I am getting ready to buy a new Nikon Monarch 2.5-10 for a 270, but can't decide which reticle to get the BDC or Mil Dot.
They make the BDC seem so simple to use, but I'm not sure I like not having that top stadia.
I like the sight picture of the mil dot, and it doesn'tseem like it would be terribly difficult to master.
What does everyone prefer?

The Nikon BDC is designed to be a ballistic reticle and the mil-dot is a rangefinding reticle. Now that being said u can bet that 9 out of 10 guys aren't even gonna know how to apply the mil-dot as a rangefinder. They're gonna want to use it as a ballistic reticle. Of course, the problem is that the mil-dot is a repeating interval reticle, and obviously doesn't match any trajectories AS CLOSELY as a ballistic reticle does. I would go with the BDC reticle for normal hunting uses as it might just match the trajectory of your load pretty well for longer-range shooting. A mil-dot can be used just as accurately for this purpose, but it takes some calculating to figure it out.

SScoyote is right in saying that each reticle is disigned for different purposes. However, I'd buy the mil dot reticle because it will allow you several different POA's. No Balistic reticle works for every cartidge and the Nikon's circle's are too big to accurately aim at from distance (as are most). I wouldn't use the mildot for ranging, but It could come in handy to use as a refference for hold over after you have tested the rounds. ALso, You should be able to calculate the distance between the dots at various powers and make yourself a pretty accurate drop chart.