Are You A Mil-Dot Master?

[SwearNoAllegiance]

I've spent the better part of my evening trying to learn the mil-dot scope.

I currently do not own a rifle and have never used a mil-dot scope. My roommate and I are going to buy matching Remington 700s in a couple months and start doing weekly precision shooting at Knob Creek.

This is the first time I've gone over the material. I'm finding it rather complex because I am a knuckledragger and haven't thought mathematically since high school. At least not past balancing the books. I'm also having trouble figuring out how many mils a target is going to be.

I keep reading a 6 ft tall man = 5 mils. If a mil is 3.6" wouldn't that make him 20 mils? I gather, using the formula, height (yards) x 1000 / Mils = Distance in yards that he is 5 mils at 100 yards. Correct? Perhaps I am getting confused because I don't have a mil-dot scope with which to view targets? I could also be totally off base. I have come to accept this.

I'll eventually connect the mental dots somehow but if you've got any practical and down to earth guides that cover the basics, I'd be obliged.

Thanks for putting up with my ignorance.

Oh! The Mil-Dot Master, worth buying?

 

[MCMXI]

SwearNoAllegiance, to range a target with a known height using a mildot or TMR ...

Range (yards) = Height (in)/(Radians*36)

Range (yards) = Height (ft)/(Radians*3)

Range (yards) = Height (yards)/Radians

If you enter the height of a 6' man and 0.005 radians (5 miliradians) in any of the above equations, you get a range of 400 yards.

I have a Mildot Master and it's useful for ranging ... no question.


The last formula works just as well for meters ...

Range (m) = Height (m)/Radians

 

[rrflyer]

by a program called "shooterready"

its a long range training program and it works really well.

and mildot master is g2g`

 

[elmerfudd]

One of the big scope retailers had a pretty good mil-dot training program available on their website for free, (at least the demo version). It would give you simulations with targets out to 1200 yards or so and wind flags and then you would have to calculate the range and windage, make the scope adjustments and see how close your calculations were.

Basically, one mildot equals 1/1000 of the distance. So at 100 yards one dot equals 3.6" Multiply that times 1000 and you get the range of 100 yards. So if a person stands 6' and takes up two mildots, you know they're 1000 yards away. There's nothing really tricky about it, you just need to practice bracketing and computing your distance a hundred times or so and you'll have a pretty good handle on it.

Personally, I find it's a bit of a PITA and doesn't have a lot of application for a civilian. For hunting my cheapo laser range finder works great out to 400m. It's way faster and more accurate than using mildots and I don't anticipate shooting any thing other than targets at any distance past that.

I love mildot sights though. If you map out your trajectory you can use the dots to estimate your holdover very accurately and unlike scopes with BDC's built in, you can use them on any rifle.

 

[ShunZu]

I have to echo Elmer's sentiments... I use Springfield Armory's range-finder reticles built into their scopes and have always reasonable success in long range coyotes. As long as I do my job, the rifle and scope certainly does theirs. I also have an older Redfield LE-12 with rangefinding built in, but it's not as quick and user-friendly as S/A's. Memory work required.

I put the LE-12 and Mil-Dots in the same category... as long as you use them periodically and understand how to use them, they're great. But if you don't use them very often, it's hard to get back in practice... or make that shot when the time arrives.


Just .02.

 

[WNTFW]

http://www.shooterready.com/lrsdemohi.html
http://www.shooterready.com/mildot.html

 

[stubbicatt]

Get the MilDotMaster slide rule. It is pretty helpful IME.

 

[Bwana John]

1858's expanation said it well.

When using his forumula you need to remember the difference between apparent height as seen thru the scope and actual height.

Were is another way to think of it.

(distance to target)(m)= (actual height of object)(m)x(apparent height in mils as seen thru the scope)

Mils are easiest when used with meters.

To compute mils real men use 2 pi radians x 1000 per circle, NOT 6400! But I guess if a 16" gun onboard a moving battleship can land a projectile in a dumster 22 miles away using 6400 it's close enough.

 

[SwearNoAllegiance]

Thank you all greatly!

Especially those who reccomended the Shooter Ready program. The roommate and I are not yet proficient in it yet, but we are hitting the targets that the program gives us.

I'm going to create a study guide that I am going to commit to memory.

 

[DeathByCactus]

http://www.68forums.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=5192

Full guide here.

 

[Leaky Waders]

tagging for future reference

 

[Jenrick]

If you're using imperial measurements use MOA, if using metric go mil. MOA in imperial is roughly (close enough for most of us) 1" per 100 yds (ie 1 MOA at 500 yds is approx 5"). 1 mil in metric is exactly 1/1000, so it's exactly 10cm at 100m.

