Thread: Trying to Wrap my head around it.

Hey guys,

This year i have set the challenge to get the hang of properly using a rifle scope so i can feel more confidant and hopefully get out and shoot my first deer. A little while ago i picked up a second hand Vortex Diamondback from a relative for reasonably cheap, its got all the turrets on it (Which ive never really understood). The top of the turrets says (1 click =0.1MRAD) and im really trying to understand what that means. I mainly shoot reasonably close( wouldn't shoot any further than a hundred meters) would love to be consistant at like 2-300mts. The gun im mounting it on is a 308win, shooting Winchester Super x 150gr. My main questions are what would be the simplest way of learning the conversions to how many clicks on the (up down) (left right), Ive seen photos online of people with the bits of paper taped to their stocks with how many clicks needed for the meters the shots at. I have a set of binos with the builtin Rangefinder, are these ok to use or are they a bit dodgy on the readings.

Cheers team look forward to the advice.

1 MRAD is 10 cm @ 100 mtrs,

So 0.1 MRAD is 1cm (10mm) @ 100 mtrs.

Sight your rifle in so it is bang on @ 100 mtrs.

There will (or should) be a dope chart for bullet drop on you packet of ammunition.

You can feed the MOA values into to google to give you the MRAD values, may the easiest way to do it.

You can then dial these numbers into the turrets for elevation.

Set your Binos to meters not yards

Hey SH.

Youve got a great scope there. 1 click = 0.1 mil means that when shooting at 100 meters, every click up ( or down) will cause your point of impact to move 10mm.

1 click at 100m = 10mm
1 click at 200m = 20mm
1 click at 300m = 30mm

Range finder binos are generally good.

If you are shooting at deer, and you are shooting out to 300m with a 308, I would sight it in at 25mm to 40mm high at 100m. It will be about zero mm high at 200m and maybe 50mm to 75mm low at 300. The zone where you want to aim to drop a deer is about 250mm round so if you aim slightly above the centre of that the bullet should impact inside that critical circle out past 300m without altering your scope at all.

If you are failry new to shooting , which it sounds as though you are, then practise as much as you can as well. Most shooters I knwo would struggle to hit a dinner plate target at 100m until they had had quite a bit of practise.

Other than that, you have got a good scope and the range finding Binos will help once you get better at it.

What @timattalon has said is the old rule of 3 or "maximum points blank range" from back when people didn't have rangefinders and scopes weren't all twiddly dials. You set your scope so at 100 yards it shot 3 inches high. By the time it's come back to zero it will be very close to 200 yards and when it's dropped 3 inches the range will be 250. So Anywhere between 25 and 250 yards just aim dead on at your game and the bullet should be within 3 inches of that point which for practical hunting is plenty.

What Marty Henry said. If you are seeing deer within 200 metres then you dont need to know any of that stuff. Just sight your rifle in so it groups 2.5 - 3 inches high at 100 metres, and then shoot a deer from 5 metres out to 250 m aiming the same spot.

If you're still on your first deer, dont worry about techincals of a long range scope, instead study deer anatomy and where to shoot them.


I have attached this handy graphic you can print out and tape to your rifle stock instead of a drop sheet.

deer thats an Australian kanga goat cross called a kangabaaaa very rare indeed and likely protected

Are the turrets “exposed “ ie you can see markings and adjust them in the field for each shot ? Or do they have a cap on them and you only adjust them at the range when sighting in ?

Can you see which model of diamondback it is ?

Originally Posted by John Duxbury

What Marty Henry said. If you are seeing deer within 200 metres then you dont need to know any of that stuff. Just sight your rifle in so it groups 2.5 - 3 inches high at 100 metres, and then shoot a deer from 5 metres out to 250 m aiming the same spot.

If you're still on your first deer, dont worry about techincals of a long range scope, instead study deer anatomy and where to shoot them.


I have attached this handy graphic you can print out and tape to your rifle stock instead of a drop sheet.

JD has missed his true calling, should have been a comic artist!

