Busy Scopes

I don't like a scope that has anything other than a cross hair in it. Still use an old Weaver K6W.

That's not a busy reticle...

This is a busy reticle.

For competition I like them. I have slightly simpler reticles in my PRS and NRL22 rifles. Depending on the stage I will do either dial and/or hold off depending. I will often dial for one range before the stage starts and then hold for the rest. Other stages I dial for all just depend on how many different ranges and much time I think I will have.

For competition I don't have ranges memorized but I use Strelok on my phone to help me figure all this out. For my hunting rifles that have much simpler reticles I will write the ranges for the hold off on the top of the scope for easy reference.

Howa 9700 said:

For you guys playing the long distance games, and have these busy scopes, do you know what all the dots and hashes mean and have memorized them to range with? If not, do you use them for anything?

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Yup.

I have recently had reason to update some optics. Got a big Christmas Tree (Tremor 2 https://www.horusvision.com/reticles/tremor2/) in the new spotter and use the neat reticle features all the time, with the geared head esp, to directly measure offset hits, size of target, etc. But also, nice big area above center to see stuff.

On my longer range rifle (just a .308 but I've run out to 1400 yds successfully... couldn't quite get on at a mile as Spearpoint is too windy!). It has an MSR2, and for that I indeed have read the manual. In fact, I still skim it regularly to get used to it, and it's open in a tab on my browser now.
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1841/6713/files/MSR2_manual_v1.4.5.pdf

A lot of these complex reticles are becoming a bit like that one. It is broadly a mildot (well, a mil-based hash) with extra bits around the edges you simply ignore until you need them. This actually has some neat features that in practice make it /easier/ to use rapidly than a straight MilDot. The weight of the lines, the floating (and illuminated) center dot, etc. are designed to sorta, kinda, be optically and cognitively a bit like a straight Duplex. Heavy lines to orient, light lines to trace to center, etc. For holdovers or measuring misses, etc. you CAN focus on the little hashes if you want but they don't really distract as much.

There is much discussion of this in the relevant fora, that e.g. Christmas trees provide the best possible holdover method... but also can get you lost (lots of dots to count!) or clutter up the FOV for varying targets, conditions, spotting hits or trace, etc. Which is why new reticles appear all the time now and why there are so many choices. Trying to get the right balance /for different sports and shooters/ of all the features and needs. If you hate a reticle: fine! But there's likely another one that's more full-featured than German #4 or Army MilDot, and doesn't annoy you. The only bad part is many reticles are semi-exclusive so you have limited choice in one optic maker, have to look at others to see more choices. Look around a bit to see what all is available.

I will start off with this statement -

Use what you like and are comfortable with. There is no right or wrong answer and it will depend on what your uses are on if a plain duplex, MIL-DOT, or Christmas tree reticle is best for you.

I have scopes MIL-DOT and Christmas tree reticles and I do use them for hold overs when shooting at different distances. I was taught years ago to use holdovers and to dial in. It will depend on the situation and how quick I have to make a shot on whether I dial or use holdovers. I don't have very many scopes with a duplex reticle anymore.

Like others I us both depending on the application. I like the Horus/X-Mass tree, especially when spotting for myself as I can tell by the splash what my correction needs to be. IF I have time, I like to dial, if not I use the reticle holdover points. Regardless, it's another thing that takes practice.

My hunting scopes are either plain duplex, which usually gives me out to 300yds using the lower duplex taper point, or simple BDCs that are good out to 500. Further than that and I'm dialing after consulting the dope taped to my stock.

Example, for my .260 Rem, the juncture is 306yds:



For this rifle (actually a carbine) the simple duplex works for the most likely usage, which is stands and blinds.

That same juncture, held "on hair" is correct for 400yds, which is way further than I anticipate using this rifle for:



For longer shots to 500 or so, I prefer a BDC with dial capability:



There's no doubt in my mind that a mil dot (or MOA) or Horus is a more capable reticle when it comes to distance or smaller TGTs. My average shots on deer though are under 300yds, with the vast majority being well under 200yds. So a simple duplex works for me.