Ranging a target is based on the simple exercise of taking it's measurements (either estimated if in the field) or actual if on the range, and measuring it with your reticle. Then do some simple math and it will tell you the approximate range. The longer the shot or the more precise a shot the better your range estimation needs to be. Using something of a known size allows you to be pretty dang precise, for instance check your local building codes on what the height and width of commercial doors are.

That's the easy part, the wind is were it gets interesting. Real interesting.

-Jenrick

 

[MCMXI]

If you're using imperial measurements use MOA, if using metric go mil.

The choice is dictated by the type of reticle you're using to range the target and milrad reticles are far more common than moa reticles. You can use milrad for metric or imperial units since radians have no units.

That's the easy part

I think accurate ranging using a reticle is quite difficult. Take a look at the ranging practice thread ... it's not easy to get an accurate range particularly if you have to estimate the size of the target.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=539037

 

[Legionnaire]

I think accurate ranging using a reticle is quite difficult.

Exactly right. Have to estimate the size of the target accurately ... and have to have good eyesight! I find it's a lot easier to estimate range using the Leupold 12-40X spotting scope (with mil dots) than with my 3.5-10X mil dot scope.

Oh, and the Mil-Dot-Master is a handy tool.

 

[taliv]

I think it's hard enough that I'm driving to 10 hours one way to NC to take a two day class on mildot ranging in November.

I bought a mildot master about five years ago. It's been gathering dust.

 

[esheato]

I wish I was a mildot master....if I could find a class on optics/ranging and mil vs. moa systems, I'd be willing to drive too.

Looking at the available tactical/long range rifle courses, there's a lot of material in them that doesn't apply to me. I'm not a sniper and don't plan on pretending that I am. I just want to be able to effectively hit targets at long range with some sort of ability.

What I want to learn is how to utilize my optics to their potential and some range practice to reinforce those new skills. I've got two nice scopes, one mil and one MOA, that I really don't know how to use properly.

What I'm counting on is eventually running across someone who has these skills and is willing to do a little training.

 

[taliv]

http://www.snipershide.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2005609#Post2005609

 

[esheato]

Yup...that's the one I had seen.

Unfortunately, 8 hours of driving barely gets me out of Texas and last I checked NC is a bit further than that.

 

[MCMXI]

I bought a mildot master about five years ago. It's been gathering dust.

I find it useful to convert milrad to moa during matches or load development if I'm using a scope with moa adjustments. My spotting scope has a tactical milling reticle and all of my scopes have mil reticles but all of my Leupold scopes have moa adjustments. I measure the offset in milrads then use the MdM to get the equivalent in moa and make the appropriate adjustment on my scope. The MdM mil scale starts at 0.3 milrad but it's easy enough to read off 1 milrad as 3.43 moa and move the decimal place. I could use a calculator too but the MdM doesn't require batteries.

 

[Uncle Mike]

If you'll put on a ghillie suit when you use that mil reticle, it'll be easier for you! lol

 

[bbq fan]

What I'm counting on is eventually running across someone who has these skills and is willing to do a little training.

This always seemed to be the best option for me. I am even willing to buy the rabbi their beverage of choice...

 

[Norrick]

a 6 foot tall man is going to appear to be different "mils" in height based on how far away he is from your perspective (farther away appears smaller). But when they say 1 mil equals such and such inches, it depends on the range again. The one mil being 3.6 inch is @ 100 yards only. At 200 yards it will be twice as small (so something that occupies 1 mil twice as far away has to be twice as big = 7.2 inches) and so on.

Mils (for milliradian) and minutes of angle are two types of measurement for angles, not units of length, so you can't really convert one into the other directly (mils to inches, that is)

One is based off of degrees (360 degrees per full revolution, 60 minutes per degree and 60 seconds per minute, yes its weird like that) and the other off of a unit called radians (basically you take the length of a circle from edge to center and wrap it around the outside, and that length covers an angle equivalent to "one radian". Milliradian splits this radian into 1000 smaller parts we refer to as mils.

I don't know if this post is actually going to help you crunch the numbers so I'll just end it here and see if someone can explain it better.

Once you memorize it, it is not too hard. The hard part is estimating how tall that man is... is he 5 feet, 6 feet? when you plug those numbers in, it changes how far away he is from you (he could be 100 yards... 150 yards.. and the error is based on your incorrect estimate of the size of the object)