Thread: Mil/Mil vs MOA/MOA

Eventually I will have enough saved for a decent dialling scope.

I have done a bit of reading up on mil rads vs MOA.

Which one do you prefer and why?

What sort of reticle do you think works best with each one.

Cheers.

Reticle is a matter of preference........MOA would be the standard but i think eye and finger control make all the difference......people blame bad trigger, bad sights..... but it comes down to sight picture and a clean pull of the trigger without moving the gun.

Are you a metric thinker (MM or CM) or an Imperial thinker (Inches yards feet etc)

If metric go with mils... 1 click = 10 mm at 100m

If you are in imperial thinker go MOA... 1 click is usually 1/4 inch at 100 yards.

From that you can reason that 1/4 inch is smaller than 10mm... so M OA should be more accurate...but really 4 mm at 100m is nothing...

Whats the application?

Should have done a poll.
Something's just lend themselves better to metric or imperial. Reloading has the same question,
Everyday stuff I'm metric like most of new Zealand, but not for the other two examples.
I don't know if 1/4 is smaller than 10mm, I don't have to. Don't mix and match, pick one and stick to it.

Moa Moa

Doesn't matter, both work equally well. Thinking in terms of "clicks" works for me, I use a rangefinder and a laminated drop table. Working in clicks sorts out any confusion. With windage, its a hold on the animal, else its too much wind.

Personal preference.
At the end of the day they both do the exact same thing.
Mil rad is a slightly courser adjustment.
Personally I use Mil rad.
I am also careful to think of corrections in Mil, not in inches or cm vs the distance then converted to MOA or Mils.
A 0.1 value adjustment that is always a 1000th the distance I am shooting makes sense to me.

Originally Posted by nowool

Reticle is a matter of preference........MOA would be the standard but i think eye and finger control make all the difference......people blame bad trigger, bad sights..... but it comes down to sight picture and a clean pull of the trigger without moving the gun.

I had a look through a night force shv with an moa/moa reticle which looked like a useful one.

Originally Posted by LBD

Are you a metric thinker (MM or CM) or an Imperial thinker (Inches yards feet etc)

If metric go with mils... 1 click = 10 mm at 100m

If you are in imperial thinker go MOA... 1 click is usually 1/4 inch at 100 yards.

From that you can reason that 1/4 inch is smaller than 10mm... so M OA should be more accurate...but really 4 mm at 100m is nothing...

I have always had cheap moa scopes so usually think in that but metric for every thing else.

Originally Posted by stagstalker

Whats the application?

Hunting and prs style events.

Originally Posted by bully

Should have done a poll.
Something's just lend themselves better to metric or imperial. Reloading has the same question,
Everyday stuff I'm metric like most of new Zealand, but not for the other two examples.
I don't know if 1/4 is smaller than 10mm, I don't have to. Don't mix and match, pick one and stick to it.

That's a good point.

Originally Posted by Flyblown

Doesn't matter, both work equally well. Thinking in terms of "clicks" works for me, I a rangefinder and a wee laminated drop table. Working in clicks sorts out any confusion. With windage, its a hold on the animal, else its too much wind.

Great idea!

metric mils- any calcs you make are in multiples of 10, moa is in multiples of 4(if scope is 1/4moa clicks)- for me harder to get me head around............................................ ............

Originally Posted by Flyblown

Doesn't matter, both work equally well. Thinking in terms of "clicks" works for me, I use a rangefinder and a laminated drop table. Working in clicks sorts out any confusion. With windage, its a hold on the animal, else its too much wind.

Exactly this for me too. If using a pre-prepared drop table then from a practical standpoint it's all just clicks so it really doesn't matter.

Inherently though I consider Milrads to be the better system, for the same reason that we are metricated and use a decimal system of counting.

Im a metric person but if it goes bang I work in Imperial for some reason. Yards, MPH, inches, thou's etc etc....I think its simply what I started on in the shooting world and it just compounded. In saying that anyone that is good at maths shouldn't have any issue between the two.

Depends what you are using the scope for. A good reticle for shooting targets ( for me ) was a MIL / MIL one with proper hash marks on a FFP scope.
Drift / elevation was easily matched to the fall of shot. So adjustment was either holding off by the number of hash marks or by dialing them in. ( look up GD 2 reticles)
It would be far to "busy " for a hunting scope though.

For me it MIL's for the simple fact that as @ANTSMAN pointed out they are 10 based like our metric system and that's easier on my brain. But as long as the reticle and turret are the same it does really matter. I reckon they need to match for 2 reasons.

(1) When I Zero my rifle I fire a 3 shot group, go up to the target and put a bright orange sticker right in the center of that group then go back to rifle and measure from point of aim to point of impact (sticker) using the scope, then adjust as required. Shoot another group to confirm and usually job done. I have lost count as to how many people I see chasing there tails trying to sight in using a ruler and trying to work out how many clicks to adjust (Especially with MOA scope's and our metric range)

(2) When shooting at distance if you can spot your shots and have a miss you can measure this with scope and adjust aim accordingly. Easier with no math if MIL/MIL or MOA/MOA.

When I was first trying to learn about MILs it was confusing because most info was written by Americans who use MIL with yards/inches, which IMO ruins its simplicity. (not much of an issue if using a ballistics calculator where you just follow whatever it tells you)
They will tell you that a MIL = 3.6" at 100y (which is technically correct but more difficult than it needs to be)
I will tell you a MIL is a 10cm circle at 100m, and each .1mil click = 1cm

Use Mils and meters to make it as simple as possible if not relying on a ballistic app-
For example distance to target with MILS and ranging in Meters = Target size in CM, divide by Target size in MILS, x 10 = distance to target in meters
If you used MIL and yards, then distance to target = Target size in Inches, divide by target size in MILS, x27.7 = distance to target in yards.
Trying to work that out off hand is much easier in MILS / Meters