Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Dumbest reticle?

I worked on a friends rifle a couple weeks ago so I am not sure what Vortex calls this debacle of a reticle but it was a Diamondback Tactical scope. the bottom half was so busy that it blocked out the light.......making hold over and windage useless

Not so much the reticle itself, but the application. The Burris Fullfield E Series(?) with the undersized reticle...looks almost like its an FFP reticle, except it doesn't get any larger with magnification change. I have no idea why they decided to make it so small. Speaking of that, Crimson Trace offered one on their Series 5 scopes that was ridiculously undersized. I had one of their 34mm tubed FFP 3-18s, and the reticle was almost invisible below 8-9x...it was bad enough that it was borderline unusable without illumination below 7x, except the illumination wasn't bright enough for daylight use. Crazy thing is, kind of like the Burris, at max power the reticle still didn't fill the field of view.

Nikon varmint reticle on the old Monarch varmint scopes. Small thin reticle with no reference point to correct for second shot.

I've got scopes mentioned here in the thread, that someone else didn't like...

but I happen to like them myself...

a plain old Crosshair is great for deer hunting 200 yds and under...but I find scopes with other reference points, to be pretty handy
when shooting distances, or for shooting ground squirrels...

I seem to find uses for them for myself.. which may not even be what the designer or manufacturer intended them to be used for or how to be used..

The Nikon Ballistic Plex for instance... I find them serviceable for my needs, such as sage rat or prairie dog shooting, and also as a deer hunting scope... got a couple of those..

The same with the mentioned old Redding reticle from the 60s, with a cross hair and circle.... Bushnell has something that sounds like that on what they call it on their shotgun scopes... 1.5 x 4.5 range or so...I've found them useful on my 260 Remingtons, and have taken deer easily at 300 to 400 yds with them, when a rest was available... like the hood of a 4 Runner...

plain old cross hairs is what I find is the least useful, most of the time... I prefer a German # 1 over a regular cross hair..in fact I have found them to be real useful shooting sage rats or prairie dogs, over a Crosshair or target dot...

I find reticles that folks think are too busy, very useful, instead of having to turn knobs for elevation or windage...

Guess maybe it is because I spend a lot of time at the range, getting familiar with them at various ranges...

I find these type of scopes offer a lot more versatility in a rifle, over a regular set of plain old cross hairs.

I'm personally glad the market is full of available options in today's market....


addendum: What I find that is useless in my opinion, are a lot of these first focal plane scopes, on high magnification scopes...
like 6 x 24 in FFP.... anything under 10 power is pretty useless and over like 18 power or so, you only see partial of the reticle system installed..I fail to see the logic in sending that out the door...other thing is beyond what I consider logical, is spending the money on $2000+ Nightforce scopes..
guess if you are a military sniper, they have a place...they are more expensive than In paid for my first new car as a senior in high school, that had a decent income for a high school kid... a brand new 1970 VW Bug in 1970....$1950.00 back then...$43 a month on a 36 month loan...

yeah, I know... I'm a real peasant, ain't I?

+3 on the Nikon with the circles.

On a bright day they turn gold & seem to start glowing. They will cover up a prairie dog at nearly any distance. Nikon decided they didn't want to be associated with gun people & quit making scopes. So, with that & the dumb reticle...

Good riddance.

I agree with the previous post about the Nikons with the tiny circle! Thought I wanted one when they came out…until I looked through one. I actually like scopes with BIGGER circle reticles for hunting critters 100 yards or closer. Where I hunt in NY and here in PA they work great for me. I bought a weird little 2-7 variable (Norlett Jaktoptik) with a “euro type” 3 post reticle in it about 30 years ago at a gun show for $30 bucks on a whim. I really didn’t like it, and to me it looked weird, but the guy made me a hell of a deal on a rifle, and I guess I thought buying it evened us out a bit. Thought I’d bury it in the safe and show it to get a laugh now and then. Danged if I don’t still have that goofy thing mounted on my Ruger Mini 14 all these years and rounds later! Very quick target acquisition with that 3 post reticle!

Doc_Holidude

Lee Dot. Unless you’re shooting a snowman in full light.

Honorable mention are the tons of “tactical” reticles that have an entire library of coded script written in Hindu in first focal. As I said in another post a while back these are deemed necessary for success by wannabee sniper ops whose next shot will be 80 yards or less across a clover patch.

Reticles some worse than others

After reading three pages, no wonder company`s still make some crapy reticles, everyone here as bought at least one.

The Leupold hunt plex, with a 20 moa gap between the thick parts, is a real turd.

Same here plus Leupold’s wide duplex for the same reasons ….the thick arms are too far apart.

One that is a good idea in theory but doesn't work very well in practice is the Leupold Rimfire MOA. I like the idea of MOA reference points way better than two or three dots that are supposed to kind of more or less coincide with some particular cartridge and bullet combo at specified ranges, but this ends up being too busy. The reference lines are so close together that it's difficult to actually paste the right one on a small target.

The other large incongruity is that they only put this in their VX Freedom Rimfire scopes, 2-7X33 and 3-9X40, which have 60 yard focus settings. Okay, you have a reticle allowing up to 25 MOA of holdover which can take a .22 rifle out to 200 yards from a 50 yard zero, but they put it in scopes with a fixed focus at 60 yards.

Despite the reference lines being a bit too busy the reticle does work. If they put it in scopes with adjustable objectives then they'd actually have something.

I wish plex-style reticles were designed around MOA or Mil, such that they can be applied practically for windage and as a 1-stadia ballistic reticle. It's almost heart-breaking to purchase a new optic that has their plex part of the reticle too wide or narrow for any practical application. The one company that "got it" was Nikon as many of the plex portion of their reticles were setup pretty good for that application though it may very well have been unintended.

I have never had one speak to me, so I guess it's a tie.

Anything Nightforce...at least for hunting purposes.

Don't mind a floating dot, so long as the vertical and crosswires "point the way" to it.

The 1/8" Leupold target dot on a 6.5-20 EFR has wires too fine. Dot disappears on some backgrounds.

Otherwise not bothered by busy reticles, or by FFP at low magnifications.

A really thick reticle can subtend too much on small critters. But then, I'd know not to use it on a varmint gun right?

Think most BDC type reticles are a poor substitute for a mil or moa graduated reticle. But I could use them. Good friend who hunts around the world loves them.

Hunting reticles are a weak point for NF. They do so much right, then get that wrong.


General complaint for many brands on "dumb" illuminated reticles for use in low light is illuminating a large area of the reticle and illuminating it too bright.
1. light up minimal area in the reticle
2. the illumination needs to be adjustable to a point where it's barely visible

What's another name for "peasant"? Maybe I'm thinking of something else.. ha ha..

I agree^^^

Can anyone tell me what in the trailer park piss is going on here?

https://www.cdnnsports.com/optics/scopes/crimson-trace-3-9x40-brushline-pro-scope-predator.html