In the perfect world, the reticle has every bit the same value as the turrets, meaning holding or dialing regardless of the scope should not matter.
There are situations to help determine when to hold, usually, it is:
- User Preference
- Target Size
- Time and Opportunity
- Distance / Elevation remaining
These are your determining factors, each one has it's own set of circumstances or reasons for opting to use the reticle which brings it back to training and preference of the individual shooter.
As an example since we are talking elevation here and not windage, at Rifles Only prior to 2003 we were the Horus people. We had a drill called Moving Chaos which used the reticle due to the time factor, as well as the distance. You had to engage the mover, which was the primary target. So you dialed on a BZO of 400 yards, which is the mover target. Then you used the reticle to hit 200, 300, 550, and that brought you back to the mover.
For the military guys, we would look at the AO, and then choose the range for your primary target. Back in time with a standard P3 Mil-Dot reticle which a lot of guys ran, we know from a 400 yard, BZO we can easily engage targets from 100 to 700 yards. Which is a military guy's personal danger space. They want to own 600m because for support purposes inside 600m is danger close. You can use 300, or 400, both worked.
I personally find dialing more precise because the human brain like a defined aiming point and Xmas trees and grids will confuse new shooters, especially if you haven't trained on it with to include speed drills, they will often hold the wrong line under pressure. So you want to keep them in the center as much as possible.
For ELR, you have to use what you have available. There are tools to bring you back to the middle of the reticle, but that is not always possible. So holding is a necessity for ELR in a lot of these cases without buying additional help like a Taco Unit.
I do find holding has areas of distortion where things dont' line up right. The closer you are the edges of the scope, the bigger the distortion becomes, especially with cheap scopes. There are variations from optics to optics. This is part of the argument many laugh about with Ward Brien and Sniper Tools. He makes a lot of waves posting videos, but he is correct and has seen cases where the scopes just don't give you the same answer when holding vs dialing. It happens and usually when it does the myths and legends appear. Nobody want to look at the internal cause, only what it could be, not what it probably is, glass distortions.
Short answer, it depends on the factors I posted, at least for me.
