Is there an advantage to mil over MOA?

MHWASH

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The majority of my scopes are MOA, but I found a good deal on a mil scope. For simplicity, should I stick to MOA or would the mil scope be better for long range shooting? Long range hunting eventually being up to 1000.
 

mxgsfmdpx

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Once you get used to the intervals of 10 it can be much simpler and quicker. I’m used to it from precision grading and a huge majority of contractors using 10ths of feet instead of feet and inches. Easier on the brain and much quicker once learned.
 
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MOA makes more sense in my head. Yards makes sense to me. I’m a bowhunter and do rifle same as I do bow. I use a rangefinder, range then dial moa to what yardage I want. But I’m no expert by any means.
 
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Wrench

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Most mil scopes are a number of mils per rev that makes sense. Swfa being as bad as they get at 5 per....so two revs is 10 mils.

Now look at moa scopes 12, 16, 18 per rev.

Now let's say your prediction calls for 24 moa. Easy enough with the 12moa per scope....but it quickly turns into a math equation when you should be swinging for the fence.
 
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All great great true points.

I’ll add wind holding if you grow to long range shooting. Mil system matches the wind bracket of your Bullet BC. Ie a bc of .42 is a 4 mph wind bracket. If wind is 4 mph it moves your Bullet .1 mil per 100 yards in distance as an example.
Its that simple? Since I’m shooting the same bullet from a 6.5 creed as a 26 nosler, my wind holds are the same?
 

Shraggs

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Ha calling wind is hard as you know, but I’m saying your reticle in mils is a ruler. If you’re going to hold .4 mils for a 4mph wind at 400 yards the reticle quickly reflects that hold in above example. The burden if a good wind call still is the challenge, but there can be a time savings hold solution with the seamless nature of mils ( corresponding to bc bracket in mils) but not a better solution than moa.
 

Longleaf

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MIL is more prevalent in the shooting community, if you go to a long rang or take a class everyone will be using MIL.
 
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Yes, mil is an advantage, here's my explanation from a thread earlier this month.


So @Formidilosus has a trick for this, it works really well for standard cartridges and slick bullets. You probably won't even need a dope card, this gets you really close for fast shots, and if you have time for the shot just use your ballistics solver. I don't know where the original post was, so here's my rendition:

First memorize the base solution for drop:
100 - 0 mil
200 - 0.5 mil
300 - 1.0 mil
400 - 2.0 mil
500 - 3.0 mil
600 - 4.0 mil

Then, notice that 200-300 yards you're drop is 0.1 mil per 20 yards. Beyond 300, your drop is 0.1 mil per 10 yards. A few examples:
429 - 2.3 mil
583 - 3.8 mil
250 - .7 or .8 - this one could go either way.

If your gun is particularly good (fast, high bc) so this doesn't work, you then subtract 0.5 mil from any base solution beyond 300. If it's particularly bad (slow, low bc) you add 0.5 mil to any base solution beyond 300. This should get you very, very close to your actual firing solution, for me it's within 0.1 mil inside 600 yards.

Just for completeness, its also worth posting the mils wind hold method. For wind holds in mils from 0-600, look up your bullets g1 bc. The first digit either is is that bullets "mph," or is very close to it. So, plugging in a full value, 90 degree angle with wind at that velocity (i.e 5 mph for a .530 g1 bc) should produce a wind hold table that looks like this in your solver:

100 - 0.1 mil
200 - 0.2 mil
300 - 0.3 mil
400 - 0.4 mil
500 - 0.5 mil
600 - 0.6 mil

If it's off, adjust wind speed 1 mph up or down until it does line up. Whatever the wind speed is that produces the above result is your guns "mph", and you can use multiple of that mph to make wind holds on the fly.

Examples for a 5 mph gun
A. 15 mph full value at 500 yards:
3x.5= 1.5 mil

B. 2.5 mph full value at 400:
.5x.4 = .2mil

These two tricks combine to make mils an incredibly user friendly system for dialing, holding, and shooting stuff.
 

Marbles

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The majority of my scopes are MOA, but I found a good deal on a mil scope. For simplicity, should I stick to MOA or would the mil scope be better for long range shooting? Long range hunting eventually being up to 1000.
Stick with one system. Both work. Base 10 is less prone to math errors under stress. But, if shooting in mils you should really ditch yards too and use meters.

