mildot hold over estimation?

[Tacit Blue]

Let's say I have a 308 bolt gun, with 4x16 50mm scope. My target is arond 480 yards, steel plate buffalo which I estimate to be around a 2 ft wide and 1.5 ft tall so 2x1.5 or call it 2x2. My zero is at 100 yards, this scope is a MOA/MIL scope.


I know that MOA is 5" at 500 yards or so. Question is how would I calculate required hold over for this target? I tried 3/1 half mills, that got me on target pretty close.

[kcstott]

Hold over... No you should dial in your elevation and hold your wind.

two: why would you ever get a Moa Mill scope?? your reticle should be in the same units as the turrets.

3.4377 moa to the mil
Mil is actually easier to calculate then moa.
a mil is 1/1000 of the range you are shooting so at 480 yards 1 mil = .48 of a yard or 17.28"

My dope says 2.9 mil up from 100 meters to 440 meters (480 yards)

So you can hold 3 mil high and be good or dial up 10 moa rounded off.

But thats only for my dope. You need to know your drops at various ranges, and I mean go out and shoot at those various ranges as the ballistics programs are only close and usually off by a half mil or more at various ranges.

A half mil is not much at close range, but once you hit 600-800-1000 yards or meters that amount of error is huge.

[Tacit Blue]

It was a cheap scope that came with the rifle. The MOA turrents/Mil dot came with it.

My brain everything makes more sense in MOA, dont ask me why. But it does. What would be advantage of dialing in for elevation? I found a formula using Mil-dots if you range with it, you can take ballistic data drop say at 500 yards say 64" or so. So 64 divided by 18" which is mils size at 500 would=like 3 1/2 mills hold over while still retaining your 100 yard zero can you go back to. I guess you could run out of mils on the scope.

The advantage of mil/ mil would mean less math?

What is the advantage of just dialing it in ? Other than it being precise?

again, I'm learning so please feel free to critique.

[thospb]

The advantage of the Reticle matching the Turrets is watching where you hit and making adjustments directly from the lines in the Reticle. IE: you see the bullet hit low 2 mils, you can dial your elevation up 2 mils, as opposed to converting mils to MOA and dialing. My first scope was a military Leupold that was MilDot/MOA turrets. Not a cheap scope and state of the art at the time.

[thospb]

The advantage of "Dialing it in" is that when you are engaging multiple targets you will want to designate one as primary(dialed in) and the others will be hold over or hold under.

[kcstott]

It was a cheap scope that came with the rifle. The MOA turrents/Mil dot came with it.

My brain everything makes more sense in MOA, dont ask me why. But it does. What would be advantage of dialing in for elevation? I found a formula using Mil-dots if you range with it, you can take ballistic data drop say at 500 yards say 64" or so. So 64 divided by 18" which is mils size at 500 would=like 3 1/2 mills hold over while still retaining your 100 yard zero can you go back to. I guess you could run out of mils on the scope.

The advantage of mil/ mil would mean less math?

What is the advantage of just dialing it in ? Other than it being precise?

again, I'm learning so please feel free to critique.

My opinion and how my brain works, It keeps me from forgetting where I held, I already have enough of an issue holding for wind and having to make a concerted effort to remember where the hell I held on a NRA target.

The advantage to Mil/Mil is zero math. I have a second focal plane leupold Mk4 8.5-25 and I 99% of the time shoot it at full power magnification. that mean I don't care about FFP reticle nor do i need it.
As thospb said what you see for error on the scope reticle is what you dial in on the turrets. I have a TMR reticle on my scope and it is great at holding for wind and small elevation changes at 1000 yards. I see my 8 or 9 ring hit, I may make a correction to elevation or i may just hold it depends on my call (where I think the position of the reticle was on the target the moment the weapon was fired) then I hold my wind and let if fly.

if you shoot for one year in Mil/ Mil or Moa/ Moa you'll see the ease at which you can navigate the target.

As for the Multiple target thing, there are courses of fire in competition that are really screwed up and not realistic at all. If the course of fire didn't allow enough time to dial in my come ups I'd figure out what the longest shot was dial in 2/3 of the distance and hold for everything else. but again thats not realistic as if it was the case you'd have a spotter next to you with a Mk11 picking off the close threats and you the sniper taking out all the stuff beyond 500 yards.

Keep in mind I shoot F class TR, I don't shoot any of the simulation or tactical courses of fire.

[smoothy8500]

How do your crosshairs stay on target if your holdover is 13 MOA and you had to give 3 MOA Left for wind? I do see this a lot on Midrange matches at the 600yd line with new shooters. Kentucky windage is fine when shooting soda cans in the desert. Try to learn your elevations with known distances. Almost every cheap scope has numbers or hash marks on the turrets so you can stay informed as to what you are dialing for Your rifle and ammo. Make notes or write it on a piece of tape on the stock.

[kcstott]

13 moa is only 4 mil up and 3 moa is just shy of 1 mil. that still within the view of a typical long range scope that has 10 mils of cross hairs.

Granted it's damn near out side the box but yeah.

As for the NRA targets they cheat. the rings are perfect MOA dimensions.
F class starts with a .5 MOA ring then goes to 1, 2, 3, etc. the number on the water line split the rings so now you have 1/4 moa increments on the target.

but standard practice is get you elevation dialed in then dial in some wind and hold from there unless the wind really goes wonky then you dial in a bit more.