S2H Scope Interest

[Chris in TN]

If you can do wind bracket math at distance where it actually matters just as fast with a moa as you can with mils under pressure, you are one of the first people on the planet.

My skill doesn't make or break my argument here; it isn't about me; it's about the underlying math, and that's what I'm focused on. My skills probably suck compared to most of you guys. But I won't sacrifice my grasp of math - or reason - on the altar of being a better shooter. Because I don't have to and nor do you.

A reticle with l/r windage hashes of 1moa each will handily allow you to bracket the wind. Even a couple of 2-moa hashes would be sufficient. Most rifles will be maybe 2-3moa in a full value 10mph wind at 500 yards. If you have 1-moa or 2-moa hashes that allow you to identify a 0-1moa bracket, a 1-2moa bracket, and a 2-3moa bracket for wind, you can divide your wind into mild (0-4 mph) medium (4-8mph) and full (8-12mph) values, more or less (I'm spitballing rough numbers here, not exact figures for any given rifle). Beyond that, you really ought to be slowing down and double checking everything. You can even use those numbers at intermediate ranges - if you think you have a full (12mph) value wind at 300 yards you know 300 is way less than 500, you're gonna hold less wind, so instead of using the 3moa bracket you're gonna use the 2moa mark, now say you're off and the wind was really only 7mph. You're still gonna hit a volleyball sized target.

(Obviously those wind values are going to be dependent upon your rifle's specifics, but those numbers will get most people started)

Yeah but your shot is 530 yards with a 6 mph crosswind what's your hold?

At 530 yards I dial one minute past the 500 blob on my turret and if I think the wind is 6mph I hold very close to the far edge of the intermediate (3-7 or 4-8mph depending on gun speed, etc) bracket (which means I'm close to a 2moa hold, but I didn't even have to check that - I just recognized 6mph as being out on the edge of my middle wind bracket) and shoot. If I miss, it's because I was wrong on the wind, not my hold.

(Truth be told, 530 in 6mph, both of us probably need to slow down and double check things in an app; 530/6 is a difficult shot)

I'm sure some of you guys are incredibly fast with your wind holds in that 0-600 realm. But the terrible not-so-secret secret is, if you swapped to MOA you'd be just as fast once you'd had a very minimal time to adapt. And like you, it didn't take me long at all to figure that - in the field it would take me way, way longer to be confident in my grasp of the actual wind value. Knowing the wind value is the hard part by an order of magnitude. Guesstimating where to hold for it is almost an afterthought.
You can bracket stuff in moas. You can 'hack' your elevation dope. Again, I'm reluctant to argue this very much; I'm not mad about it and I don't think that you guys that get hung up on mrads are any worse shooters for it - my stance is not that one system is better, my stance is that both systems work as well as the effort you put into them - and effort will equal results. I'm not worried that .mrads are holding you back. At all. I'm much, much more worried that once good instruction gets boiled down and internalized by mediocre math guys, what they then regurgitate on the internet, which is read by new shooters, sounds like 'I can't get good until I get a .mrad scope'. And that creates a hurdle for the people who need to improve the most - the new guy, or the lifelong hunter who's tired of missing and wants to get better. The *LAST* thing he needs is to worry about whether his riflescope is in moas or mrads. Just watch the optics classifieds on this board - dudes trade in a ton of moa scopes so they can chase newer/better scopes in .mrads. I'm 100% for upgrading gear where needed - but that's primarily going to be in the realm of reliability, not whether the scope runs on moas or mrads. The reality is that these 'bad' shooters who want to improve, need reliable scopes first, and practice time second. Different dialing increments can come later - much later - if they choose. But it's a choice, not a need. And that's why I harp on this. There's a genuine transaction cost to upgrades and those need to be done based on needs, and for most of us, the $50 to $250 it might cost to upgrade (maybe more depending on what sort of scopes we're dealing with, markups, availability, used prices, and so on) would be much, much better spent on ammo. I try to take a triage approach to things like this - fix your biggest problems first. And for the vast majority of shooters, their biggest problems are that they suck, they think they can shoot because their daddy gave them a box of .22s one time or that being a good shot was their birthright as an American, they don't know any sort of field positions and might be too fat to get into them anyway, they don't practice, their rifle isn't bedded properly and their scope isn't mounted properly and wouldn't hold zero if it was. Mrads versus MOAs doesn't even make the top ten list of reasons they can't hit stuff - and honestly never will.

