Thread: mil/moa basics - everything you've ever wanted to ask...

Originally Posted by scoped

Ok then, so is moa related to inches/imperial and is mil related to mm/cm metric?

so what im saying is, is it better if using yards, feet inches for range finders and scope turrets to use moa,? and if using metres, cm and mm and rangefinding in metres for mils?

good question

stricly speaking, no, both are just angular measures.

on a practical level, it does happen that MOA is easier to work with in inches and yards.

MIL, I dont think is really matters, you are always dealing with 1/1000th, so 1 yard at 1000 yards, 1m at 1000m, 1cm at 1000cm etc. the mental arithmetic involved in metric systems is definitely easier for most people.

Originally Posted by scoped

is one more accurate than the other?

nope, both just measure angles...

it also depends on your application. if you shoot at ICFRA targets, they are MOA based, so to some folks it makes sense to use MOA based turrets. but then again there are lots of guys shooting at those same targets using MIL reticles and mil turrets.

Greg raises an interesting point. I would say that one system has slightly finer gradations. Let's do the actual numbers to see the difference:

1 MIL @ 1000yds = 1 yard or 914.4mm, so a 1/10th mill click gives you 91.4mm movement
1 MOA @ 1000yds = 10.47 inches or 265.9mm, so a 1/4 moa click gives you a 66.5mm movement

so at a massive range of 1000yds you are looking at a 25mm difference. if you start adding shooter error, wind and all the other factors into it, that is just about irrelevant it is so small.

Please note that there is long range for us mere mortals, and then much, much, much further is Kiwi Greg range...