I was handed my first mil-dot scope 30 years ago, so if the claim “we” only used simple crosshairs for 50yrs were true, then “we” would have to be ~90 years old, or more… Horus, as a company, is old enough to drive, a generation old itself, so already in the early 2000’s, we had demand for graduated reticles with additional detail… A lot of folks like to talk about the good old days and act like the world suddenly changed last week - but only because they failed to realize that the world passed them by DURING the good old days, and the change they’re just now noticing happened a long time past…

Also reminding, there’s a lot more detail in a mil-dot reticle than just 4 dots radiating away from center on each stadia. The size of the dots, and gaps there between offer additional reference detail - some dots are 1/4 mil, some are 1/5, but their sizes to top of dot, center of dot, and bottom of dot offer additional detail beyond just the common perception of only offering 1mil gaps. Once we get past our MPBR, we have references 0.2/0.25 above and below every full mil. 0.75/0.8, 1.0, 1.2/1.25, 1.75/1.8, 2.0, 2.2/2.25 - and naturally, gauging approximately 1/2 the gap between dots is relatively precise as well, so we have nearly every 1/4 mil defined…

Ranging with reticles is a “hit a horse” game at long range, as the precision just isn’t there. At distances where it really matters, the error of typical size estimation results in a prohibitively significant error in our resulting range estimate. By the time we get past about 500-600 yards, we can’t range precisely enough in the reticle to really matter. Say you range a man, reticle reads 2.2mils, and you guess he’s 5’8” - that’s 859yards. With my 300wm, that’s 5.2mils. But what if he’s actually 5’10”, that’s 884 yards, which would be 5.6 mils… or maybe he’s 5’8”, but we mis-measured and he really should be 2.3mils, that’s only 5.0mils… so our error sensitivity is 0.6 mils… which doesn’t seem like much, but at 821-884, we’re talking about 31” of misestimation… sure, in some situations it may be appropriate to take such a shot, dial 5.2, hold center, and hope to incapacitate the target with a shot landing somewhere between shoulder and belt line, but in most situations, 31” of potential error isn’t acceptable. Reminding, we’ll likely have >9” groups at this distance, so a 31” POA error may incur a 40” POI error… not exactly confidence inspiring…

Howa 9700 said:

For you guys playing the long distance games, and have these busy scopes, do you know what all the dots and hashes mean[?]

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Yes. It’s not so complicated - but someone actually has to practice using their tools to be readily familiar. Guys waste a lot of time counting if they aren’t familiar with the reticle. Just as a new driver behind the wheel might look down at the floor to find the clutch and the brake - time wasted which isn’t by an experienced driver.

Howa 9700 said:

have memorized them to range with? If not, do you use them for anything?

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As mentioned above, it’s not actually difficult to range with the reticle, but it’s not terribly useful to do so for long range.

Personally, I use the additional references in my reticles nearly every time I venture to the range. Whether to hold over as point of aim reference or to measure corrections, I use my reticles on every trip.

Howa 9700 said:

I ask, as I recently looked thru a Sightron MOA-2 scope, and am wondering if such a scope is any better than just the plain jane duplex.......no marks at all.

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If you never shoot farther than a couple hundred yards - reminding long range largely doesn’t start until 800 yards - then you have no use for long range tools.

Howa 9700 said:

In a hunting situation, I can't believe there is time to do all the math and click things in.

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Luddites love to say this, but they ignore the fact that many of us have been doing so for generations already. Most people don’t shoot far enough while hunting to have use for it, but those of us which DO hunt at mid and long range do dial or hold. Plenty of time to do so - and again, being well practiced and familiar with your gear, and having prepared range cards and nearly memorized data - begotten via such practice - makes the difference. As an analogy - think about table tennis players; well practiced pros can react to a 65mph volley and return the ball with precise angle and spin, while a newbie picking up a paddle for the first time wouldn’t even perceive the ball quickly enough to even get a paddle in front of it.

I can say with certainty, I wish I would have had a graduated reticle instead of a simple Duplex on the scope I used to shoot the buck I harvested in 2011. Using a 45-70, I ended up holding 30” just by estimating hold in the scope, which at 250 yards, was 11.5moa, or 3.3 mils, with 10” of wind, 4moa, 1.2mils… with no reference in the reticle, and holding out in open glass, it was a hell of a lot more difficult than it needed to be.

Howa 9700 said:

Same in a PRS shoot. So are they really useful for anything?

