Reticle Question-Please Advise

[Scot E]

Originally Posted by thehulk

lol thats def a way to figure it out, trial and error.

Can anyone just pick up there rifle and shoot 800 yards with no adjustment other than holding high? Id be impressed, thats for sure.

The top dot would be your 500 yard hold, about 9.3 MOA with my atmospheric conditions and the bottom dot would be the hold for 800 yards, about 21.5 MOA.

If you are zeroed properly, have the correct atmospheric conditions loaded into your program and there is no wind, then yes it would pretty much be a point and shoot with those reticle holds to hit your target.

Scot E.

[Broz]

Originally Posted by thehulk

Can anyone just pick up there rifle and shoot 800 yards with no adjustment other than holding high? Id be impressed, thats for sure.

I agree, and especially if you are talking a 1 moa target or less. There gets to be a lot of room for error between subtensions at this distance. The farther out the more the errors are multipled. This is why I choose to dial and hold dead center reticle.

Jeff

[rscott5028]

Originally Posted by Broz

I agree, and especially if you are talking a 1 moa target or less. There gets to be a lot of room for error between subtensions at this distance. The farther out the more the errors are multipled. This is why I choose to dial and hold dead center reticle.

Jeff

Plus the OP was based on zero wind which makes it fairly eay to hold for elevation with such a reticle. But, not so easy in the real world to hold for wind+elevation. It's best to dial for elevation because that will be fairly constant at a given range while wind can be variable.

[Scot E]

Originally Posted by rscott5028

Plus the OP was based on zero wind which makes it fairly eay to hold for elevation with such a reticle. But, not so easy in the real world to hold for wind+elevation. It's best to dial for elevation because that will be fairly constant at a given range while wind can be variable.

Part of that depends on the reticle being used. With the OP's reticle I would agree. With a reticle that offers wind hold on the reticle, the Premier XR, Vortex Razor, Vortex's new HS reticle, etc., then there is a legitimate way to hold for both elevation and wind.

I am not going to argue that using the reticle for holds is the most accurate form of shooting. I don't believe it is. If I were in a shooting contest for groups I would be dialing and holding exactly on target with the cross hair. Having said that, IMO there is a real place for graduated reticles for big game hunting purposes. We don't need to hit a dime to be successful, we just need to get it in the boiler room. Out to 600 yards or so, the distance where a shooter doesn't have to worry about atmospheric conditions affecting POI, using a reticle for drop instead of dialing makes a lot of sense. It is much faster to get on target and it is the closer shots where speed can make a difference between success and a missed opportunity. Also out to 5-600 yards is about the max distance where a graduated reticle can be accurately used for ranging an animal if our rangefinder happens to malfunction or fall 1000 feet of the cliff we are setup on. Finally, I really like the concept of being able to call shots for my shooting partner in MOA or MIL by simply watching their POI through my scope and measuring the POA vs POI. If you can get your shooting buddies to all match scopes then it is a really fast and easy thing to call hits, misses, or how far off you are from a center hit while practicing shooting with wind, etc.

I personally like using a reticle for holds out to 5-600 yards or so and then dial in for distances further out. Horses for courses I guess but this system has some real advantages in my mind. And I fully admit to being a LR hunter who isn't going to pass up a nice animal just because he is only 2-400 yards away, even though I practiced at 1000 yards all summer. I realize that diehard LR shooters mostly setup for only LR shots and in this case I can see the reticle offering less benefit.

Scot E.

[rscott5028]

Originally Posted by Scot E

Part of that depends on the reticle being used. With the OP's reticle I would agree. With a reticle that offers wind hold on the reticle, the Premier XR, Vortex Razor, Vortex's new HS reticle, etc., then there is a legitimate way to hold for both elevation and wind.

I am not going to argue that using the reticle for holds is the most accurate form of shooting. I don't believe it is. If I were in a shooting contest for groups I would be dialing and holding exactly on target with the cross hair. Having said that, IMO there is a real place for graduated reticles for big game hunting purposes. We don't need to hit a dime to be successful, we just need to get it in the boiler room. Out to 600 yards or so, the distance where a shooter doesn't have to worry about atmospheric conditions affecting POI, using a reticle for drop instead of dialing makes a lot of sense. It is much faster to get on target and it is the closer shots where speed can make a difference between success and a missed opportunity. Also out to 5-600 yards is about the max distance where a graduated reticle can be accurately used for ranging an animal if our rangefinder happens to malfunction or fall 1000 feet of the cliff we are setup on. Finally, I really like the concept of being able to call shots for my shooting partner in MOA or MIL by simply watching their POI through my scope and measuring the POA vs POI. If you can get your shooting buddies to all match scopes then it is a really fast and easy thing to call hits, misses, or how far off you are from a center hit while practicing shooting with wind, etc.

I personally like using a reticle for holds out to 5-600 yards or so and then dial in for distances further out. Horses for courses I guess but this system has some real advantages in my mind. And I fully admit to being a LR hunter who isn't going to pass up a nice animal just because he is only 2-400 yards away, even though I practiced at 1000 yards all summer. I realize that diehard LR shooters mostly setup for only LR shots and in this case I can see the reticle offering less benefit.

Scot E.

It's always nice to have both options. But, one should verify and practice with both so that all goes as planned when you need it. All of this theory is great until you get in the field and need to make that one cold bore shot.

I like to confirm my clicks, reticle, POA/POI, return to zero at 100yds. Then, confirm drops to as far out as possible using the turrets, then go back and confirm drops using the reticle.

In addition to my drop charts, I usually print diagrams of my reticle with yardage and windage notations. It seems like I've got a different style reticle in every scope. It would be nice to have one rifle/scope/reticle/load to memorize.

-- richard

[cwinner]

I was kind of maing a rethorical point with the milk jug scenario.....using a reticle hold off is another way of making an educated guess at " Kentucky" windage......mabey I missed making the the point, but I was trying to say it takes lots of real world practice to be able to make consistant long range shots. I would hate to see someone take a shot at game based on some calculation of holdover on a reticle that they have never field verified. With most calibers ,at or a little over 400yds will put the crosshairs off the "hair" with a holdover method........

Shoot for the dime, there are enough varibales out there that makes it extremly hard to hit!! when you cant hit that milk jug every time, thats your effective range.

[Broz]

Originally Posted by Scot E

Part of that depends on the reticle being used. With the OP's reticle I would agree. With a reticle that offers wind hold on the reticle, the Premier XR, Vortex Razor, Vortex's new HS reticle, etc., then there is a legitimate way to hold for both elevation and wind.

Scot E.

Scott, my reply was shortly after you posted the pic of the reticles with the dots for aim points and we were talking 800 yards. I will use some numbers here for my 300 win with 210's at 2995 fps. Which does a pretty good job on wind. So you wold be looking at about a 14 moa hold over and for 7 mph wind about 2 moa. To me that puts your dot for hold out there in "no mans land" basically trying to line up with two planes out there on a blank page. Plus in some cases or maybe even most cases you would be between subtensions. Do I misunderstand that you feel you could do well on this shot at 800 and would use it on game? I would not like the fact I didnt have any sighting point and would feel this shot was very risky. Or am I missing something here?

Thanks
Jeff