 

[BLJ]

Curious what maven does price wise once this scope becomes available in a year.

Keep selling it for the same money.
Just like the rest of them.

I think it will take years for this scope to make an impact on the market.
And that’s not a knock on the scope.
I think it’s made huge strides in what a scope should be.
I’m quite interested in one myself.

With that said, there are 10’s of thousands of people that don’t care about this scope or will ever know about this scope.

I could walk into my LGS today and ask what Rokslide, S2H or THLR reticle was and no one would have a clue.

But they would know what scopes have the gold ring and how good Vortex’s warranty is.

It’s going to take time. And I think multiple years.

And this is all IMO.
Not a business man, product developer or anything like that.
I just think that it will take quite some time for the market (scope buyers) to understand what’s going on.

And then you have to convince people they’ve been wrong.
We know how that usually goes.

 

[Chris in TN]

I was all in at first when it was reported to be 3-12, but I have no use for a top end of 18. Even 15 would have been doable.

I have a SFP 3-18 and it's only mildly annoying when I need to use maybe 12x for a shot. But if you can actually stop is somewhere close to 12x, you can use the 2-moa hashmarks, just know they're now 3moa, if you need them. But that's a total non-issue with a FFP reticle.

Perhaps a compromise could be to put a detent or two in the power selector ring to stop it at 9x and/or 12x when you feel the slight bump of the detent dropping into a small depression. If the maker was concerned that the detent created an eccentric force on the erector they could use a dual or triple system arrayed radically around the erector.

 

[Schmo]

My skill doesn't make or break my argument here; it isn't about me; it's about the underlying math, and that's what I'm focused on. My skills probably suck compared to most of you guys. But I won't sacrifice my grasp of math - or reason - on the altar of being a better shooter. Because I don't have to and nor do you.

A reticle with l/r windage hashes of 1moa each will handily allow you to bracket the wind. Even a couple of 2-moa hashes would be sufficient. Most rifles will be maybe 2-3moa in a full value 10mph wind at 500 yards. If you have 1-moa or 2-moa hashes that allow you to identify a 0-1moa bracket, a 1-2moa bracket, and a 2-3moa bracket for wind, you can divide your wind into mild (0-4 mph) medium (4-8mph) and full (8-12mph) values, more or less (I'm spitballing rough numbers here, not exact figures for any given rifle). Beyond that, you really ought to be slowing down and double checking everything. You can even use those numbers at intermediate ranges - if you think you have a full (12mph) value wind at 300 yards you know 300 is way less than 500, you're gonna hold less wind, so instead of using the 3moa bracket you're gonna use the 2moa mark, now say you're off and the wind was really only 7mph. You're still gonna hit a volleyball sized target.

(Obviously those wind values are going to be dependent upon your rifle's specifics, but those numbers will get most people started)

At 530 yards I dial one minute past the 500 blob on my turret and if I think the wind is 6mph I hold very close to the far edge of the intermediate (3-7 or 4-8mph depending on gun speed, etc) bracket (which means I'm close to a 2moa hold, but I didn't even have to check that - I just recognized 6mph as being out on the edge of my middle wind bracket) and shoot. If I miss, it's because I was wrong on the wind, not my hold.

