Rifle Scopes understanding MILs

[corey4]

i am not really how to start this question, so if it seem like i am rambling, it is because i am! haha


i put my vortex pst FFP MIL scope on my 5R the other day. previously i had a vortex pst FFP MOA on it.

when i was sighting it in, i was having a hard time figuring out the MIL distance from POA to POI.

so, let's say i was off 1.5mil at 100 yds, at least that is what the read out on the scope was. i was trying to not fall into the habit of being off 1.5". since my scope is .1mil per click, does that mean i should have moved my turrets 15 times? because i did that, and i was way off.

it took awhile to get the scope sighted in, but it is there. to be honest, i am not sure how i got it there! i would just shoot, move a little bit, shoot again, etc. usually with MOA, it takes me 5 shoots to get it sighted in, then a few more to really dial it in. 2 at 50, then 2-3 more at 100.

with MOA, if i am off 1.75" at 100yds, that is easy for me to calculate. i had drafting classes in high school, went to ITT for drafting and worked in drafting for 4 years after that, so 8 years dealing with fractions, different scales, etc.

what am i doing wrong with my MIL train of thought, or should i stick with MOA?

i am using sighting in a rifle and 100yds to keep things simple.

 

[coues7]

Based on the yard, simply convert it to inches and then divide by 1000. At 100 yards, you have 3600 inches, divide that by 1000. So you get 1 mil at 100 yards is 3.6". If you have a 1/4 mil scope then divide the 3.6" by 4 and that is what each "click" is. Pretty straight forward. Really not that much different from MOA.

 

[Rob01]

You should be able to look through the scope and use the ruler in front of your eyes, the reticle, to tell you how much you need to adjust. Don't think in inches or any other linear measurement. If you are 1.5 mils low with your point of impact then you dial 1.5 mils up. Doesn't matter if you are at 25 yards or 500 yards.

Also don't count clicks. Look at the knob and dial up the 1.5 mils. Learn to not count clicks. It will help you in the long run.

 

[roggom]

Dont get discouraged, it takes practice, practice, practice. Eyeballing a target at 100 or 1000, it can be difficult to judge as you are shaking, breathing etc. You should; however, be able to make a quick read and adjustment to hit a 6-8" circle from any of distance within reason.

Sighting in: First shot hits paper, with rifle solid and pointing at the POA, move reticle to POI, re-aquire POA , second shot will be right at zero.

 

[azimutha]

Based on the yard, simply convert it to inches and then divide by 1000. At 100 yards, you have 3600 inches, divide that by 1000. So you get 1 mil at 100 yards is 3.6". If you have a 1/4 mil scope then divide the 3.6" by 4 and that is what each "click" is. Pretty straight forward. Really not that much different from MOA.

I don't think any scopes are 1/4 mil. They are commonly 1/10th mil per click. So .36" @ 100 yards. But the key is, as Rob01 states, to think in terms of what you see through the reticle (the angular measurement) and adjust accordingly.

 

[Thumper580]

I'm an old MOA guy.... You say not to count clicks, but isn't 5 clicks a half MIL or (5x.36=1.80")? Am I making it harder than necessary?

 

[sib1948]

At 100 yards each 0.1mil is 1/3rd of an inch. At 200 yds each mil is 2/3rds of an inch. At 300 yds each mil is one inch (slightly more, but to KISS). Etc. Couldn't be easier. You'll get more familiar and much more comfortable with it as you use it. All my scopes are FFP mil/mil. Good Luck

 

[Rob01]

Why do you do that math? No reason at all. Who cares if .5 mils at 100 yards is 1.8"? What should concern you is it's .5 mils. Don't think in inches. No need to at all.

Yes 5 clicks is .5 mils but why count clicks when you can look at the knob and dial .5 mils from where you are? So if you need 8 mils will you count to 80 clicks? No you will dial to the 8 on the knob.

 

[Thumper580]

Thanks..I think the light bulb is finally going on above my head.

 

[ridenrunwv]

You're making it too complicated... Take Rob's advice. You don't need to measure inches and try to convert to mils you can just use your reticle to see measure how far off your shot was and correct by that amount. When not shooting paper and trying to make a quick adjustment after a miss in the field you can't go measure your miss and have no reasonable way of telling how many inches or feet or centimeters etc that you missed by so you use what's available to you. See that you missed by 1 mil and correct 1 mil for your following shot. You can use the reticle for a quick holdover and fire again or dial the correction in on your turret.

