Shooting With MOA Turrets and a MIL Reticle

In my Battle of Breakneck After Action Report I talked about how I shoot a Leupold MK-IV scope that has MOA based turrets and a MIL based TMR reticle.  Although I am new to the long range rifle community, I have been reading about it and researching it for years.  I have read a lot about scopes and MOA vs. MIL for use in adjustments and ranging reticles.  I will get a little more into the specifics of each below, but almost every thing I read ultimately said that either system will work, just make sure that you get a scope that has matching turrets and reticle.

So are you out of luck if you have a scope that doesn't match?  While not ideal, there are some things you can do to make that system work for you.  I wanted to talk a little about what I do to make the most out of my current scope.  If/when I buy a different scope I will get a scope that matches, but so far I have been able to make this scope work.

MIL vs MOA:

First off, let's talk a little about what MOA and MIL are.  Both of them are measurements for an angle.  



Leupold TMR Reticle.  Photo from swfa.com

MILs, short for Milliradian, are metric system measurements and are 1/1000th of a Radian.  One MIL is approximately 3.6 inches.  Since most MIL based scopes use .10 MIL adjustments, each click would move the reticle .36 inches.  In my experience the MIL system seems to be much more popular with the long range shooting world than MOA.  At matches the shooters are almost always talking about drop and windage in MIL values.  That common language is one of the main reasons that I will likely go with MIL adjustments whenever I finally get around to upgrading my scope.

MOA units, short for Minutes of Angle, come from US Customary Units and a MOA is 1\60th of one degree.  While the measurement at 100 yards is 1.047", it is so close to 1" at 100 yards that the majority of shooters seem to round to an even 1" when referring to MOA.  An advantage of MOA units are that most US shooters are more familiar with measurements based off of the inch.  I would say that a large portion of the hunting and average shooting market talk about adjustments in MOA or inches.  There are a number of competitors that stick to the MOA measurements as that is what they are comfortable with. 

How To Combine The Systems:

The first couple local matches I shot were done with drop charts printed with elevation and windage adjustments using MOA measurements to go along with the turrets on my Leupold scope.  This worked just fine for the elevation, but for windage I very rarely dialed an adjustment on the scope.  I would, instead, use the marks in the reticle to hold off for the proper value.  As you can imagine, writing down a MOA value, then trying to convert that value at a certain distance into an appropriate MIL value while on the clock in a match was not working well.

While playing with my current ballistic software of choice, JBM Ballistics, I noticed that you could set the data fields to display different measurement values for drop and elevation.  I decided to try out printing out elevation adjustments in MOA values and windage holds in MIL values.

Change windage units to MIL, leave drop as MOA.

To start off, go into the Trajectory Card option in JBM.  This allows you to print range cards with various ranges, altitudes and temperatures.  The output format can be fairly complicated, as you will see below, but this is the basic format I used to create the Density Altitude cards that I use. 

Once you are in the Trajectory Card page, select your bullet, bullet length, velocity (low and high spread based on velocity, if known), atmospheric data, etc.  Towards the bottom of the screen you will see the option for Drop Units and Windage Units.  Here is where I select MOA for drop and MIL for windage. 

Partial trajectory card.

After all of the other information is entered, select calculate to create your drop chart.  As you can see in this partial screen shot, there is a chart for each altitude that was selected, and it is further broken down into the temperatures that were selected.  The number on the top left of each cell is the drop and the bottom right is the windage.  Hopefully that makes sense in the image to the right. 



Using this method I took my 260 Remington loads out to a couple different long ranges and trued the drop data that the charts gave me.  With my trued information, I again used JBM to create drop cards in 1000 foot Density Altitude increments.  As you can see in this image, I imported the charts into Excel and spent some time with the formatting and coloring until I got a format that I was more comfortable to use. 

Now, I could use the turrets to adjust for elevation values, and use the TMR reticle to hold off accurately for wind.

Does It Work?

So the real question is does this work in practical use?  For me, the answer is a resounding yes!  When I went to the Battle of Breakneck I got to try this system out in 20-25 MPH winds.  Since I dialed elevation for every shot, I didn't have to worry about converting anything in my head with my MOA elevation numbers.  When it came to wind, I would write down the 10 MPH wind value at 90 degrees for the appropriate distance.  I would then multiply or divide the wind speed by the value for that range and hold that MIL value in the scope reticle.  A lot of the local shooters that I shoot with refer to the 10MPH wind at 90 degrees as a "Full Value Wind."  They then talk about the wind conditions and holds as a half value, full value, double value, etc.  Using that system, it doesn't matter if your cartridges have similar wind adjustments, if you know they used a full value of wind, then you know to adjust for 10 MPH of wind at 90 degrees.

With the persistent wind that we had throughout that match I found that I never had an issue using those values to hold off for wind.  Accurately measuring or estimating the wind for each shot was a separate issue...

I have since used the same DOPE cards and method to shoot the local Cheyenne Mountain Match and Sporting Rifle Match in Raton.  This system has worked fine throughout the different environments and distances.  Since you are generating a simple number and referencing the reticle, it is pretty simple to apply.  

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Use What You Have:

My next scope will have matched turrets and reticle, most likely in MILs.  I wanted to write this, however, to show you that if you are stuck with gear that doesn't seem ideal, you can still get out and start applying it to long range shooting.  

I've wanted to try out some of these long range matches for years now, but have always felt like I just needed a little better rifle, and a better scope, and a better bipod, and a better range finder, and a better caliber, and, and, and, and...

Ultimately I have found that I have learned more about long range shooting by just getting out there and doing it, low-level gear and all.  While a better scope and rifle would be nice, I have found that I miss more targets based on my own ability, especially in varied shooting positions, than I do based on my gear.  In fact, at each match I would say there is always a few people with lower scores than me with equipment that costs much more than mine.  

I plan to keep shooting what I have, and upgrading when I can.  How to you take advantage of inexpensive or simple gear?  Let me know in the comment section below.

Check out some of the improvements I've made to my current rifle:

KRG Bolt Knob Installation and Review
My First PRS Match- A New Caliber

Magpul Hunter Bottom Metal