(Truth be told, 530 in 6mph, both of us probably need to slow down and double check things in an app; 530/6 is a difficult shot)

I'm sure some of you guys are incredibly fast with your wind holds in that 0-600 realm. But the terrible not-so-secret secret is, if you swapped to MOA you'd be just as fast once you'd had a very minimal time to adapt. And like you, it didn't take me long at all to figure that - in the field it would take me way, way longer to be confident in my grasp of the actual wind value. Knowing the wind value is the hard part by an order of magnitude. Guesstimating where to hold for it is almost an afterthought.
You can bracket stuff in moas. You can 'hack' your elevation dope. Again, I'm reluctant to argue this very much; I'm not mad about it and I don't think that you guys that get hung up on mrads are any worse shooters for it - my stance is not that one system is better, my stance is that both systems work as well as the effort you put into them - and effort will equal results. I'm not worried that .mrads are holding you back. At all. I'm much, much more worried that once good instruction gets boiled down and internalized by mediocre math guys, what they then regurgitate on the internet, which is read by new shooters, sounds like 'I can't get good until I get a .mrad scope'. And that creates a hurdle for the people who need to improve the most - the new guy, or the lifelong hunter who's tired of missing and wants to get better. The *LAST* thing he needs is to worry about whether his riflescope is in moas or mrads. Just watch the optics classifieds on this board - dudes trade in a ton of moa scopes so they can chase newer/better scopes in .mrads. I'm 100% for upgrading gear where needed - but that's primarily going to be in the realm of reliability, not whether the scope runs on moas or mrads. The reality is that these 'bad' shooters who want to improve, need reliable scopes first, and practice time second. Different dialing increments can come later - much later - if they choose. But it's a choice, not a need. And that's why I harp on this. There's a genuine transaction cost to upgrades and those need to be done based on needs, and for most of us, the $50 to $250 it might cost to upgrade (maybe more depending on what sort of scopes we're dealing with, markups, availability, used prices, and so on) would be much, much better spent on ammo. I try to take a triage approach to things like this - fix your biggest problems first. And for the vast majority of shooters, their biggest problems are that they suck, they think they can shoot because their daddy gave them a box of .22s one time or that being a good shot was their birthright as an American, they don't know any sort of field positions and might be too fat to get into them anyway, they don't practice, their rifle isn't bedded properly and their scope isn't mounted properly and wouldn't hold zero if it was. Mrads versus MOAs doesn't even make the top ten list of reasons they can't hit stuff - and honestly never will.

I’m definitely not the most experienced person here, but I’ll say this. There is a very valid reason that basically every single person who has taken the S2H class that started with an MOA scope, saying it didn’t matter, had ordered a MIL scope before the end of the class. It wasn’t because they were “brainwashed”. It was because under time constraints and stress, there was a definite difference in ability. Now, you may not believe that. But it’s exactly true.

 

[Schmo]

I needed this scope two years ago. Instead, I ended up with 6 Mavens and really like those still. The incremental improvements just don’t pencil out $$$ wise.

I had a Maven for a little while, but for some reason, I never warmed to it. Not exactly sure why. The glass was okay, not great. They are a good scope, but I find myself more impressed with the SWFA 3-9 HD I replaced it with.

That said, I definitely want one of these new scopes.

 

[id_jon]

At 530 yards I dial one minute past the 500 blob on my turret

Which is 4 clicks past your arbitrary mark... It's great that you have this figured out, but it is objectively more complicated than mils. The argument is not that moa is impossible, or even necessarily difficult, just that it is less simple than it needs to be.

I just hit a button on my range finding binos, but if for some reason they don't give me a solution, I know that I can just move a decimal and subtract 2 and dial 3.3 and be close enough. It also helps to be able to know you have the correct profile loaded or whatever when you can have a rough idea of dope for any range easily accessible in your head.

 

[Jake Larsen]

I’m definitely not the most experienced person here, but I’ll say this. There is a very valid reason that basically every single person who has taken the S2H class that started with an MOA scope, saying it didn’t matter, had ordered a MIL scope before the end of the class. It wasn’t because they were “brainwashed”. It was because under time constraints and stress, there was a definite difference in ability. Now, you may not believe that. But it’s exactly true.