 

[5RWill]

You should be able to look through the scope and use the ruler in front of your eyes, the reticle, to tell you how much you need to adjust. Don't think in inches or any other linear measurement. If you are 1.5 mils low with your point of impact then you dial 1.5 mils up. Doesn't matter if you are at 25 yards or 500 yards.

Also don't count clicks. Look at the knob and dial up the 1.5 mils. Learn to not count clicks. It will help you in the long run.

This. Forget inches/MOA, Mils is now your standard unit of measurement. For an FFP scope a mil is a mil regardless of magnification. As rob says if your 1.5 Mils off down dial 1.5 mils up.

That said a mil is 3.66 inches at 100yds roughly and your clicks, 1/10th a mil will be .36th of an inch. Mils increase every 100yds just like MOA. At 100yds it's 3.66 inches, at 200 it's 7.32 inches, etc. At 1000yds a mil is 36.6 inches roughly and a click or tenth of that would be 3.66 inches. But this is besides the point as you replace inches with Mils as your standard unit of measurement when shooting so inches go out the window. There is no need to know it when trying to engage a target with a mil/mil setup.

You might want to test the tracking of your scope just to be on the safe side.

 

[Kiwigrunt]

The problem is with the imperial system!

This. Forget inches/MOA, Mils is now your standard unit of measurement. For an FFP scope a mil is a mil regardless of magnification. As rob says if your 1.5 Mils off down dial 1.5 mils up.

That said a mil is 3.66 inches at 100yds roughly and your clicks, 1/10th a mil will be .36th of an inch. Mils increase every 100yds just like MOA. At 100yds it's 3.66 inches, at 200 it's 7.32 inches, etc. At 1000yds a mil is 36.6 inches roughly and a click or tenth of that would be 3.66 inches. But this is besides the point as you replace inches with Mils as your standard unit of measurement when shooting so inches go out the window. There is no need to know it when trying to engage a target with a mil/mil setup.

You might want to test the tracking of your scope just to be on the safe side.

The point I tried to make here in post 35 is beautifully demonstrated in this post. Blackops_2, first you advise not to use linear measurements. Then you immediately follow that up with a slightly erroneous demonstration of linear measurements. A mil is exactly 3.6 inches at 100 yards, because there are 36 inches in 100 yards. 100 yards divided by 1000 is 3.6 inches.

We cannot keep saying – no matter how much we like to – that we should completely forget about linear measurements and only use angles. It only works for a very narrow scope of applications (pun intended). In fact, really only for making corrections based on POI vs POA as measured with the reticule, assuming bullet strike can be observed. Beyond that, linear measurements come marching back into the equation, one way or another.

In fact, even when you first zero your rifle, you do this from a know range. There is your first linear measurement, before you even start thinking angles. Use yards at your peril. That is to say, you immediately lock yourself into using a linear system that is unsympathetic to Mrads.

 

[ridenrunwv]

This question always seems asked and always seems complicated by everyone. OP has the info he needs in the first two posts. The last two posts contain incorrect unit conversions and explanations.

 

[NevadaZielmeister]

You should be able to look through the scope and use the ruler in front of your eyes, the reticle, to tell you how much you need to adjust. Don't think in inches or any other linear measurement. If you are 1.5 mils low with your point of impact then you dial 1.5 mils up. Doesn't matter if you are at 25 yards or 500 yards.

Also don't count clicks. Look at the knob and dial up the 1.5 mils. Learn to not count clicks. It will help you in the long run.

I am all in agreement with Rob01 here. Stop over thinking it. You have a FFP scope. Use the mil reticle and adjust accordingly.

 

[pmclaine]

Its a tough pic, lots of mist, but lets see if I can help you have the "Oh I get it moment" I had when I finally understood it.

There is no math necessary. Everything you need to know is on the reticle being transmitted to your brain. My reticle is H2CMR. Bubble centers are one mil (cross to center and center to center). On the windage axis the small tick marks are .2 mils.

