Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Meopta Optika6 3-18x50mm FFP Evaluation

Guys, when I’m talking about reticles here, I’m not trying to make a “80 year old dude with cataracts sitting over a corn feeder at night trying to shoot 300 yards” reticle. The market has no option other than the MQ for a reticle that is optimized for 100-800 yard hunting where the primary means will be dialing elevation, and holding wind- that is still usable completely without illumination. It’s hard to do, and unless you compromise ability to shoot at 200-600 yards, or use illumination, or use a donut, really the only way is a #4 reticle that is modified.

Needs of reticle-

1). Open center to spot splash, impact, corrections, and make tracking game easier

2). Means to hold some elevation, and enough windage for any hunting shot

3). Ability to use in extremely low light without illumination on lowest power from 0-150’ish yards

4). Illuminated center dot


There’s only a few ways to get there, and if you go back to my post about alternative positions in the field, time constraints, a bit of stress, etc; doing that starts driving you to want certain things.
We have done a lot of shooting in that venue measuring performance, and then having the shooters give feedback and answer questions about reticles (among other things), and I can say without hesitation that what no one has asked for is MORE thick stuff in the center.
Guys may not realize it, but when taught to shoot correctly, we get A LOT of information through the scope, mostly within 2-3 mils from center, and the place that is “least” important is below the aiming point.








With a #4 style reticle you don’t need that thinner part to be that thick as you are not using it on low power, your using the 6 o’clock bar. About .05 mil thickness or maybe even a bit thinner on the thin portion will be close. 4 mils is good on windage, 1.5 mils for bottom elevation, mostly clean 12 o’clock, tiny illuminated center dot. The deal is to get the center open enough to see what’s happening especially during recoil, but have something bold enough to aim under 200 yards on low power.








4 MOA (just over 1 mil) is extremely tight. Way too tight if using thick outer bars. A LOT of information would be lost with that. Not to mention that 1 mil of windage is too far the other way, as a normal day in Wyoming will have more than that at 200 yards.










The problem is the top heavy post blocks the portion of view that we get most of our information from. It’s a trade off, but with the bottom post coming to 1.5 mils, you just aim at the heart with that, or use the tiny illuminated dot.


And yes, the only differences in scopes should be glass and features. Mechanical function “should” be the same whether it a $200 scope or a $2,000 one.








No problem.

There are no plans to make the 2.5-15x in FFP with mils. However, IF these turn out to be reliable, then that scope with a hunting reticle as being discussed would set the market.

Sorry, that was a typo, I meant 4 Mils. Just move the current MQ thick bars in by 2 mils on each side.

👍🏻 Absolutely.

Good stuff...

FFP, Mil....

Do we want .1 tick marks along the cross hairs, left and right? Both up and down?



0.05 mil just between SWFA 10 and 12X cross hairs....

Not to distract from the OPs fine work, but to answer you, I’m pretty simple. Same scales as the 3-9 or 6x42, just arranged like this:



So, take a SWFA 3-9x42, cap the windage, scale down el knob if possible, and use this reticle. That gets me from dark timber to as far as I’ll ever shoot at a critter. It’s simple, very capable, no illumination necessary, and will center quickly on a snap shot. I can dream...

Yes. I would add a bit more of the Mil Quad features. Like the 12x. Have a vertical hair. Empty diamonds. It's somewhere between 0.05-0.07!

Firedot optional.


?

That would be about perfect. I prefer an equal distribution of space to all three posts, as I feel that this makes my brain/eyes balance everything quickly.

If the center dot was illuminated, there'd be no worry about "dark" shots.

I got a naked model 70 waiting on one......
A swfa 3 -9×42 hunter version would sell.
Dont know why they haven't done it yet.....

Just get a BDC .ha

To clear things up: I designed the MRAD, MRAD1 and MRAD2 reticle for Meopta. MRAD in the 5-30x56 made it in exactly the way I drew it up. MRAD 1 in the 3-18x50 was modified a little, but it is close. I have not seen MRAD2 in the scope yet, so I do not know whether it was changed.

With reticle designs, you can not make everyone happy all at once, so I sorta assume that some people are going to like it and some won't. It was not designed as a pure hunting reticle. I was asked to do a crossover reticle, that could do most things in a pinch, so that is exactly what I set out to do.

Overall, I am pretty happy, how both MRAD and MRAD1 worked out, but you can be certain that I pay attention to user reviews and anything I learn is considered for the next design I do. I do not work for Meopta, so I do not have an opportunity to see the design in a scope before it goes to production.

Also, given that this is mostly a hunting forum, if I were asked to make a reticle purely for hunters, I would do it a little differently. The rest of the reticles in the Optika6 scopes are their own internal designs.

As originally conceived, MRAD has a 0.2 mrad based tree that extends 12 mrad down, while MRAD1 was supposed to have a 8mrad tree. MRAD2 has a 6 mrad tree, but a much sparser one. For production scopes, Meopta used a 12 mrad tree in the MRAD1 reticle. Aside from that, it is veyr close to my original design.

A couple of specific comments: 6 mrad of hold on the left and right of the primary aiming point are there for lead. You very rarely not need that much for wind. For lead, sorta standard reference holds are 3mrad and 6mrad. Whether holding for 10mph lead is a big deal for a 3-18x scope is arguable, but that was one of the design criteria since the scope is intended for accurate gas guns, SPR-type application, long-ish range hunting rifles, etc.

The circle is there for visibility on low power when the illumination is off. That is why I specifically asked Meopta to only illuminate the center dot-hash arrangement. In the MRAD2 reticle for the 1-6x24FFP, I asked them to illuminate the circle as well, since you need it to pop a lot more on 1x.

Adding additional wind holds inside the circle was something I went back and forth on a fair bit. Adding more stuff inside the circle makes it pretty busy, but I suppose there is a way to do that without obscuring too much stuff. The wind holds inside the circle is easily the most common criticism of this reticle i have received to date, so it is something to consider carefully. I have a couple of versions of this reticle that incorporate additional wind holds. Perhaps, I will try them on the next design I do a reticle for.

I am messing with March's FMC-3 reticle right now that has such an arrangement and it seems to work pretty well. They use it in a comparatively low power 1-8x24 Shorty scope with a significantly larger circle. With a 2 mrad circle it is a little trickier. I would probably make the circle a little bit bigger and the wind holds a little thinner on a higher power scope, but it is definitely viable.

ILya

The donut kept me from the LRHS. Don't like donuts.

nightforce moar solves all the problems in a hunting situation. Maybe not in a tactical situation, but this is a hunting forum

Phucqk!

That this is the “hunting optics” forum did not escape the OP. Had you read and comprehended all he has written on this thread ... you wouldn’t need to suggest otherwise - or post your drivel.

I love donuts, just don’t want to shoot thru one
[img]https://forum.snipershide.com/attachments/clinton_2-png.7166501/[/img]

You do realize the “OP” brags about shooting “100k” rounds through his tikka 6.5’s but post pics of guns with factory barrels on them? But then again you say go read the thread, Maybe you should and be careful what information you swallow as gospel and from whom. Go ahead and keep swallowing everything the group and pack thinks. I don’t give a Rip about anyone’s approval

Where did Form say that?

Noted.

You simply have zero clue. And I mean zero....

The scope had 100k rounds “on it”, not the rifle you Dingus.