Moa Reticles

[Mikecr]

Thats a damn good example of what I'm talkin about Milanuk.

[MachV]

Had the privelage of watching a couple of masters at rangeing and holding over with the R2 reticle a couple years ago.The spotter is a walking calculator that had me lost most of the time on his figureing but I did pick up a little of it,very little! I finaly gave up trying to range with it...epecially past 400yards and went to a range finder:o
Shot prairie dogs with a guy that had a NF 5-22 last spring.I was spotting for him and calling off the hash holdovers. He was a clicker and didnt understand what I was talking about so I started reading off MOA up and windage. He started hitting with relative ease but asked how I knew how much to hold over and click?
Thats easy=He had an R2 reticle marked off in 2 MOA hashes and I had my 6-24IOR calibrated to MOA hashes.I could see where the hit was and used the reticle to call corrections. In his 25 years of varminting he had never done this and had ben wasting the value of the R2 reticle by not useing it :confused:
I can use either MOA or Mills for guestaments and follow up shots but prefer MOA for its finer hashes! If I only get one shot please hand me my Geovids

[sscoyote]

Monte, if i'm not mistaken that reticle has 2 MOA subtensions in it, right?? I have the TMR reticle that has .2 mil subtensions. That equates to .72 inch per hundred yds. (i like inches to yds.). Using the 2 MOA system the interpolative difference between 540 yds. and 630 yds. on that 16" tgt. is only .2 of a subtension unit. With the finer stadia subtension of .2 mil, the difference is .6 of a subtension unit. This is much easier to define with the eye than just .2. Now i'd bet dollars to donuts that most guys are just gonna use the TMR at 1 mil subtensions (3.6 IPHY), and attempting to interpolate only .25 of the .2 mil subtension unit. The reticle is capable of much better than that, and should be used at the finer .2 mil subtension, divided interpolatively into .1 of a subtension unit.

Admittedly, 630 yds. is a far distance for reticle-ranging, but still better than guessing if the laser doesn't cooperate. Plus it's a lot of fun to do, IMO.

[milanuk]

The R2 reticle has 2 moa hashes on the vertical stadia (wider ones @ 10 & 20) and 5 moa windage hashes.

The R1 reticle has 1 moa ticks on the vertical, w/ wider ones every five, and 2 moa windage ticks.

The shooters were using everything from SA Gen III w/ mil-dots to NF/Leupold/USO w/ mil-dots, NF w/ R1, R2, USO w/ GAP reticles, S&B w/ whatever reticle, etc.

It sure seems like the difference between 2.2 (a little more than 2) and 2.4 (just about half) would be plain obvious to the user... but it wasn't. Don't know if I 'caught' part of the belt or frame holding the target up, or if it was all just mirage/optical fuzz (there was a good bit of that), or what. Later in the day we had a *very* interesting stage where we had five targets, measuring 10x15" (last one was 21" circle). We had a five minute 'group' ranging period, where people ranged w/ their reticles, crunched the numbers, shared notes, argued, etc. about what they thought the ranges really were. Then we started shooting, one at a time. The trick was... once you shot, you couldn't adjust the scope again. So you not only had to range w/ the reticle, you had to hold off w/ the reticle. R1 + Exbal was a life saver there for us .308 shooters. First target was about 420 (people ranged it as anywhere between 400 and 450), next was 440-ish, then 600 (I ranged it at a hair under 650), then 650 (I ranged it as 700), then 830. I hit the first two, shot over the next two, and center punched the last one. I'd initally ranged it as something like 990, though. Found that on that particular target, I got one reading measuring horizontally, another measuring vertically. All on a perfect circle target, of known dimensions. That time I'm pretty sure I was 'seeing' some of the frame in the vertical measurement. FWIW, nobody got all five, and only two people (again shooting very flat trajectory 6.5-284 and 6-6.5x47L rounds) got more than three.

Again, it illustrates (to me) the difficulty of taking an accurate measurement with a ranging reticle even on a target of *known* dimensions. On something like an animal where you have a general 'range' of sizes, or an 'average', and an even smaller target area (the typical 8-10" diameter 'vital zone' shot)... it seems like the odds stack against the shooter making an accurate assessment of the range. Someone who practices religiously might be the exception. It's still a good skill set to have for when (not if) the batteries die in your rangefinder ;)

Monte

[sscoyote]

During the winter i hunt coyotes quite a bit. In the country i hunt them there are a lot of antelope running around. Last season i did some reticle-ranging on them using a PFI rapid reticle in their 3-9X 22 LR reticle. I really like this reticle as it provides excellent direct windage reference, sort of like a mini-Horus vision system. Anyways 1 day i was playing around with a buck and some does. Using that reticle i was approximately 30-50 yds. off everytime between 400 and 500 yds. (can't remember exact calcs now). When it really comes down to it, i think reticle-ranging game is probably only good to 400-500 yds. maybe. No further at all for me...unless it's a pr. dog or groundhog.

Hey Monte, how'd those guys like that 6X6.5-47L??

[milanuk]

They seem to get excellent accuracy and performance similar to a 6XC or .243 Win. Not sure about the barrel life yet, but both of them are machinists by trade and can fit a new barrel any time they want... so they don't see short barrel life as as big of a problem as other people might ;)

[sscoyote]

Interesting, thks.