My cross hairs are at the top left corner of the silhouettes head. If I want to hit center mass from that splash/point of aim, dial down 1 mil and right about .2 to .3 mils.

Inches, division, long math, distance to target dont matter. Just dial the reticle assuming your reticle and turrets have matching units and your scope is FFP or on the proper setting if SFP. SFP may require some math if you are on other than the required setting.

I hope I did that right Im still new to this stuff.

 

[Jig Stick]

Read the reticle, and adjust. It's that simple. When I'm shooting at 1000yds, if my splash is 2mils left, I dial in 2mils on the turret. Forget the math, you don't need it.

 

[Kiwigrunt]

I’ll start with an apology to the OP. My post may have confused you more than it may have helped you. My post was more of a reaction to some replies than a direct answer to your predicament.

DFOOSKING, I agree with much of your reply to my post. In fact, I think much of your reply is consistent with my post. You and many others pointed out that the OP was confusing himself unnecessarily by introducing linear measurements in a situation where they were not required. All he needed to do was to dial in exactly what he measured in his reticule. And that is so, regardless of whether his scope is Mil/mil or Moa/moa.


However, the title of this thread is ‘understanding MILs’,not ‘how can I use mils without having to bother with understanding them’. Corey4’s opening post suggests to me that he visualises minutes (and Mrads?) in terms of inches per 100 yards. I’m not saying this to be arrogant or a smart ass. Most shooters do it, and I still often do it myself with regards to minutes. It is just so ingrained. It is how we all learned it to begin with.

My contention is that to use these angles confidently without thinking about distances, in situations where this can and perhaps should be done, it pays to first truly understand these angles and how they do actually relate to linear measurements. It helps to visualise it. The definition, rather that just how to use it in the field, is IMO important to that understanding. Many shooters get to this point and then fail to close the circle. They get stuck at this picture of 1 inch at 100 yards without truly and intuitively realising that these two linear measurements reflect an angle, and the scope only cares about the angle.

My suggestion that the imperial system is unsympathetic (I should perhaps have written: ‘less sympathetic than the metric system) to Mrads, was not to suggest that Americans are too dumb to relate yards to Mrads. US (and other) snipers have been more severely handicapped than that, by having had to use Mil/Moa scopes for many decades, and they have dealt with that admirably. What I am saying is that the imperial system is much more of a handicap to using Mrads than is the metric system. That is indisputable. Many shooters who have always been used to the imperial system and minutes get lost in Mrads when suddenly faced with it, because it does not give them that comforting visualisation of 1 inch at 100 yards.

There are many threads in this forum, and in others, that are evident of people being lost in Mrads. I can’t remember having seen a single one where that is the case with minutes. Both are angular systems and do the exact same thing. The title of my previous post alluded to my observation that, if you pull enough layers off that onion, at the core of the confusion is always the unnecessarily cumbersome imperial system.

 

[Notso]

You should be able to look through the scope and use the ruler in front of your eyes, the reticle, to tell you how much you need to adjust. Don't think in inches or any other linear measurement. If you are 1.5 mils low with your point of impact then you dial 1.5 mils up. Doesn't matter if you are at 25 yards or 500 yards.

Also don't count clicks. Look at the knob and dial up the 1.5 mils. Learn to not count clicks. It will help you in the long run.

^^ This^^

 

[Pinecone]

When I sight in, I don't worry about mils, MOA, inches, feet, yards, furlongs, etc.

Remove bolt, set up rifle so target is centered in bore. (usually 50 yards)
Look through scope, adjust reticle to be centered on target.
Fire one round.
Set up rifle so scope is centered on the center of the target.
Without moving the rifle, adjust scope so that the POA is slightly above the POI of your round.
Fire one round, should be slightly below the center of the target.
Move to 100 yards, fire one round. POI should be pretty close to POA.

 

[pmclaine]

Ahh the clarity of fucking up. My alarm doesnt go off and you realize you have 40 minutes to get dressed and drive 35 miles to relieve the desk officer. It makes you think.

"Understanding Mils"

I just realized I never understood it until now.

OP I hope my picture answered how to dial your reticle. What follows is just confusion perhaps.

My problem with mils was thinking it was a "measurement" that related to other measurements. I also restricted its use to a flat plane. Reality mils are a three dimensional system and you and your rifle are the center of a sphere.

