Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Why are so many shooters afraid of a mil/mil scope

I was in a local shop the other day and they showed me a new scope. It was MOA so I asked if they had the same thing in mil/mil. They said the don't order mil/mil because no one will buy them.

I have no problem running moa or mil but I also started shooting a mil dot reticle with moa knobs back before there were affordable laser range finders. It always bugged me that manufacturers couldn't seem to match the turrets to the reticle so things have improved much now that most of them do.

I just don't understand the fear of going mil/mil. At a basic level it's all just turning numbers on a dial to what your chart or app says. I prefer mil just because its decimal and a .1 mil is a little coarser than 1/4 moa. I think mil reticles are a little less crowded and more intuitive than moa.

Another thing I think manufacturers get wrong is bragging on 4 or 5 times magnification on a ffp scope.
I think ffp is better at 3 times magnification because the reticle is easier to work with on the extremes. I really prefer to hold my windage off from the reticle. For example I think a 5-15 ffp makes more sense than a 3-15. Five power being plenty low enough.

I actually think a 5-15 would do nearly everything I'd ever do hunting. Any higher than 15 and you get heat distortion and poor low light.

If I owned a scope co I'd probably go 3-9, 4-12, 5-15 and maybe a 6-18 for dual purpose varmint rigs all ffp and mil/mil with smaller capped windage turrets. All though personally I could do it all with 3-9 and 5-15

And of course my flagship model would be a fixed 8 with a 42 or 45 mil objective, mil/mil, small capped windage, and parallax down to 10 meters or even lower so it could also run rim fire and airgun.

Bb

No clue....but my typical logic is that if it’s on my mostly set and forget rigs, MOA is preferable. On my turn and/or hold rigs, MIL is better (for me), because that’s the intended use for it, and how I was broken in on my LR training. It’s where my mind naturally goes: to the mil and tenths, not a ruler measurement and uneven fractions. Hell, I don’t even do it as much in most of my hunting or range time. It’s more nostalgia, from past days and play time. To my logic, mils are inherently easier to grasp, even though MOA does exactly the same. Most outside the military (even now, with LR shooting being Uber cool) have only ever overheard of mils during range or shop gossip. They haven’t actually used them back and forth with MOA. A few have used both for LR forever, and they maybe think in MOA faster....but mostly it’s probably mere familiarity from figuring out their Tasco ‘06 @ 100, a week before deer season.

Not sure it's fear, just unfamiliarity. Also, many if not most hunters are well equipped for what they do with simple reticles in set and forget scopes. Rifles in the approximate range of 2800-3000 fps or so zeroed at 200 are good to go to 300 without dialing, and multi-point reticles like Leupold's LRD work well too for such work, and don't require much thought from excited hunters. Guys who forget to turn their variables down after using them instead of binos are also likely to futz up with their knobs.

Dialing requires accurate adjustments too, and how many hunting scopes have those, even now?

I’m pretty excited to have my first MIL/MIL scope in my hands tomorrow, after much apprehension. Today I went about adding a tab to my ballistics spreadsheet rerunning all my tables to mils...the calculator I used for this (Zeiss) will do MIL drops but still spits out click in MOA, so I began converting the click values to MILs based on the MIL drops and woah...that was easy. -1.9 MILs? That’s 19 clicks. The same drop in MOA on my rifle is -7.24 MOA. 7.24 MOA? That’s err uhh 28-29 clicks? Just a small example.

Good luck with your new scope. I think you'll love it. Let us know when you get it mounted and shot a few rounds through it if you don't mind.

The scope the shop showed me was supposed to be a long range tactikool style with target turrets etc. Definitely not a set and forget hunting style. They still said no one wants it in mil/mil. I think it is just fear of the unknown. I see no downside at all to mil but do see some upside. Tenths would seem more intuitive to most than 1/4s. Maybe it's easier for me to accept because I've spent a good deal of time in metric countries.

Bb

Same with the metrics. Ohhhh chit what the F'?

.0001, .001, .01, .1, 1,10, 100, 1000, 10000

What's not to like?

Took me about 10 minutes with my first good Mil/Mil scope to know I'd never go back.

I bounce back and forth between mils and moa makes no difference to me

^^^^Swings both ways.

I ain't sceered of mil

Might just be because many still think of MOA as inches, and that's easier for them to relate to and doesn't require learning anything new. Not at all the same as "fear", more like reluctance or laziness. I doubt very much that everyone, or even most, that buy scopes like that are really planning to use them to dial much anyway, but rather to hold up or off as needed, or for "the look". Based on the people I see at the couple of ranges I frequent, few really have a grasp of how to use or adjust scopes in general, and once they wander into a zero, don't want to take a chance of futzing it up by messing with the knobs (actually, considering how most scopes "work", that might be wise!)

Sometimes it's hard for those who are experienced or accomplished to relate to those who aren't and who maybe just want to find a way to get by; and not just with shooting.

I also like the mil dot, but only on a scope I intend to do hold overs on. I would not like it that much on a dialing scope. I also agree that these erector ratios have gotten out of hand. In particular we see it with the nighforce 8:1 series NX8. but unlike you I want a scope that goes down to about 3x on the low end and maxes around 15x. so I guess for me 5:1 erector is about perfect. that would be 2-10x for 3-15x etc. I think 6:1 is too much. I basically generally operate my scopes on low or high power and seldom in between. I only dial to high power if I need to.

as to the rest of the mil system. If you live in a country that uses the metric system. Mil is a no brainer. but for me I still prefer MOA. because when I miss I think oh I missed by 5 inches, or 14 inches whatever. I still think of my misses in inches. Mil for me makes me convert the inches to mils which is an extra calculation for me, not that MOA at distances isn't also a calculation but its just an easier calculation in my head.

I do think FFP and the mil system goes together better. If you want to do a MOA reticle and FFP you need to really jump to 2 MOA markings which isn't ideal.

I'm not skeered. I just don't like cluttered reticles.

I have organized nuts and bolts from 2-56 to 7/8-14.
A bucket is labeled, "Metric and suspected metric"

Why do so many mil shooters think "their" way is better?

Color me as reluctant, possibly lazy. Bull headed? Commonly called, Old School.

I'm 66, have over 2 dozen scopes, all MOA. And, MOA is all I've ever had. My ballistic software only uses MOA, or I haven't found a way to change it(Sierra Infinity) & I don't have smart phone. I'm not a once a year shooter & I've been twisting knobs for nearly 30 years. I shoot @ 800 plus yards several times a year just for fun or friendly local competition. Everything I do with my rifles/scopes has become nearly second nature, or as far as my pea brain will let me.

I am reluctant, but not against it.

But seriously, should I try to change across the board? Or try to blast some cobwebs out of this old brain & try to deal with both?

Exactly-- Mil/Mil is stupid simple! MOA gets convoluted when thinking in inch's which most every shooter i have been around does. I can't count the times shooting an prone match when the guys would go down to check targets after the sight in string with a tape measure trying to figure out how many clicks needed for so many inch's correction. With my Front Focal scope I look at the reticle, look at point of impact and dial. Duh ---------- doesn't get any easier.

I've never had anyone explain to me what is so complicated about MOA. Of course, I have no trouble understanding feet and inches either. GD

i like mil-dot scopes but yes many don`t. but there might be a golden time to get a deal on a mil-dot scope too just because many don`t use,want or understand a mil-dot scope .