calculator app on my fon. Then all I need is my weather station info and velocity differential for my ammo temp. And if its truly cold out my barrel constriction, velocity differential. Factor all that in. Then, the hardest part. Dope the wind and or mirage. Add it all together and adjust the turrets. Of all that, adjusting the turrets is the single easiest part.
Then, provided my rifle puts the cold bore shot in the center of the zero poa +poi . And a good trigger squeeze. I'll hit what I wanted to.
Easy Pie!! Not!!!!!

I prefer mil/mil!

Since this posted in the benchshooting forum I'm going to post as a bench shooter. Mils or moa don't matter a jot if you have an app on your smart phone/tablet to give you windage or come-ups in whichever units you desire.
Obviously this does not apply out in the field or under fire but at a bench with time and space to spare you can enter whatever you like and get results out in whatever format you prefer.

that's why moa takes about ten seconds VS the 50+ page manual that comes with a mil-dot scope.