Originally Posted by Barry the hunter

deer thats an Australian kanga goat cross called a kangabaaaa very rare indeed and likely protected

Took the words out of my mouth(meatloaf)

Everyone else has covered your question - just wanted to add something with the Win ammo I found a little while back. I ended up at the range on an unusually cold day for us, wind chill under zero and quite cold. 100m 1.5" high, a little below zero at 200m which matched the trajectory on the packet. 300m, nowhere to be found - worked out that the pills were basically rolling along the bottom of the range's dirt from about 275m and leaning on the bottom of the target frame!

Drop once I got a piece of newspaper behind my target was about 16" or 400mm so clean off the bottom of the target at 300m, unworkable basically. In normal temps of around 20 deg or so no problem the ammo matched the boxes table near enough, but in colder temps very anemic and it was a fairly major surprise for us as I would not have expected such an extreme change in performance for what really isn't that big a temperature swing.

So with the Winchester Super-X Powerpoint 150gr ammo in the grey box if that's what you are using, I would stick with 200m max and be happy with it. With that, if you zero 1.5" or say 40mm high at 100m you should be close at 200m and aim straight at the target for anything up to 200m. Happy days.

Originally Posted by John Duxbury

What Marty Henry said. If you are seeing deer within 200 metres then you dont need to know any of that stuff. Just sight your rifle in so it groups 2.5 - 3 inches high at 100 metres, and then shoot a deer from 5 metres out to 250 m aiming the same spot.

If you're still on your first deer, dont worry about techincals of a long range scope, instead study deer anatomy and where to shoot them.


I have attached this handy graphic you can print out and tape to your rifle stock instead of a drop sheet.

JD that is easily the funniest thing I have seen on here this year.
@SimpleHunter12 even though this is funny, it’s funny because it’s true. Inside of 250, all you have to do is aim directly. As long as you’re not using subsonics. If your sighted in 3” (75mm) high at 100, that aiming point will drop a deer regardless of if it’s at 25, 250 or somewhere in between.

The other thing about sighting in your rifle before you adjust too much is firstly will your rifle shoot and acceptable group. Thats the first thing I check with a new to me rifle. If it doesnt youll be chasing shots all over the target and never get it sighted in

Originally Posted by SimpleHunter12

Hey guys,

This year i have set the challenge to get the hang of properly using a rifle scope so i can feel more confidant and hopefully get out and shoot my first deer. A little while ago i picked up a second hand Vortex Diamondback from a relative for reasonably cheap, its got all the turrets on it (Which ive never really understood). The top of the turrets says (1 click =0.1MRAD) and im really trying to understand what that means. I mainly shoot reasonably close( wouldn't shoot any further than a hundred meters) would love to be consistant at like 2-300mts. The gun im mounting it on is a 308win, shooting Winchester Super x 150gr. My main questions are what would be the simplest way of learning the conversions to how many clicks on the (up down) (left right), Ive seen photos online of people with the bits of paper taped to their stocks with how many clicks needed for the meters the shots at. I have a set of binos with the builtin Rangefinder, are these ok to use or are they a bit dodgy on the readings.

Cheers team look forward to the advice.

Keep it simple.
Don’t think of your adjustments as clicks, they’re 0.1 Mrad.
The simplicity of Mrad is the adjustment is 1000th of any distance the distance to the target ie 1cm 100m, 3cm 300m, 1m 1000m. Even 1yard per 1000yard or 1 banana per 1000 bananas. It works like a direct ratio and is similar to base ten metric, however is not a metric unit of measurement. I tend to explain it as a 1:1000 ratio to new shooters which most seem to have grasped it.
Google making a ‘drop chart’ which is the paper taped to the stock you’ve referenced. It’s just a list of known adjustments at each of your desired distance intervals.
As bagheera queried, if you have exposed turrets on your model diamond and are keen to dial, then dial. Your scope is capable and you’ll enjoy learning and employing the new skill. You’ll be able to shoot far far in excess of what the rule of thirds will allow whether hunting or plinking for fun.
The adjustment left and right are for wind corrections (lateral bullet drift) and that is the black art.
There are some really good videos on YouTube and it is a great resource, there are also some shockers. Vortex and the other manufacturers have excellent tutorials that break things down into manageable points without a lot of unnecessary fluff.

Sorry my break down above worfts between between Mrad and 0.1 Mrad but you get/the idea and I can’t now edit it to correct the post.