If your rifle barrel is perfectly flat and you call the bore 0Mils than an adjust of 250 mils up will have your bore shooting 90 degrees from horizontal. 500 mils from your zero will have you shooting behind you.

Same thing for windage. At zero you shoot dead ahead. At 750 mils right windage your barrel moves so far right you are shooting to your left.

Mils are their own measuring system. They are not metric or English based. Sure it will give you dead accurate come ups based on a desired angle at any distance but as soon as you meet the reality of environment and bullet drop its useless.

The reticle than becomes a mini Cray computer because it eliminates the clutter of ballistics. You see a point in space, your splash, and you can mil its distance from where you want it to be. The reticle assumes that bullet travelled on a flat trajectory and we work to make sure we can assume the next bullet will do exactly as the first bullet did.

I hope I didnt screw you up OP.

Made it to work with 5 minutes to spare.

 

[Notso]

Ahh the clarity of fucking up. My alarm doesnt go off and you realize you have 40 minutes to get dressed and drive 35 miles to relieve the desk officer. It makes you think.

Made it to work with 5 minutes to spare.

I hope you weren't typing this while speeding to work. ;-)

 

[Kiwigrunt]

Ahh the clarity of fucking up. My alarm doesnt go off and you realize you have 40 minutes to get dressed and drive 35 miles to relieve the desk officer. It makes you think.

"Understanding Mils"

I just realized I never understood it until now.

OP I hope my picture answered how to dial your reticle. What follows is just confusion perhaps.

My problem with mils was thinking it was a "measurement" that related to other measurements. I also restricted its use to a flat plane. Reality mils are a three dimensional system and you and your rifle are the center of a sphere.

If your rifle barrel is perfectly flat and you call the bore 0Mils than an adjust of 250 mils up will have your bore shooting 90 degrees from horizontal. 500 mils from your zero will have you shooting behind you.

Same thing for windage. At zero you shoot dead ahead. At 750 mils right windage your barrel moves so far right you are shooting to your left.

Mils are their own measuring system. They are not metric or English based. Sure it will give you dead accurate come ups based on a desired angle at any distance but as soon as you meet the reality of environment and bullet drop its useless.

The reticle than becomes a mini Cray computer because it eliminates the clutter of ballistics. You see a point in space, your splash, and you can mil its distance from where you want it to be. The reticle assumes that bullet travelled on a flat trajectory and we work to make sure we can assume the next bullet will do exactly as the first bullet did.

I hope I didnt screw you up OP.

Made it to work with 5 minutes to spare.

Hehe, you’re on the right track there. You just got the numbers wrong. A full circle (360 degrees, or 60 x 360 = 21600 minutes) is 6283 Mrads. The military (NATO) round that off to 6400 because that makes a compass easier to use. So 90 degrees is 1600 Mrads and 180 degrees is 3200 Mrads.

I think the way you explain it is useful. But imagining the trajectory as a straight line will throw you. Imagine if you will that we adjust the scope externally instead of internally. So the front scope mount is a hinge and the rear one a swivel with bolt. We adjust the angle of the scope relative to the barrel to compensate for the trajectory, so that at different ranges the POA meets the POI. In fact, with high trajectory weapons like grenade launchers, that is exactly how it works because scopes lack the internal adjustment capacity to deal with the extreme trajectory.

 

[pmclaine]

I hope you weren't typing this while speeding to work. ;-)

I had my steno type as I dicktated.

 

[pmclaine]

Imagine if you will that we adjust the scope externally instead of internally. So the front scope mount is a hinge and the rear one a swivel with bolt.

Im thinking classic Unertl external mounts.

 

[corey4]

thanks for the replies guys. i guess i am just over thinking it.

as a side note, i am not a marksman, never claimed to be. i have only ever shot from a bench at 100yds. but i want to get better.

i am going to try and get out this afternoon and get some shots off at 200 and 300 and see if i can get pmclaine's light bulb to come on in my head.

please excuse my mixture of terminology and rambling in the next paragraph:
i guess part of the confusion lies with being accustomed to talking about inches for group size and being off "1.25 low and .5 right" because that's how grandpap taught us on a paper pie plate, in the middle of the woods, using a dead, moss covered limb as our rest while standing on the side of a hill. then we make the assumption that is how it is done, and in reality, there is a whole different way of thinking, looking, doing. i think that is were newbies like me get confused switching to MILs. also, the "1/4" click at 100 yds" on the side of the scope caps doesn't help either. for people like me that are new, that nomenclature is making us think in inches and not using MOA or MIL.
EDIT:
also, another probelm we FNGs have is trying to equate the .1 mil (.36") 'click' to our usual train of thought of .25" per 'click'. i know that is what i was doing.

