Explain 'moa' To Me

[MJ]

Cute? No, just tired of covering this ground in detail over and over for no reason. If all people care about is MOA @ 100 yards what is the point? Most will or can not use it at @ 600 yards. Fewer still have scopes that can be used like this. Beside a little laugh is good.

My scope was made in 1941 and I do undersatnd and know it's mote (a bartender also) for people with the $29 Bushnell 3X9. On my scope I know even in poor light the range estimation is more important. Having said that I also know and this should be more important the one click is worth 3 inches @ 300 yards but again so what. At 300 yards I just aim for the button and at 400 yards I aim for the coconut. Ergo @ 200 and closer you aim for the bells. Past those ranges I know my drop is 24" and add four clicks of range or 4X6=24. the problem arises when the next target is back @ 200 yards and you need to pull back those four clicks aquire the new target + -4 clicks in four seconds. This is a common shot for many courses. Lighten up and have fun with it. By the time you do the math consult the stares and check your GPS Mao is gone.
Cheers
MJ

 

[Slugless]

++1 to woof. Silver dollar is 1.5 inches, at 25 yards that's 6 moa. That's good shooting offhand.

I have to be really on top of my form to shoot that well. 'Cause I'm not that good a shot really but somedays I impress myself. 6 moa offhand is better than 90 - 95% of the guys at the range. 3 moa bench is better than 80% of the guys at the range. (50 - 100 meters)

One wake up call was a thread on 10 shot groups. Shooting them taught me I was a much poorer shot than I thought. Try it, it's quite motivational. (there's a good posting of why 10 shots on ar15.com, but max shot count will be limited by the ammunition capacity of the rifle)

Woof, you ever hear of what I call "the Berdan challenge?" It's from the civil war - the sharpshooters considered someone a real rifleman if he could hit a silver dollar at 50 yards 5/5 times, offhand! 8" pie plate at 200 yards, 8/10 times. That's 3 moa offhand.

JTW, if you're putting all your shots into 1 moa, you're not lucky.

I agree with woof. Most rifles, most shooters just can't do it.

 

[PercyShelley]

The terms you specified in your original post were an "angular measurement", not the "distance between two maxima of dispersion". I addressed the statement made, not the statement intended.

And I suggest you re-read your posts before you imply pedantry on my part.

I'm just joshing with you. I do assert though, that MOA wouldn't be as popular as they are were it not for the handy fact that 1 MOA is approximately one inch at 100 yards. But for that, we might well use radians for measuring accuracy.

 

[Zak Smith]

But for that, we might well use radians for measuring accuracy.

Many of us long-range shooters use scopes, reticles, and data calibrated for mil-radians. For example, my S&B scopes have 0.1-mrad clicks.

MOA = (2*PI*R)/21600 calculates the arc length along the circumference of a circle with radius 100 meters. Targets are flat and perpendicular to the centroid axis of bullet dispersion (point of aim, if the scope is correctly adjusted), so the arc length you give will be slightly longer than the number we are looking for.

While technically true, this is wholly irrelevant for both group-size measurement and the flat-fire trajectories used for shoulder-fired rifles. TAN(X) == X for small values of X. The error for values around 3.5 MOA (about 1 mil) is about 1/3,000,000. The error is still less than 1% for angles as big as 150 mrad (just over 500 MOA).


-z

 

[ArmedBear]

"moa" is Hawaiian for "chicken"
"MoA" is the abbreviation for the Mall of America
"MOA" is the abbreviation for "minute of angle"

 

[PercyShelley]

"moa" is Hawaiian for "chicken"

More generally, it's a polynesian word for birds generally. "moa-nalo" was the hawaiian term for a group of flightless geese, which, one presumes, by their sudden disappearance from the fossil record, were absolutely delicious.

While technically true, this is wholly irrelevant for both group-size measurement and the flat-fire trajectories used for shoulder-fired rifles. TAN(X) == X for small values of X. The error for values around 3.5 MOA (about 1 mil) is about 1/3,000,000. The error is still less than 1% for angles as big as 150 mrad (just over 500 MOA).

Again, true, which is why we can get away with approximating inches to MOA on a linear basis. Also, Koveras had taken the calculation of for metric values out to enough decimal places that I found it worth getting silly over. It was an act of pedantic escalation, you see.

 

[taliv]

fine, so it's hawaiian for "tastes like chicken"

 

[PercyShelley]

Yes. Tight groups = tastes like chicken.

 

[glassman]

thanks

Thanks to everyone who took me seriously and helped me learn.

 

[woof]

Show me a moa (Hawaiian chicken) at 100yds and I'll shoot it. More seriously, maybe we should evaluate shooters by the ratio of their benchrest groups and their offhand groups, especially at 100yds and under. I mean, if you can shoot a 1 inch group from a rest, what would you consider good offhand? I've offered to let bench shooters at the range shoot at my big offhand targets, but they almost always decline. It's almost as if they don't want to know. I think if you are going to hunt you have a responsibility to know what you and your rifle can do under real conditions, and not take shots you can't make. Of course if you are only shooting paper it is irrelevant.

 

[everallm]

Woof,

The bench rest guys are usually interested more in the physics and competition of pushing the mechanics of the rifle as well as their technique and less in the weapon as a tool or fun bang stick. I bet if you ask the guys around you that they rarely to never take their weapon anywhere other than Home -> Range -> Home.

Me, I like bangs and want to shoot the s**t out of targets with lots of 0-200 metres stuff with an occasional venture into longer range hard work.

 

[U.S.SFC_RET]

woof Quoted:

When anyone starts talking about moa groups I ask what they can do offhand. When a shooter can offhand hit silver dollar size at 25 yds, pop can at 50 yds and dinner plate at 100 yds, I'm impressed.

I would be impressed as well. It takes practice to do just that. My Challenge is to turn that dinner plate into a clay target. It isn't too great a challenge to hit that dinner plate but what is is to hit that boiler maker "dinner plate sized target" while it's running. That's why I want to shoot clay targets off hand.

 

[PercyShelley]

I think a distinction also needs to be made between shooting a four or five round bragging group at MOA, and a rifle and a shooter that, excluding flyers, simply will not deviate from MOA.

They're two different things.

 

[U.S.SFC_RET]

I agree. Most flyers are not flyers, they are shooting mistakes. Flyers are akin to mulligans in the golf world.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

glassman made this thread asked very nicely:

Can someone please explain MOA to me in terms I can understand.

And you guys turned this thread into a pissing contest. His question was answered within the first 2 posts yet 1" wasn't good enough, 1.04719755" had to mentioned a lot of times and a bunch of other numbers too. C'mon guys, this is The High Road... shouldn't we act like it?

The information on this forum is vast but sometimes................

(This is a general statement and aimed at no one specifically so please take no offense.)

 

[stellarpod]

ArchAngelCD: I couldn't agree more. "Pedantics" indeed...

stellarpod

 

[jacobhh]

Very true. Maybe if they had to use a sliderule for the rest
of the semester, all we'd see in Feb. is significant digits.
When dealing with 100 yds, pi=3.14 etc. Just a little old
grump, grump.