I am considering purchasing a Leupold VX3 4.5-14 LR with the Boone & Crocket reticle. For that system to work correctly (at long distances) does the scope need to be set at 14x when the shot is taken?? I have looked at the info on their website but it is still unclear to me. Mike

Yes. Or at least it has to be set on whatever power you have calculated for. Otherwise the subtension of the various reference marks would be meaningless.

If you are shooting at a range that requires something other than a point blank hold, then you should have plenty of time to crank the power up to the maximum, and the reduced FOV shouldn't be a handicap. After all, if a deer is only 150 yards away, you hardly need your ballistic aiming system, do you? The system comes into play if the target is 300 or more yards distant.

I did some additional research on it yesterday and also went to a Bass Pro Shop to compare the Leupold B&C reticle with the Nikon BDC. Comparing them at the gun counter does not give a real world experience I realize but it helped me understand how these are supposed to work. From what I can tell I really wont know what power will be the correct one to use until I do a whole lot of testing. Im looking to be shooting out to about 400 yards or so with a 30-06 (with handloads). This will the gun I will use on mule deer trips to Idaho (challis area). A friend of mine lives there and he said the shots can be fairly long. So far I seem to like the Leupold best for the long eye relief it offers. Mike

As with most of these systems there will be a mark on the power ring that you set the scope at. If not at max mag it will be close to it... There are those that work at any mag but as you can probably understand, the reticle grows and shrinks as you change from low to high mag and back again...

Ken....

The B & C was designed to have two positions setting, Group A or a large triang and Group B or a small triang in the power ring.
Depending in the caliber, bullet weight or its velocity you should use either one.
In Leupold's page you can find good explanation about them. Normaly you use A group for faste ammo at the top of the mag. of the scope, and for slowes ammo, t B group

I have used this system on a 4.5-14x42 out to 460 odd yards with a 7mm-08 shooting 162 grain Interbonds. For that particular shot I turned it don to about 13X and held high withthe 3rd hash. It's quick and simple, though a little approximate. Plenty enough for most big game hunting.

Mike, If you have good internet conection speed, visit the Leupold site and view their video on the ballistic and B&C scopes. Very informative.
I recently purchased the Leupold VXIII B&C LR scope to mount on a 270 WB. Have the same scope with a fine duplex on another rifle and like them.

Mike if u want to fine tune a ballistic reticle that matches your trajectory better the way to do it is basically the same way that Leupold does--just adjust the power of the optic to get the best trajectory to reticle fit. Here's how to do that--

1) Zero the scope at your preferred range.

2) Set big tgts. at 300, 400 and 500 yds.

3) Shoot each using the center x-hair as your zero.

4) Measure the bullet drop and convert to inch per hundred yds.-- if 50" low at 500 that's equivalent to 10 inch per hundred yds. Do the same for each range, and record that IPHY drop.

5) Go to 100 yds. and put a black circle at each IPHY measurement below the zero mark. Now adjust the power of the scope while keeping the x-hair on the zero mark until u get the best fit of reticle to IPHY bullet drop. That'll be as good as you're gonna get.

Thanks for your help gang. Your comments along with viewing the Leupold video have really helped me understand how this works. At present time I am leaning toward the Leupole VXIII 3.5 -10 with the B&C reticle (but also considering the 4.5 - 14) . My only worry is that to make this work properly I would have to turn the scope down to a lower power than what would be effective for good long range viewing but it sounds like I would probably only have to go down to maybe 9 or 8 power. Thanks for your help. Mike

Mike--when i go to field with a ballistic or rangefinding reticle applied as a ballistic reticle i always use the reticle for long-range shooting at the optics highest power. What i do is i run a ballistics program for my load once i record the avg. velocity of the load. The ballistic program calculates bullet drop in minute of angle (MOA). Most companies that produce ballistic reticles provide the measurements (subtensions) of the reticle dots, lines, whatever in MOA also--it's then a simple matter of matching the stadia points to the ballistic programs calcs and testing to see if it matches up.

Suppose i know that my bullet drop in 16 MOA at some distance using the ballistics program, and i'm using a mil-dot reticle as a ballistic reticle. I know that the 1st dot is 3.44 MOA, 2nd dot is 6.9, the 3rd is 10.3, 4th is 13.8, and the lower post tip (5th mil) is 17.2. 16 MOA is obviously between the 4th and 5th mil--right? So subtract 13.8 from 16 and we get 2.2 MOA right? Now since we know that there are 3.44 MOA between each dot then if we divide 2.2 by 3.44 we get 0.6. That means that for a shot that requires 16 MOA of holdover u need to aim 4.6 dots down--see how it works. Suppose that range is 550 yds. Here's that particular entry in the range sticker tha i put in a Butler Creek ocular cap cover--

550-4.6

Now do the same for all the other ranges in 25 or 50 yd. increments (10 mph windage too from ballistics program). Often once the system is checked and verified i may not even know what a particular stadia points zero actually is since my range sticker is a simplified as possible, and is based ONLY on 50 yd. increments. IMO the stadia points are only there to calculate the bullet drop and reference the interpolative (in-between stadia) zeros (like the 550 yd. 4.6 MD reference above). Once windage is calcd the same way (windage is basically a trajectory in the horizontal plane), here's what the entry would be on my range sticker using say 3.6 MD's as my hypothetical refernce--

550-4.6-3.6

...(always in that order, no headers needed since it's always range, elevation, then windage).

The same can be done with any reticle out there, from simple plex, to Ballistic Mil-Dot, to a custom reticle from a different trajectory whatever, once the subtensions are known OR MEASURED. This is the alternative system that's nonintuitive (even hundred yd.intervals). It's just a little slower than an intuitive ballistic reticle but has huge implications in that it can be used with any reticle.

I have that Leupold scope on my Knight Long Range Hunter MZ. The B&C reticle works great. It took a good bit of time to get all the bugs worked out, but once I did I am very happy with the results. With my MZ I use the 10X power ring. I also have a Nikon with the BDC reticle. I do not care very much for it.

The B&C and the VH reticle's work great. It just takes time and practice. You must be willing to take the time. The reticle is not a quick fix. Tom