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Huge misconception on your part here due to your unfamiliarity with the sport. An instance where folks who don’t do something likely shouldn’t pretend to speak as if they know something.

We use these reticles - and demand updates and upgrades to reticles by manufacturers - in PRS extensively. Yes, we dial most of our distances, but some stages dictate use of our Christmas trees - either by rule or by design, meaning we’re not allowed to dial sometimes, and in others, the time pressure is such we don’t have sufficient time to dial all targets without risking running out of time.

Additionally, we almost always end up holding for wind on every shot. Even if we dial one distance for wind, if our pre-stage call is wrong, or the wind changes, or we turn into or out of the wind from one target to another to another, or as targets progress farther out on a stage, we don’t dial wind the way we do range, we simply slide across the horizontal stadia, using the wind hashes.

5 years ago and before, most reticles used in PRS had 1/2mil graduations, today, most have 1/4 or 1/5. Why? Because we told manufacturers we want more granularity for wind holds in our reticles so we can more precisely hold on target and more precisely measure our misses, even when our misses hit the target (but miss our POA).

These are the reticles I’ll use this season for PRS and NRL competition - BECAUSE they have the detail I need to do the job I’m doing.

Which of these would be the easier shot to make?




I made the former, but the latter is a hell of a lot easier, and would be a far more ethical tool for the task.

I personally dislike the truly complicated reticles. I don't really want to have to take a seminar to learn how to use my rifle scope. For folks who do, of course, that's entirely their own business.

At one point I did become reasonably competent with mil dots, but am sure I have forgotten most of it by now. And I suppose I can see the usefulness of BDCs and such, but I fear that it encourages tyros to take shots they really should not, at least at live animals.

All told, give me a plain old duplex and I'm a happy man.

I just sometimes wish I had shot opportunities far enough to make use of my fancy reticules and Strelok. I do that in PRS/NRL22 matches but very rarely when hunting. On my current hunting property given the heavy brush and very broken terrain the only time I use a hold point other than the primary is when hunting armadillos with my 300 BO subsonic ammo and its as often to remember that it shoots about as low at spitting distance as it does at 75 yards. With nearly any other rifle cartridge I use I am always within point blank range for the cartridge and a deer's kill zone. I would love to take a deer at 300+ yards and that is just not possible on my property. Last year's deer was one of my longer on the property and was all of a mighty 60 yards.

@Howa 9700 - you’re shooting short range, long range tools don’t apply. That’s fine, but casting shade at tools built for folks doing that which you aren’t isn’t very sensible.

YOU don’t need it. Many of us do. You’re shooting short range, you simply don’t need long range shooting tools. Bottle caps at 100 is a “point blank” game, about 1moa. If you can hold that out to 1000, and can do that at speed, while balancing on positional obstacles, you’d likely enjoy competing in PRS. But shooting 1moa targets at 100yrds isn’t the same thing - any PRS rifle on the line, and any shooter behind it which has been in the game more than a season or so is shooting smaller than bottle caps at 100yrds - we’d change our barrels if we shot that poorly.

Again, your perception of PRS is faulty. We’re not ranging with our reticles, we’re not doing math on the clock (NRL-Hunter does, but our format and time allowed is completely different - and even for these, we don’t range with the reticle, we use LRF’s, because as I outlined above, ranging with the reticle is NOT precise enough for long range shooting). At PRS/NRL matches, we know the ranges of the targets before we approach the line and create a data card which we wear on our arm or on our rifle, then we have 90, 105, or 120 sec (depending on match director discretion) to deliver 8-12 shots on 1 to 10 targets from 1-10 positions.

In these two photos, you can see my data card on the side of my blue stocked rifle, and can see my armband data card - a football wrist coach - in the photo with my green stocked rifle. We’re not doing math on the clock, we’re not ranging with the reticle, and not ranging the targets at all. We’re shooting. The reticle is used to 1) measure impact offsets, whether hit or miss to allow corrections, 2) hold over for wind calls, and 3) hold for elevation/range when the stage requires it, whether as a requirement in the stage’s CoF, or out of necessity to spend less time dialing within the stage design. For example, if we have 2 targets, near and far, shot from 4-5 positions, as is often used for the timed tie breaker stage, we’ll dial for ONE target then hold for the other to avoid spending time dialing on the clock.