(an example of someone thinking to them selves at the range):
"so, if i am 1.25" low, i am at 200yds, i need to move my reticle, how many clicks? let's see, one click at 100 is .25", so at 200 it is.....?"

so from what i gather, fuck that, use the ruler that rob01 and a few others pointed out, and adjust for the read out.

is it really that simple? lol

 

[damoncali]

Mils are their own measuring system. They are not metric or English based. Sure it will give you dead accurate come ups based on a desired angle at any distance but as soon as you meet the reality of environment and bullet drop its useless.

I don't like to split hairs but mils are very much metric. They're miliradians, which is 1/1000 of a radian, which is the official metric angle measurement unit. Radians are based pi, so they have some benefits.

MOA are imperial - one minute of angle = 1/60 of 1 degree, which is the imperial angle measurement unit (at least by default). Degrees are based on some ancient man's notion that 360 is a nice number, and have no benefits.

So this is all very much an imperial vs metric thing, with the added bonus that 1 MOA happens to have a convenient linear value (~1") at a convenient distance (100 yards), which is a rare coincidence in the imperial system. Even then, it's not perfect - it's not EXACTLY an inch.

Mils automatically have this feature - 10cm at 100m, etc due to the sanity of the radian and metric system being made up of powers of 10. But because radians also happen to be dimensionless, which means you can apply them to any unit of length (even imperial units), further confusing the issue. (1mil = 1" at 1000", but what is 1000" and who thinks in 1000's of inches? My rangefinder won't.).

In other words, if you think in metric, using mils is a no brainer. If you think in imperial (like me), nothing makes sense, so use whatever you like.

 

[Graham]

understanding MILs

I don't like to split hairs but mils are very much metric. They're miliradians, which is 1/1000 of a radian, which is the official metric angle measurement unit. Radians are based pi, so they have some benefits.

MOA are imperial - one minute of angle = 1/60 of 1 degree, which is the imperial angle measurement unit (at least by default). Degrees are based on some ancient man's notion that 360 is a nice number, and have no benefits.

So this is all very much an imperial vs metric thing, with the added bonus that 1 MOA happens to have a convenient linear value (~1") at a convenient distance (100 yards), which is a rare coincidence in the imperial system. Even then, it's not perfect - it's not EXACTLY an inch.

Mils automatically have this feature - 10cm at 100m, etc due to the sanity of the radian and metric system being made up of powers of 10. But because radians also happen to be dimensionless, which means you can apply them to any unit of length (even imperial units), further confusing the issue. (1mil = 1" at 1000", but what is 1000" and who thinks in 1000's of inches? My rangefinder won't.).

In other words, if you think in metric, using mils is a no brainer. If you think in imperial (like me), nothing makes sense, so use whatever you like.

There is nothing metric about Mils.

Mils automatically have this feature - 10cm at 100m, etc due to the sanity of the radian and metric system being made up of powers of 10. But because radians also happen to be dimensionless, which means you can apply them to any unit of length (even imperial units), further confusing the issue. (1mil = 1" at 1000", but what is 1000" and who thinks in 1000's of inches? My rangefinder.

Proving that there is nothing metric about Mils.

 

[Rob01]

What Graham said. I use inches for target sizes when ranging and yards for range data and all my scopes are mils. Nothing metric about mils. You can use them with either yards or meters. Same with MOA. People just try and equate them to a certain system to understand them and compare them to something they know. The sooner you forget about doing that then the easier it is to use whatever system you want. All this trying to convert mils or MOA to inches/cm/yards/meters is what confuses people. There's no reason to do it.

 

[azimutha]

What mils and the metric system have in common is that they are both decimal-based. Nothing more. It does make the math a bit simpler. But as has been said over and over, if you have an FFP scope the main advantage is not having to convert at all to correct point of aim. As for ranging, I just do that with an LRF.

