Spearpoint ELR: June 2022 Retrospective

[mc10]

I shot two ELR matches a few weeks ago at Spearpoint in Barnard, KS (and took 1st place in one of them!) and did a writeup of my experience.

Lots of things went wrong at first, and it was a great exercise in learning how to handle issues at a match.

Spearpoint ELR: June 2022 Retrospective

The other weekend I traveled with my 33XC for the first time to Spearpoint Ranch in Barnard, KS to shoot two ELR matches. This weekend was a complete and utter rollercoaster. As an ELR rookie, it w…

chronoplotter.com

 

[Dogtown]

I was shooting the match alone, so I asked around and found several people willing to spot for me. Their first question was always whether I used mils or MOA, and when I responds mils they breathed a sigh of relief. (This became a recurring pattern throughout the weekend: “Mils or minutes?” “Mils.” “Oh thank GOD.”)

I'm so glad that over the past 20 years so many Americans have finally accepted the advantage of mils over MOA (and FFP over SFP). Now if only the rest of the population could see the advantages of metric over imperial, and Celsius over Fahrenheit, but I'm well aware that's a bridge too far.

 

[Geno C.]

There’s a good percentage of shooters running MOA at Spearpoint.

 

[Dogtown]

Not everyone gets it yet

 

[Geno C.]

Top shooter in light gun gets it. So does the guy with the most hits past 2700.

 

[Bandit320]

This will probably start a shit show, but this is actually a serious question. Since they are both measures of angles with a simple multiplier to convert from one to the other, what makes mils better? What don’t I get?

 

[Geno C.]

This will probably start a shit show, but this is actually a serious question. Since they are both measures of angles with a simple multiplier to convert from one to the other, what makes mils better? What don’t I get?

In elr, nothing.

 

[Dogtown]

I'm mostly poking fun - both work just fine, especially these days when pretty much everyone is using turrets and reticles that use the same unit of measurement, and rely on portable computers to do the ballistic math. But before those days the math was easier with mils. 1MOA = 1/60th of a degree and 1mil is 1/1000th of a Radian.

Personally, as a soldier in Europe in the 90s, I was perpetually frustrated with being issued a scope with MOA turrets and mildot reticle. Then I get behind some Swaro, S&Bs, and Hensoldts with their mil/mil setups and see the light.

 

[Geno C.]

Exactly. When doing math, a base 10 system is easier and faster.

 

[Dogtown]

Which is why the Metric system is superior to Imperial units!

 

[Geno C.]

Nah, use 10th of an inch

 

[Dogtown]

Yeah, begrudgingly I can’t bring myself to use metric velocity or COAL, definitely prefer shooting meters vs yards…unless I’m shooting with my barbarian friends.

 

[Sandow the Heretic]

There is merit for a lot of metric units over standard but I could never bring myself to care about mils vs MOA. There is no advantage in either when you get down to it. Familiarity with one vs the other can make estimating range with the reticle easier so it is reasonable to say that sticking with one is probably for the best. For me, inches to MOA is easy math so I have generally stuck to MOA. If there is anything that makes a case for mils over MOA it is that there are more choices for spotting scopes with reticles in mils.

-Alex