Rookie seeking some scope advice

[RCC]

I have been an avid hunter for many years but here in the past few years I have gotten more interested in long range shooting(hunting). I currently own rifle scopes from all the big names and have found the vx-7 on my 30-378 weatherby to be the best I have bought yet.

Now to my question,I am having a 6.5-284 built(remington action,lilja barrel,hs stock,jewel trigger, etc).I am giving serious consideration to a night force,but I find the reticle selection very confusing. After reading alot of posts I will assume the np-1r is the best for my set up?

Could someone explain to me how this reticle works in simple mans terms as far as yardage to target and marks on the reticle?

[Buffalobob]

The NF reticule is calibrated at some magnification power, perhaps 11X or perhaps 22 X. There is mark on the ring to index it so you don’t get confused. At that setting, the reticule hash marks are 1 Minute of Angle (MOA). One MOA is 1.047 inches at 100 yards and twice that at two hundred yards and three times that at three hundred yards and so on until at 1000 yards the hash marks measure 10.47 inches in the vertical. So as you can see those little decimal places begin to add up.

The windage marks act the same way except they are 2 MOA.

There are things you can do with the reticule is you wish.

1. Use it to spot your shot and make a better second shot- probably what most of us do. Usually that is a windage issue for me. Your primary elevation and windage adjustments are the dials and the reticule sees little use until there is a miss.

2. Use it as a hold over reticule for a couple of hundred yards and then dial at ranges that need more precision. For example if your rifle is zeroed at 100 yards you know that you have a 2 inch drop at 200 yards (1 MOA) and a 9 inch drop at 300 yards (3 MOA) and a 20 inch drop at 400 yards (5 MOA). So with the power rings set at the calibration mark you can hold over 1 mark for a 200 yard shot or 3 marks for a 300 yard shot or 5 MOA for a 400 yard shot. This is helpful if you are just walking a long and see something and do not have time to fool with dialing up the knobs. Of course if you had a 300 yards zero you don’t need to do any holdovers until the 400 yard shot which would then be ( 5 MOA minus 3 MOA equals 2 MOA) a 2 MOA hold over.


3. Forget about the knobs and dialing and just use the reticule for all of your shots at all ranges