 

[pmclaine]

OP you may want to walk away from this post as I dont want to confuse you. ROB01 stated most easily everything you need to know. Im just having fun with a mental excercise as I understand a little more of what is going on here.

Kiwi,

I wanted to reply more to your response but I was having a hard time resolving the differences between this statement...

...the confusion is always the unnecessarily cumbersome imperial system.

and this explanation...

Hehe, you’re on the right track there. You just got the numbers wrong. A full circle (360 degrees, or 60 x 360 = 21600 minutes) is 6283 Mrads. The military (NATO) round that off to 6400 because that makes a compass easier to use. So 90 degrees is 1600 Mrads and 180 degrees is 3200 Mrads.

In my ignorance I designed a perfect decimal based system (1 mil being 1,000th of the milliradian sphere) and than you go and tell me Imperial is confusing yet 21,600 minutes and 3200 Mrads is simple? I thought here we go, an elitist, metric, monarchist that is pissed that the .50 cal still hammers on the battlefield, the .45 caliber is carried by real men and jealous that we still use the portion of a dead monarchs finger as our primary unit of measurement.

So I have been thinking about this and I felt that I was allowed a little further into the "Davinci Code". My system does not fit in with the cosmic design. 21,600 minutes/15 degrees (1 minute) = 1440/60 = 24 hours. I would be altering time with my 1000 milliradians/15 degrees = 66.666 (the mark of the beast)/60 = 1 hour. The passage of time from dawn to dawn would be 1 hour with only 365 hours in a year. I would agree with a 5 hour work week but in your world not my invented one.

Any way as I thought further on this I realized how very limited a riflemans use of the Milliradian sphere is. Rifles only have the capability to work in a very slim degree of arc. Targets, excluding the soldier taking a hail mary shot at an airplane, are generally within a few degrees of 0.

Than I thought about the German 88 artillery piece on a pedestal mount. That gun takes advantage of a full half of a milliradian sphere from bayonet range out to the capability of the projectile. A flat trajectory and its immediate usefullness in three dimensions no wonder it was so effective. I wonder why all artillery isnt mounted on a pedestal but I guess that doesnt work so well when people are firing back.

Sorry for the somewhat off topic mental masturbation.

 

[damoncali]

Way in the weeds here, but mils are officially metric: Essentials of the SI: Base & derived units, unless you mean the bastardized military mils which are just weird.

 

[azimutha]

Way in the weeds here, but mils are officially metric: Essentials of the SI: Base & derived units, unless you mean the bastardized military mils which are just weird.

I definitely don't mean the bastardized one. So, yes, the radian is officially metric. Thanks for the correction. What's also important to point out...well, never mind...enough on this topic already for me!

 

[Rob01]

Some people can't see the forest for the trees.

 

[damoncali]

Something else to worry about: the Mrad small angle error. Turns out that 1 mil does not translate to exactly 1m at 1000m, after all... it's a little bit off.

Kidding. Really. I am.

 

[Graham]

Way in the weeds here, but mils are officially metric: Essentials of the SI: Base & derived units, unless you mean the bastardized military mils which are just weird.

There is nothing metric about Mils.

 

[Kiwigrunt]

Something else to worry about: the Mrad small angle error. Turns out that 1 mil does not translate to exactly 1m at 1000m, after all... it's a little bit off.

Kidding. Really. I am.

That's right. It is because that 1m is along the circumference of the circle. It is therefore curved. But that is totally negligible for the narrow slice of the pie within which we work.

 

[pmclaine]

That's right. It is because that 1m is along the circumference of the circle. It is therefore curved. But that is totally negligible for the narrow slice of the pie within which we work.

A consideration for the Fire Control officer on the USS Missouri though? Dealing with the curve of the earth beyond the horizon?

Greater appreciation for what our grandfathers did with analog technology.

 

[Kiwigrunt]

A consideration for the Fire Control officer on the USS Missouri though? Dealing with the curve of the earth beyond the horizon?

Greater appreciation for what our grandfathers did with analog technology.