You don’t know what you don’t know. Your assumptions about the sport are wrong - we’re not “doing all the ranging, the math and factoring in [our] dope,” on the clock during a 90 second stage. We’re starting from standing, port arms, building 1-10 positions, and engaging targets at multiple distances. A lot of guys finish many stage designs within 40-45 seconds, the speed skills stage will finish 9 shots within 20-30 seconds (run 10yrds, shoot 3 different targets Left to right, right to left, then left to right again). And we’re not doing any “math” largely at all - we read a number, punch it into a ballistic engine, write the output onto our data card, and dial or hold to that data during the stage.

Varminterror said:

...These are the reticles I’ll use this season for PRS and NRL competition...

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Great, very quotable post. One question: Why so many different reticles?

To my tiny brain, it would be a lot to memorize, so I presume that's all on purpose and you pick the best one for the different situations, and if so: love to hear a little about how you personally have selected those setups, and how you pick which gun/cartridge/scope/reticle for a particular environment/target/whatever.

I don't use the dots to range and click, but have used them to change point of aim.

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Well, that’s a start. Just to know they are useful, someday you may learn the other things they can do for you and they will be there already.

I prefer a reticle features to dialing. Obviously, there are limits to that, but I'm hunting at modest distances and all I'll ever need is a 200 or 300 yard zero (depending on the cartridge).

As already pointed out, the "basic" duplex reticle has quite a few features for subtension. It's not just a crosshair.
I have a Swarovski 4W reticle that is still pretty basic. It adds some tick marks on the horizontal line. It helps with range estimation of big game and with wind hold.
It's so simple, even my kid figured it out on his own using a scale deer target.

I think reticle features favor first focal plane scopes, at least with variables. I like fixed power myself, but the world is going the other way. With a SFP variable, it would be better if high power was what I'd want to use all the time. All my scopes are SFP. If I had a lot more reticle features like some of those shown in this thread, well, that would be stupid without FFP.

Dialing requires taking a hand off the grip. It also demands an erector/turret system that tracks well and those tend to weigh a lot. Reticles help you make precise holds without taking your hand off the rifle, or your eye off the target (if you need to read the turret and not just count clicks. Reticles weigh nothing.

shoobe01 said:

Great, very quotable post. One question: Why so many different reticles?

To my tiny brain, it would be a lot to memorize, so I presume that's all on purpose and you pick the best one for the different situations, and if so: love to hear a little about how you personally have selected those setups, and how you pick which gun/cartridge/scope/reticle for a particular environment/target/whatever.

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The simplest answer I can offer as to why I have so many options is probably not very satisfying. I have a lot of rifles, and not all of them have the same scopes. I have 5 Bushnell Elite Tactical scopes with G3 reticles, and I did use two of them exclusively for my first few seasons, but the advantage of consistency isn’t huge - and not every match is critical; not surprisingly, some matches, I will just shoot for fun, so using something different is sometimes nice.

When I started shooting PRS, both my primary and my backup rifle had Bushnell DMR II’s, with the G3 reticle, and the consistency was nice. Then I won an XRS II with the same reticle - basically the same scope, but higher magnification and better glass. Then the next season, I won a Kahles K525i with the SKMR3 reticle, which is a much better scope than my Bushnells, right in time with my growth in the sport to want a better scope, so that’s on my primary rifle for the last few years, with the XRS II on my backup. But I noticed a couple weeks ago that the illumination isn’t working on my Kahles, so after the season opener for our State club this weekend, I’m shipping it back for repairs… for ~3months with their current turnaround times… and I just picked up a Nightforce ATACR with the Mil-XT reticle for my ELR rifle, which isn’t complete, so I’ll use that as my primary for a couple of months while my Kahles is in the shop. I won a Burris XTR II with the SCR reticle few seasons ago, and won an RT25 with the SCR II reticle last season, and have those on my PRS Gas Guns - one of which replaced a Bushnell DMR II Pro with that G3 reticle (which may go back onto it soon). I won a Nightforce NX8, also with their Mil-XT reticle last season also, which I stuck on my NRL22 rifle, and have an older Vortex I won in my first season, with their EBR-7c reticle on a 10/22 which I’ll probably play with at a couple NRL22 matches this summer too. Dividing here - the minimum parallax free distance on the Bushnells and Burris’ don’t come down close enough for NRL22/PRS Rimfire, so those are non-starters for that game.

