All About Riflescope Reticles

[ADMIN]

In weapon scopes we have quite a lot of variety. Part of that comes from the variety of weapon types and part comes from the variety of ways those weapons may be utilized. There is such a thing as a general purpose rifle scope which would tend to come with a general purpose reticle. Anything that's meant to be general purpose can be pressed into service for most needs but it's not going to be optimal for probably any of them. This means it's important to select your reticle with the same pickiness that you'd select your rifle, your ammo or your boots. Make sure it's up to the task. Read More...

This is a thread for discussion of the article, All About Riflescope Reticles, By MeccaStreisand. Here you can ask questions or make comments about the article.

 

[ZG47]

Great article. I have spent years telling new shooters to keep it simple and pointing out to older shooters that if they want to use the fancy kit they need to read up and then shoot at the local NRA range hehich runs out to 1,100 yards. I will be advising people to read this article from now on.

 

[sonia]

very helpful but want to know more about long range scope

 

[BallisticsGuy]

Long range applicability is covered in the article but that's a vast subject area so the article could not fit a huge discussion of long range scope applications. If you would like a more complete discussion of that facet, please let me know exactly what kind of long range you're talking about.

 

[Litehiker]

I use a Horus H59 "Christmas tree" stye reticle on my competition scope, a Bushnell ERS 3.5 - 21 x 50 with FFP. I will say that with this reticle I now "hold" with the reticle 99% of the time and dial a turret a rare 1%. It's that good. BUT IT TAKES PRACTICE to have confidence and familiarity with this reticle.

For hunting I use a SWFA 3 - 15 x 42 with a "Quad" style mil rad. reticle and 1/10 mil click turrets. Since I'm familiar with a similar setup on my competition scope it is easy to use for hunting.

Eric B.

 

[Greyfox]

Great article! I think the most thought provoking part of the article is the defining of the criteria between target, tactical, and hunting. With target and tactical/silloete you are going for X's or hits. I think the lines get blurred when it comes to hunting, particularly if your hunting can be from 10-1000+ yards, and can be further complicated by the size of the kill zone, and whether you carry, sit, or do both. While I participate in multiple shooting sports, hunting is my primary focus and participation in those other sports just serves as an excersize to perfect my shooting skills to be a better hunter. I find that the choice of a perfect rifle/caliber much easier then determining the choice of the perfect scope when it comes to hunting, particularly when the conditions are diverse and you are looking for versatility.IMO.

 

[FearNoWind]

A really good article. I'm saving the link to post when I see forum titles "What Scope Should I Buy".

 

[Litehiker]

Your very informative article said that a "Christmas tree" style reticle "...makes a pretty marginal scope for shooting groups or Xs."

I have to ask why that statement was made.

In my own use I see the Horus H59 reticle every bit as capable of shooting groups from 4 mils hold over and 3 mils hold right as if I use the main zero mil crosshair. To me "A reticle hash mark is a reticle hash mark." regardless of where it is located. Holding on the 4 mil over and 3 mil right mark will absolutely not change my group size.

Eric B.

 

[BallisticsGuy]

Your very informative article said that a "Christmas tree" style reticle "...makes a pretty marginal scope for shooting groups or Xs."

I have to ask why that statement was made.

In my own use I see the Horus H59 reticle every bit as capable of shooting groups from 4 mils hold over and 3 mils hold right as if I use the main zero mil crosshair. To me "A reticle hash mark is a reticle hash mark." regardless of where it is located. Holding on the 4 mil over and 3 mil right mark will absolutely not change my group size.

Eric B.

It was made; and this isn't sarcasm, because it's true. You're right to question that though because in that form it does come off as an unsupported assertion.

It's based partly on observation and convention within the competitive shooting world and partly on my own participation in many of those relevant shooting disciplines. The short explanation is many-fold but 2 main points bubble up:

The practical point:
1. Thick crosshairs block stuff you might need to see and tree reticles tend to be FFP which get pretty thick at max magnification so there's a use case fail right out of the gate... can't aim-small-miss-small if you can't aim small to begin with. No, not all tree reticles suffer this problem. This is where it gets marginal in actual use against toward the objective.

The logical point:
2. There's no benefit to the visual clutter for the group/x shooter. Sports that score by group size or X count or both will permit sighters to be fired before shooting for score so there's no use in having 35MOA of vertical hold-off indicated in the reticle. These shooters simply will not use the tree feature of the reticle so it's wasted on them and as such constitutes wasted money for their application. This is where the choice is marginal economically.

Remember, we're not talking about rattling off a 3-round group for the ol' meat gun before hunting season or otherwise piddle farting around. The sports that count X's and/or group size are world class demonstrations of accuracy and precision where hundredths of an inch is easily the difference between winning and 2nd place. Reticle thickness is a factor, buying only what you need is a factor, not having a bunch of clutter itself is a factor.