Sure thing. That is why I find these conversations interesting. Einstein said something along the lines of 'the more you learn, the more you know you don't know'. It is like working your way up an upside-down pyramid and looking up / exploring the next layer.

 

[Kiwigrunt]

There is nothing metric about Mils.

Radians are metric in as much as they are SI derived.

I don’t know if you are just stubbornly digging in, or if you have a limited view of what constitutes the concept of ‘metric’. Metric does not only pertain to linear measurements. It encompasses many different units of measure including things like temperature and time.

 

[damoncali]

A consideration for the Fire Control officer on the USS Missouri though? Dealing with the curve of the earth beyond the horizon?

Greater appreciation for what our grandfathers did with analog technology.

Other way around. The error is bigger up close (large angles). Still pretty much zero in practical terms.

 

[damoncali]

Radians are metric in as much as they are SI derived.

Radians are metric because the gods of SI units say so. This isn't really debatable. What's the metric unit of angle? Radians. It's in the instruction manual.

 

[USMC 0231]

Some times I wish that 1 moa didn't equal 1 inch at 100 yards(I know it's not exactly 1 inch). Think about why the resistance to learn mil. Most shooters only shoot at 100 yes either by choice or range limitations. 1 moa= 1inch is like not learning MOA theory. Since they never shoot to 1000 yards they don't have to worry about saying its 450in adjustment or 45 moa. They just see the impact off 2 inches at 100 yards because the target has a 1 in grid built in so they know it's 2 inches or 2 moa.
Damn you easy the grasp MOA.

 

[damoncali]

We'd probably use IPHY if that were the case. No way out of this mess!

 

[Kiwigrunt]

Good points. But for as far as that '1 inch over 100 yards' crutch in holding people back from learning the theory, the same would of course aply to metrics. One mrad is 100 mm at 100 m. An even more convenient crutch. So that might suggest that a sizeable proportion of fully metric orientated people might be doing the same thing, in not truly learning the theory.

 

[proneshooter]

Some of you guys amaze me. I'd sit your ass down in a car anywhere in Europe, tell you to drive down the motorway without speeding, show you what their speed limit signs look like, tell you their speed limits are in km/h and you fools would try to convert to miles per hour missing the point that the speedometer in the car is also calibrated in km/h.

So if the damn white circular road sign with a red border and black numeral says 120, make sure the needle in your speedometer never goes above 120 and you won't have to worry about the cops. Who gives a shit how many mph equate to 120 km/h?

Same thing with your scope that has mil adjustments and a mil reticle........

 

[proneshooter]

OBTW, the imperial measurement system sucks so much that ALL american automotive manufacturers have abandoned it. I got my engineering degree from one of the best schools in the US between 1984 and 1988 and every single one of my textbooks were in metric.

 

[damoncali]

Some of you guys amaze me. I'd sit your ass down in a car anywhere in Europe, tell you to drive down the motorway without speeding, show you what their speed limit signs look like, tell you their speed limits are in km/h and you fools would try to convert to miles per hour missing the point that the speedometer in the car is also calibrated in km/h.

So if the damn white circular road sign with a red border and black numeral says 120, make sure the needle in your speedometer never goes above 120 and you won't have to worry about the cops. Who gives a shit how many mph equate to 120 km/h?

Same thing with your scope that has mil adjustments and a mil reticle........

Now do that with a plain cross hair or iron sights. There is value in knowledge.

 

[Graham]

With belated apologies to Lindy...

There's still nothing metric about Mils.

 

[Notso]

Some of you guys amaze me. I'd sit your ass down in a car anywhere in Europe, tell you to drive down the motorway without speeding, show you what their speed limit signs look like, tell you their speed limits are in km/h and you fools would try to convert to miles per hour missing the point that the speedometer in the car is also calibrated in km/h.

So if the damn white circular road sign with a red border and black numeral says 120, make sure the needle in your speedometer never goes above 120 and you won't have to worry about the cops. Who gives a shit how many mph equate to 120 km/h?

Same thing with your scope that has mil adjustments and a mil reticle........

Exactly - perfect analogy! I live with that every day. It was weird at first to drive along at 140, but now I don't even think about it.

 

[Notso]

so from what i gather, fuck that, use the ruler that rob01 and a few others pointed out, and adjust for the read out.

is it really that simple? lol

Yes.