Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics FFP vs. SFP & MRAD vs. MOA

While mapping the reticle and figuring out what MOA, etc that the reticle measures works, it's not necessary for the mass majority of hunters and you will lose them with it. With your mathematics comment I can see why you do it.

From reading your posts in the past I have thought to myself- "this guy likes math". I don't. In fact, I hate it. Most people do. I want the fastest, simplest, most efficient way to get bullets on target and figuring out what MOA my BDC reticle subtends at different powers ain't it.

F., I understand. Yes most guys don't like to mess with it. But since the OP said he wanted to learn more i thought i'd present it a bit to see if i could hook him. I figure it's up to him now if he wants to get reeled in or not.

Are you old enough to remember the Redfiel "accu-trac"

No slam intended, it is just that I know nothing of you, nor you, probably of me.

The accu-trac (if you are not familiar with it) had an extra pair of slim horizontal stadia wires in the reticle. As you adjusted the power from 3x to 9X a range meter came up out the bottom of the reticle. It was a great product and was very popular in the seventies. But it fell out of favor as mil dots became popular and decent range finders became affordable.

In practice, the stadia wires subtended 18 inches at a certain range (Y) at 3X. At 6X the range was 2Y, at 9X the range was 3Y.

The eighteen inch subtension was chosen as most any buck will measure within an inch plus or minus of eighteen inches from back to brisket.

It has been thirty years since I sold my Redfield, but I think the range scale ran from 200 yds to 600 yds.

Point being, with a little practice to become familiar with the system, and a little shooting to verify and fine tune, it definitely does work. It works just a well as the range card we all used to tape onto our rifle stock to remind us of hold over in the field.

Sure, a laser range finder, and clicking turrets is much more precise. But the old technology will still do the same job it did in the past. Often times faster than lasers and turrets, and with all the accuracy we usually need to put meat in our freezer.

Yes Sir I am familiar with them. Quite the advancement for the time.


The whole mil ranging thing I just don't get. It takes such a small difference in target size or apparent mil reading to have such large errors in ranging that other then as a true backup it's all but useless. I remember trying to range deer one fall using mil-dots and then comparing my numbers with a laser and being WAY off. I started measuring our deer and there is quite a bit of variation in chest depth. Adult deer were anywhere between 14 to 18 inches through the chest. The best I could do consistently do was within about a 10% error. 10% past 400yds is a miss.

Interestingly that Redfield system could have had a lot more versatility [and possibly accuracy] probably if the plex post tips would've been measured, and applied as a 2-subtension unit "mil-dot" rangefinding system at optic's highest power. Wonder how many guys actually tried to apply it as such.

I've had a good degree of success applying multi-stadia reticles for rangefinding some critters--especially antelope to intermediate ranges of ~500 yds. or so. Even John Barsness has had some success with it. I haven't had as much on deer as antelope and coyotes, but have had right around 80% or so relative to the true laser readings.

Just last month while hunting coyotes with a 3.5-15x NF/NP-R1 I reticle-ranged an antelope doe around the 400-yd. mark to about 10 yds. variation from the laser reading and believe it or not 700-somthing on a cow elk that was also quite close to the lasered range [although if the math is investigated on that target size at that range with that reticle it can be seen just how lucky it was]. Can't remember the exact readings now--due to brain deterioration from chronic graveyard shift syndrome...I guess.

The best form of flattery though is when someone else uses your postings to engage a target at a long-range calcd. distance with success. This has happened to me twice here on the web on coyotes from other guys postings on 400-some yd. coyotes. Man that was rewarding!

Yes, for years, I used the (measured in the field) subtension of the duplex cross hairs in my 2.5-7x32 Weaver to guestimate range, quite successfully, to 400 yds.

I and almost every one I know, or have hunted with, carry their hunting rifles with a 300 yd zero. My 30-06 with a 165 gr Nosler BT at 2900 fps was 6.5 inches high at 170 yds, and 10 inches low at 400 yds. Reticule ranging can quickly and easily help keep your bullet in the vitals within those ranges.

I definitely agree, the error factor in this method of ranging makes shots beyond 400 yds very iffy.

But 400 yds covers the vast majority of hunting, for the vast majority of hunters.

Pretty neato setup even today.



Terry

FormiD: Yes I get what you are saying...a variable can be tricky unless you glue yourself to one power and learn the scope....and the reticle is of a style that it's useful for this sort of thing.I could soin a tale about a very big, lifetime type non-typical mule deer in southwest Colorado that got clean missed because my pal(an otherwise good shot)twisted the varible up before taking a good close look at 4X to gauge distance.....that "closer look" told his brain "300 yards",and he shot clear under him....

Again I can't suggest it is anywhere near as precise as a what we have today,and in using that system, I think it became as much intuitive as anything.....kind of like muscle memory as an animal looked "too small" through the scope.Years of peeping through a fixed power scope and a constant sight picture would keep you from making some serious errors in the field as to estimating distance.We did not have the technology to get us over the rough spots.

This is likely why I have yet to kill an elk(or anything else) past 500 yards or so as the style seems not so useful much past that.....I do recall that the bottom post of a 4X Leupold corresponds to a 600 yard POI when a 7mm mag or a 300 mag and the right loads,was zeroed 3" high at 100 I know this having shot both many times;so even then, we were using a reticle assist to hit beyond PBR,but of course not as refined as now..

I recall one bull elk where I lay behind the trigger for a half hour,and he filled a bit over 1/2 of the gap of a 4X; I figured him at between 550-600 yards across a big canyon....only a very strong wind kept me from killing him that day.I would not risk the shot in that wind.I am not into "guessing"....