Exactly. All the theory about the math sounds great and seems logical. Until they get stress tested. I used to think it didn’t mattered also, until I tried it for myself. I haven’t even gone through the S2H course. Just set up some a timer and ran through some simulated scenarios. My hit rate is considerably higher with the mil based system. It’s got nothing to do with how smart you are, how good at math you are, ect. Some systems are just easier to use under pressure.

It’s the same story as scopes holding zero, or tracking issues with Leupolds. Lots of opinions and theorizing. A little stress testing clears things right up.

The exact same mentality that has lead S2H to build this scope has led them to make it only in Mils. For those of you who want this scope for the durability, I assume you see the benefit of the drop tests. Ask yourself this: why are the same people who believe in/performing the drop tests proponents of a mil/mil based system? Hint hint - testing


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[Schmo]

Exactly. All the theory about the math sounds great and seems logical. Until they get stress tested. I used to think it didn’t mattered also, until I tried it for myself. I haven’t even gone through the S2H course. Just set up some a timer and ran through some simulated scenarios. My hit rate is considerably higher with the mil based system. It’s got nothing to do with how smart you are, how good at math you are, ect. Some systems are just easier to use under pressure.

It’s the same story as scopes holding zero, or tracking issues with Leupolds. Lots of opinions and theorizing. A little stress testing clears things right up.

The exact same mentality that has lead S2H to build this scope has led them to make it only in Mils. For those of you who want this scope for the durability, I assume you see the benefit of the drop tests. Ask yourself this: why are the same people who believe in/performing the drop tests proponents of a mil/mil based system? Hint hint - testing


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Very well said my friend

 

[BCsteve]

I could walk into my LGS today and ask what Rokslide, S2H or THLR reticle was and no one would have a clue.

But they would know what scopes have the gold ring and how good Vortex’s warranty is.

It’s going to take time. And I think multiple years.

Ask the same people if they'd rather have a Leupold or a Zero Tech scope and you'll be told to GTFO with your Chinese $hit!

Heck, I had never heard of Zero Tech scopes until two days ago! I'd bet my pay check that if a week ago I had posted about my new Zero Tech scope I would have been told to get rid of it an buy a Maven/Trijicon/SWFA/NF.

It will take a while for the word to spread outside of RS.

 

[Chris in TN]

I’m definitely not the most experienced person here, but I’ll say this. There is a very valid reason that basically every single person who has taken the S2H class that started with an MOA scope, saying it didn’t matter, had ordered a MIL scope before the end of the class. It wasn’t because they were “brainwashed”. It was because under time constraints and stress, there was a definite difference in ability. Now, you may not believe that. But it’s exactly true.

I believe that it's true - I've read the instructor saying as much - but I also recognize that if the reverse were true and you were taking a class with people who had shot mostly moas for decades and refined their techniques within an moa system, and you were trying to use .mrads in their environment you'd struggle in the same ways. People in either camp have their own ways of doing things and I think they often internalize their own assumptions to the point they don't even realize them anymore. And that's the issue. Taking that class didn't expose you to some hidden truth about the superiority of one system - the wind and the bullet don't care either way - it exposed you to the reality, realized or not, that one system was baked into the class.

I 100% assure you that if you took the best mrad based shooters and instructors in the world and rewound time and gave them nothing but moa-based scopes, they'd be just as good. They'd likely have different hacks altogether - not a mrad hack multiplied by 3.43775 to make an moa hack, but a hack that approached the math part of the problem (and every shot beyond point blank range is a math problem) from a different angle.

Approaching wind brackets for the 0-600 yard realm from a mild (no more than 3-4mph depending on gun), medium (perhaps 3-8mph depending on gun) and full (perhaps 7-12mph depending on gun) wind values, using an MOA based reticle with 1 or 2 moa hashmarks out to 4moa, is fundamentally going to work exactly the same way as approaching the wind from a mrad based system. Medium wind, medium hold, bang.

