The concept of a mil is just too coarse for my shooting.
At 500 yards, one mil is 18 inches. Not all ballistics programs show wind deflection in mils, especially hand-held ones. ATrag software from Horus Vision does show mils, but they use fractions of a mil, because their grid reticles are spaced at 0.2 mil. Holding between two lines allows you to hold within 0.1 mil, or 1.8 inches at 500 yards – but it works best with their grid reticle (see
www.horusvision.com). Another complaint I have about mil-dot scope reticles is that typically they are designed to subtend one mil at around 12 power (Premier Reticles put a white dot on the power ring to indicate where the reticle subtended correctly). Now that might work OK in a 14x scope, but if you are shooting a 6.5-20x scope, you are throwing away a lot of power – like shooting a 300 RUM loaded to 308 Win. levels. What is the point? But all is not lost. Just crank up your scope and identify
what one mil subtends in MOA at 100 yards. For example, my 6.5-20x Leupold scopes subtend about 2 MOA at 20x – just about perfect! Holding halfway between the crosshair and the inside of the dot is 3/4 MOA, while halfway between the crosshair and the outside dot is 1 MOA. One popular reticle these days is the holdover reticle.
These reticles have a series of crosshairs designed to allow shooters to hold over at various ranges. I have several of these in 4.5-14x and 3.5-10x Leupold scopes. Again, the problem here is that they are designed to be used at various power settings. The Leupold Varmint Hunter Reticle is designed for two classes of cartridges: small bullet drop and large bullet drop. For small bullet drop, you crank the power ring to 14x on the 4.5-14x. For large bullet drop cartridges, you place it on 12x (these are indicated with triangles on the power ring). Depending on the cartridge you are using, you use either the small bullet drop or large bullet drop. These kinds of reticles also are aiming points to allow for wind hold-off. If you don’t have the power set correctly, your subtensions are likely to get messed up. Last year it almost happened to me: I was moose hunting in the Yukon. We spotted a moose with huge paddles and tremendous fronts. After slicing the range to 285, my guide asked if I could take the shot. I got into a sitting position, pushed my left arm through the loop and tightened the keeper. I was dead steady as I held my 300-yard crosshair on the moose. I then shifted the crosshair into the wind, thankful for the Leupold B&C reticle. Just before I shot, however, I realized I had not turned the scope all the way up. I quickly cranked it up and let ’er fly. The moose hangs over the fireplace in my trophy room today. Some shooters try to do the scope subtension math using
literature supplied by various scope manufacturers. Often their Web sites offer a tremendous amount of information. My advice is to just go out and see how much that reticle subtends. Put a target out at 100 yards and see. Zero your rifle for 200 yards, and then shoot a group at 400 yards with the 200-yard zero. Put a big orange circle in the center of your group, then go back and figure out if the 400-yard zero crosshair works or if you should adjust your power selector. Zoom it up or down until your group is covered by the 400-yard circle. Now put a witness mark on your scope. You can do the same thing by shooting at rocks. Pick a spot on a rock, range it, and shoot it. Normally you can see the bullet splash on the rock with nothing more than your scope.
The reason I go into such great lengths about bullet
drop is because changing the scope magnification will change the subtension not only for bullet drop, but also for wind. You must know exactly how much the wind aiming offsets subtend or you are going to have problems holding off for the wind.
While I favor reticles such as the Leupold B&C or
Varmint Hunter Reticle for general purpose hunting, I don’t believe they are the best for long-range shooting. For long- range shooting, I prefer to click up for elevation and use a reticle that has wind compensated aiming points on the main horizontal crosshair. The Nightforce NP-R1 reticle has aiming points spaced at 2 MOA intervals. I used this a few days ago in the desert. I was shooting at a rock target at 750 yards. I judged the wind to be between 0 and 8 mph, with 4 mph the prevailing wind. When shooting at long range I like to put out a shock-corded wind flag; I use that in conjunction with my anemometer to identify the moment I want to shoot. In this case, I figured I would wait until I had a 4 mph wind. Since my mil-dot reticle subtends 2 MOA, I used that as the aiming point. I got into position and then waited for the flag to blow at the “4 mph angle.” The shot hit the bottom of my 3-inch aiming point. In the varmint hunting field we almost always hold off
for the wind. For the most part, the vast majority of shooting is done at ranges under 300 yards. Flatness of trajectory is not really an issue for the most part, so normally all we have to do is worry about the wind. Scopes with alternate aiming points really come in handy for this kind of shooting. On
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