Buying a scope. MOA or MIL?

PatMcD said:
Yeah. MOA reticles are brutal. I get epilepsy every time I look through this.
Click to expand...

You may wanna get that looked at.

Anyway here’s a good example, two of the same reticle. I think I just find the mil version more readable?
 

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Y'll should have payed attention in your high school trigonometry class

MOA - minute of angle
MIL- short for milrad or milliradian

both are a unit for angular measurement.

- most everyone know there are 360 degrees in a circle. Each degree is further divided by 60 minutes, or 21,600 MOA in the whole circle.
- the same circle is 2π (6.282) radians. There are 1000 milliradians in each radian, or 6,283 milliradians (MILs) in the whole circle

Most people know that 1 MOA is 1" on target at a distance of 100 yards. Its actually 1.047" (just a bit off, not a issue with most applications)
however everyone talking about X MOA is Y" at Z yards is a little off because of that

MIL is a better system for measuring subtension on target because it is defined as the angle that subtends at the arc of the circle = to the radius of the circle.

there is the math explanation
the real world rifle scope explanation is that MIL is a larger unit of measure, and therefor easier and quicker to make corrections. Its also base 10 so easier to quickly do math in your head. 1/10 MIL is precise enough for all practical applications. The slightly finer adjustment of MOA is usually only used/needed by some of the long range benchrest shooters.
 
lukewarm_fuzz said:
This is the sort of thinking that drives people into one of the two camps, that somehow mils are tied to meters and minutes are tied to yards.

If you reference everything off your base angular measurement it’s all irrelevant.

Left 2.5 moa is 2.5 moa. Right 4 mils is 4 mils. There’s no need to introduce any other measurements into the process with modern optics.

Obviously if people are talking old school reticle styles without subtensions you can make a better case for picking one over the other.
Click to expand...

Golddiggie said:
What are "mils" in real world measure units??
At least MOA is easy to know, since it's 1" at 100 yards. I'm sure I'm not alone in being able to process that with minimal thought.
As I mentioned, IF I was new to this, maybe mil would work. At this point in my life, MOA is just easier, and faster, to process. I don't got no TIME to try to switch to the other.
Click to expand...

"in real world measure units"
there is no need to know or talk about how many inches or centimeters or whatever on target.

If someone says "this rifle shoots 3 inches low" I need to know the distance, right?
If he instead says "this rifle shoots 1/2 MOA low" I can use that at any distance. (hint, thats the 3" at 600y)


If a miss can be clearly spotted, you use the reticle to measure (this is the angular measurement) and make the appropriate correction.
 
lukewarm_fuzz said:
It also results in cleaner reticles. MOA reticles are usually more cluttered divided into quarters rather than tenths
Click to expand...

You cannot claim one is cleaner than the other.

There are some HORRIBLE reticles both in MOA and MIL. One is not better than the other.

Some manufacturers just go insane with all the sh*t they add to the reticle, I sometimes wonder if they are on drugs when designing some of those reticles. Lines everywhere. It is stupid.
 
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SJan said:
Y'll should have payed attention in your high school trigonometry class

MOA - minute of angle
MIL- short for milrad or milliradian

both are a unit for angular measurement.

- most everyone know there are 360 degrees in a circle. Each degree is further divided by 60 minutes, or 21,600 MOA in the whole circle.
- the same circle is 2π (6.282) radians. There are 1000 milliradians in each radian, or 6,283 milliradians (MILs) in the whole circle

Most people know that 1 MOA is 1" on target at a distance of 100 yards. Its actually 1.047" (just a bit off, not a issue with most applications)
however everyone talking about X MOA is Y" at Z yards is a little off because of that

MIL is a better system for measuring subtension on target because it is defined as the angle that subtends at the arc of the circle = to the radius of the circle.

there is the math explanation
the real world rifle scope explanation is that MIL is a larger unit of measure, and therefor easier and quicker to make corrections. Its also base 10 so easier to quickly do math in your head. 1/10 MIL is precise enough for all practical applications. The slightly finer adjustment of MOA is usually only used/needed by some of the long range benchrest shooters.
Click to expand...

Thank you for bringing some sense to this autism
 
Broc Tuah said:
You cannot claim one is cleaner than the other.

There are some HORRIBLE reticles both in MOA and MIL. One is not better than the other.

Some manufacturers just go insane with all the sh*t they add to the reticle, I sometimes wonder if they are on drugs when designing some of those reticles. Lines everywhere. It is stupid.
Click to expand...
I can claim whatever I like, you don’t need to agree 😂
 
Lol... everybody hates "busy" reticles until they use one correctly. Sure, a simple duplex or that circle thing might be great for shooting at deer or in new england where 200 yards is about the most youll ever practically shoot. But if you're wanting to shoot at distance, shoot at moving targets, etc, quickly something like a tremor3 is superior in every single way.
 
SJan said:
Y'll should have payed attention in your high school trigonometry class

MOA - minute of angle
MIL- short for milrad or milliradian

both are a unit for angular measurement.

- most everyone know there are 360 degrees in a circle. Each degree is further divided by 60 minutes, or 21,600 MOA in the whole circle.
- the same circle is 2π (6.282) radians. There are 1000 milliradians in each radian, or 6,283 milliradians (MILs) in the whole circle

Most people know that 1 MOA is 1" on target at a distance of 100 yards. Its actually 1.047" (just a bit off, not a issue with most applications)
however everyone talking about X MOA is Y" at Z yards is a little off because of that

MIL is a better system for measuring subtension on target because it is defined as the angle that subtends at the arc of the circle = to the radius of the circle.

there is the math explanation
the real world rifle scope explanation is that MIL is a larger unit of measure, and therefor easier and quicker to make corrections. Its also base 10 so easier to quickly do math in your head. 1/10 MIL is precise enough for all practical applications. The slightly finer adjustment of MOA is usually only used/needed by some of the long range benchrest shooters.
Click to expand...
High-school trig? Lol I didn't even take HS calc (nor college calc). There's a funny loophole in HS and college mathematics (at least when I was in school) that allowed me to focus on statistics and avoid Calc and Trig. Now that statistics have been deemed racist (as well as math), I'm sure the options are infinite for avoiding that racist subject.
 
AllaSnackbah said:
Lol... everybody hates "busy" reticles until they use one correctly. Sure, a simple duplex or that circle thing might be great for shooting at deer or in new england where 200 yards is about the most youll ever practically shoot. But if you're wanting to shoot at distance, shoot at moving targets, etc, quickly something like a tremor3 is superior in every single way.
Click to expand...
Ummm, I use that reticle in the Sightron S-tac 1-4.5x at 600 yds almost every weekend, along with everybody else who competes with a service rifle.
 
PatMcD said:
Ummm, I use that reticle in the Sightron S-tac 1-4.5x at 600 yds almost every weekend, along with everybody else who competes with a service rifle.
Click to expand...
I think he’s talking about practical shooting off the flat range.

Also tremor 3 is terrible, I will fight about it 😂
 
lukewarm_fuzz said:
I think he’s talking about practical shooting off the flat range.

Also tremor 3 is terrible, I will fight about it 😂
Click to expand...

Blasphemy. Tremor3 is a murdergraph.


View: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DEK5bEivMa-/?igsh=MXc5cGQwNDExZnBpcw==


Here's a scope video from my buddy rob this morning. This is why tree reticles are superior, see how he misses off right edge and uses the reticle reference over his point of impact to shift for his next engagement? Its that easy.
 

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