But, yeah, doing it with an instructor who is 20 years deep into using mils? Yeah, there's gonna be some hiccups.

 

[Schmo]

I had never heard of Zero Tech scopes until two days ago! I'd bet my pay check that if a week ago I had posted about my new Zero Tech scope I would have been told to get rid of it an buy a Maven/Trijicon/SWFA/NF.

It will take a while for the word to spread outside of RS.

It’s fine. I’ll just warp their brains just like when we kill stuff with a 223 lol

 

[Chris in TN]

Ask yourself this: why are the same people who believe in/performing the drop tests proponents of a mil/mil based system? Hint hint - testing


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Yeah, it couldn't possibly be because they had mils hammered into their heads when they were younger.

 

[Chris in TN]

I know that I can just move a decimal and subtract 2 and dial 3.3 and be close enough.

Yet somehow some other guy can't possibly add one minute and be close enough.

Sigh.

People believe what they want to believe and people on some quest to be better will readily believe that some little gear hack gives them more skill and ignore the hundreds of rounds they fired while learning that gear hack, or the tens of thousands of rounds the instructor fired.

Quod Volumis, facile credimus.

 

[Schmo]

@Chris in TN,
I’m with you on it seeming dumb that guys will down-load their loads in order to hit quick drop. However, quick wind is a thing. And it isn’t near as clean when shooting in MOA. There’s a huge value to that.

 

[rbutcher1234]

I had a Maven for a little while, but for some reason, I never warmed to it. Not exactly sure why. The glass was okay, not great. They are a good scope, but I find myself more impressed with the SWFA 3-9 HD I replaced it with.

That said, I definitely want one of these new scopes.

My issue with the maven, which has been experienced by a lot of other people, is the elevation turret spins too easily.

 

[Jake Larsen]

Yeah, it couldn't possibly be because they had mils hammered into their heads when they were younger.

You’re missing the point. The “testing” is watching dozens/hundreds/thousands of shooters consistently over time be faster in one system vs the other. New shooters, old crusty stuck-in-their-ways shooters, and everything in between. As others have mentioned, guys just like yourselves (and myself a few years ago) who are diehard MOA have gone, And by the end of a couple days of instructing, they’re selling their MOA based scopes in favor of MIls. So in 3-5 days, they’re learning to be more efficient on a NEW system to them, than ALL of their previous years of experience behind MOA. If that doesn’t tell the story, idk what will.


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[BLJ]

It’s fine. I’ll just warp their brains just like when we kill stuff with a 223 lol

I showed a guy a picture of a 223/TMK kill on whitetail one time and he said “I don’t know if I believe that”.

I asked him, “How do you think I got the picture?”

 

[Shortschaf]

My issue with the maven, which has been experienced by a lot of other people, is the elevation turret spins too easily.

Metric Buna O-rings 20 x 1.2mm Minimum 25 pcs

13mm ID x 15.4mm OD x 1.2mm CS-Price for 25 pcs

oringsandmore.com

These will fix that for $9 per 25cnt

 

[rbutcher1234]

Yet somehow some other guy can't possibly add one minute and be close enough.

Sigh.

People believe what they want to believe and people on some quest to be better will readily believe that some little gear hack gives them more skill and ignore the hundreds of rounds they fired while learning that gear hack, or the tens of thousands of rounds the instructor fired.

Quod Volumis, facile credimus.

You preach being open-minded, yet you are the opposite. Nobody is going to force you to give up your MOA scope, so at this point just use it and be happy.

Some horses drink from water, some die of thirst.

 

[rafiki]

I believe that it's true - I've read the instructor saying as much - but I also recognize that if the reverse were true and you were taking a class with people who had shot mostly moas for decades and refined their techniques within an moa system, and you were trying to use .mrads in their environment you'd struggle in the same ways.

isn't the S2H course's environment just field shooting? aka realistic hunting scenarios.