My wife did approve budget to either buy a couple new Kahles’ this summer - which would be their new DLR with the SKMR4 reticle instead of the 3 - or swap to Tangent Thetas, so maybe I’ll reconcile consistency between at least 4 of my rifles. But I’ll still have a bunch of other rifles and scopes, and I’ll still like using other stuff on occasion.

As far as the difference between driving experience goes - eh… It’s kinda like driving vehicles, I have an older F350, an F-150 as my daily driver, often drive my wife’s Grand Cherokee, ride a crotch rocket and keep my FIL’s old electroglide which I ride monthly to keep oil moving, ride a 4 wheeler, have a mountain bike, a triathlon bike, and a road bike… they all drive differently, but I can drive all of them. If I step away from my triathlon bike for a while, it feels like riding a razor blade when I come back, but it comes back quickly. Sure, my F-350 needs an entire parking lot to turn a circle, which makes my wife’s Jeep feel like a Zero-Turn Mower, but I can park either of them… my FIL’s electroglide feels like a pendulum at my ankles compared to my Triumph Daytona, but I can ride both just fine. So yeah, my SKMR3 with .2mil wind holds is easier than my Bushnell or Burris with 1/2mil wind hashes, and my Christmas trees are easier to hold in the reticle with wind than my SCR or Mil-R, but I can still drive any of them.

Honestly, the only thing which throws me off is when the magnification collar turns opposite direction. Even with my left side windage knob and top collar parallax on my Kahles, I never really struggle in transition to other scopes - but backwards throw levers for magnification catch me every time.

A backwards magnification collar would really mess me up.

I can see having the windage knob on the left side for right hand shooters to make adjustments without taking their firing hand off the rifle.

I have not participated in any competitions yet. I have several different scopes and have no problem switching between them with their slightly different reticles. As long as you remember what the sub tensions are for each scope, you should be good to go. I used MIL-DOT reticles for years until I bought a Primary Arms ACSS HUD DMR 308/223 scope. And all of the scopes since then have some form of Christmas tree reticle. I will say that I do not care for the ACSS HUD reticle, I have a harder time using the center chevron compared to fine crosshairs. My eyesight probably has something to do with that.

12Bravo20 said:

I can see having the windage knob on the left side for right hand shooters to make adjustments without taking their firing hand off the rifle.

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westernrover said:

Dialing requires taking a hand off the grip.

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So does cycling the bolt.

Most of us shooting PRS will do most of our dialing with our right hand - again, because it’s coming off of the gun to run the bolt, and we’re supporting and driving the rifle with our left hand, either supporting the rear bag or driving the rifle at the front. So moving the left hand means we had to break BOTH hands, and more importantly, the breaking the left hand is breaking the support for the rifle, most likely meaning I’ve lost the target in the scope = not good at all. So we open bolt, dial, close, bang, repeat.

This process also facilitates the rule to move between positions with an open bolt. We open the bolt, dial, and then move, grabbing the support bag and lifting the rifle with the left hand, then when we get to the new position, we can just find the target, close bolt, and bang. As opposed to finding target, dialing, then close and bang… so we try to train to dial before we close, because that inherently means we’d dial before we move. Economy of movement once the target is acquired = close + bang, only. Messing up on those kinds of efficiencies is what separates the guys finishing stages in 45-50 seconds, and finishing the high movement stages with time to spare, versus the new guys or lower performers which time out on all of the high movement stages, and struggle to finish any stages.

Varminterror said:

...But I noticed a couple weeks ago that the illumination isn’t working on my Kahles, so after the season opener for our State club this weekend, I’m shipping it back for repairs...

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Funny how that's exactly why I have switched some reticles of late. TWO different similar-age Steiners died of illum fail, cannot be repaired but unlimited warranty means: brand new new scopes for free, and trying out new reticles while at it.

Thanks for the long explainer.

And yeah, I also have enough optics that sometimes a brightness control or power ring goes the wrong way and it takes a moment to catch up to what I have done wrong. Good one there!