A ruler is a ruler, but some unit systems are easier to manipulate for generating outputs with the measurements.
 

PNWGATOR

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Mils all the way!

Intuitive thinking in ‘10s’ + wind brackets + the field expedient dope calculation thumb rules ResearchinStuff posted = more efficient killing.
 
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Depends on what crowd you're running with. If you join up with a dedicated long range shooting group at the range, odds are they'll be working with mils/meters. The issue with doing the conversion to mils by yourself is if your hunting and shooting buddies are all on MOA/yards. Adjusting for misses becomes problematic when your spotter isn't thinking in mils/meters. They'll look through their non-reticle'd spotting scope and call out in feet or inches and you have to make the conversion yourself or look through your scope and guess the spot, so the math is a lot easier with MOA in that case. You lose the crude fast-wind formulas with MOA, but wind is linear and its easier to multiply whole numbers than decimals. I've seen people try to convert and hate every second while others never look back from day 1. Different strokes..
 
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You guys make some good points on some complicated reasoning. I 'simply' prefer mils because I like smaller numbers. A 308 will drop ~370 inches at 1000 yards. That's ~37 MOA, or 10.8 mils. I'd rather dial the smaller 10.8 than 37. Seems less prone to error.
 
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I shoot MILs for the reasons stated above but my hunting buddies all shoot MOA. Every year before season I have a talk with them and remind them that if they are spotting for me and use the words "MOA, feet or inches" I have no idea what they are talking about.

My solution to this is to use whatever the target is as the measuring stick. For example, "you're half the body height high". Then I use my reticle to measure "half the body height" and adjust. This method makes having a FFP scope very important.
 
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Neither is a sYSteM.

People that don’t have a good grasp on the foundational principles favor one over the other, simply due to ignorance. Quick winds work for both. Quick drops work for both. Mechanical elevation travel per rev is very similar for same model scopes.

Basic fact is there’s no difference between using different dimensionless angular units to incrementally approximate a non-linear trajectory.

Biggest benefit to mils is more reticle choices that are suited for contemporary “precision rifle”. Secondary market is better as well.
^^^this^^^

Both are literally the same thing. Snipers Hide is bad. You’re a moron if you use MOA over there. But again, both are angular measurements. No difference whatsoever no matter what anyone says. People will try and convince MILS are the way to go “because get with the times dude. Everyone’s doing it.” But the fact is, they remain the same. Reticle choices are almost always better with MRAD scopes. But, I still use MOA for one simple reason. It’s way easier math for me when I’m using my reticle to measure antler width, tine length etc.

Elk is 600 yards. We know 1 MOA at 600 is 6”.
Reticle says antlers are 7 MOA side to side. 42”. Really easy on the fly for me.
Taking the .36” at 100 in 1/10 or 3.6” at 100 for 1mil makes it a tad slower dealing in 3.6” vs 1”.
Start taking 1 point this or 2 point that in mils at 600 yards and math becomes a challenge for me. 😫
 

Marbles

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Hard to take someone seriously who says this
No difference whatsoever no matter what anyone says.
Followed by
Elk is 600 yards. We know 1 MOA at 600 is 6”.
Reticle says antlers are 7 MOA side to side. 42”. Really easy on the fly for me.
Taking the .36” at 100 in 1/10 or 3.6” at 100 for 1mil makes it a tad slower dealing in 3.6” vs 1”.
Ergo, making an argument that there is a difference, not in what the system does, but in how that system works in your mind.

Mixing metric and imperial is not ergonomic. If a person thinks in yards, MOA is the more ergonomic system. Though, if learning a new system, metric is the more ergonomic system. However, a 1 mil angle produces a 10 cm opposite at 100 meters. The math is simple. 600 m, reticle says 1.8 mil, gives 108 cm. Now, if you measure that in MOA, you have to remember that at 100 meters the opposite of a 1 MOA angle measures 2.6 cm, and you are back to the math that gives you (and me) trouble. But, mixing systems is a sign of lacking
a good grasp on the foundational principles
 
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