I'm new to airguns. Hunting with shotguns and low power rifles, I'm used to sighting in for one distance and aiming a little higher if needed. Seeing scopes on airguns and videos on making sight tapes, whats the purpose of the Christmas tree style reticle? I get marks on the main horizontal for wind, but if you're dialing to a range, doesn't the fancy reticle become useless?
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Adjustable turrets and reticle
- Thread starter Kenn1320
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Seems if dialing for range one needs only a single aiming point-a crosshair or dot. But many don't dial for range and prefer holding over. Horizontal marks for windage can be helpful in any event.
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If you’re dialing every shot, then xmas reticle and FFP is useless.
Dialing your shot for elevation allows one to use the windage (horizontal) part if the reticle to make wind calls. The up/down should be taken care of.
I noticed the SA guys pretty much dial every shot. Not sure why they are pushing FFP on their Element scopes.
Dialing your shot for elevation allows one to use the windage (horizontal) part if the reticle to make wind calls. The up/down should be taken care of.
I noticed the SA guys pretty much dial every shot. Not sure why they are pushing FFP on their Element scopes.
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You are correct....dialing one only uses the crosshairs. You have a choice to dial or hold over using the whole reticle. With FFP scopes, a change in magnification does not change the reticles POI. Good time to be a shooter with all the available scopes, reticles, focal planes and ballistic apps!
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If you dial out most or all of your elevation then you can use your Christmas tree to finish zeroing in so never useless. It is also much faster to use holdover than dialing. As stated above FFP scopes do not change the holdover points as their magnification is changed. So a 4 mill holdover is a 4 mil holdover at 4 power or 16 power. Not so with a second focal plane scope as they are only true mil holdover a one single power towards the top end of magnification.
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Also,
Keep in mind most mildot scopes are calibrated at 10X, no matter if it is a FFP scope, or a SFP scope. There are a few exceptions to this, and some scopes are calibrated at magnifications other than 10x. I have to look into this in a little bit more in depth, to see if these calibrated scopes can truly rangefind accurately at the higher magnification that it is calibrated for. It could be that these reticles are only used for reference in shooting, but not for true range calculations. I'll have to acquire one of these scopes, and try out the math. I need another scope anyway.
Getting back to why most scopes are calibrated to 10x. This insures that the mildot to mildot within the scope is calibrated to be a true 3.6 inch at 100 yds, and 36" at 1000 yards. This is for the old school Army and Marine guys that were taught how to range find by only using mildots to measure and determine their quarry's distance.
For the guys who do like that old school rangefinding method, that is a good reason not to buy a scope made in Russia. The Russian equivalent scopes have a different mildot to mildot placement within the scope. The result is if you do American math formula to rangefind with a Russian scope, your calculated range can be as much as 5% off.
Tom Holland
Field Target Tech
Fieldtargettech.com
Keep in mind most mildot scopes are calibrated at 10X, no matter if it is a FFP scope, or a SFP scope. There are a few exceptions to this, and some scopes are calibrated at magnifications other than 10x. I have to look into this in a little bit more in depth, to see if these calibrated scopes can truly rangefind accurately at the higher magnification that it is calibrated for. It could be that these reticles are only used for reference in shooting, but not for true range calculations. I'll have to acquire one of these scopes, and try out the math. I need another scope anyway.
Getting back to why most scopes are calibrated to 10x. This insures that the mildot to mildot within the scope is calibrated to be a true 3.6 inch at 100 yds, and 36" at 1000 yards. This is for the old school Army and Marine guys that were taught how to range find by only using mildots to measure and determine their quarry's distance.
For the guys who do like that old school rangefinding method, that is a good reason not to buy a scope made in Russia. The Russian equivalent scopes have a different mildot to mildot placement within the scope. The result is if you do American math formula to rangefind with a Russian scope, your calculated range can be as much as 5% off.
Tom Holland
Field Target Tech
Fieldtargettech.com
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You mentioned aiming a little higher "if needed". Well what about compensating for wind and aiming a little wider "if needed". Well what about aiming both a little higher and a little wider "if needed". Taking it to the extreme, what if you "needed to" aim a whole heck of a lot higher and wider??? You use the word aim but most use the words "holdover" for any aiming over, and "holdoff" for aiming out for wind. If one has a well designed "tree" reticle the hashes provide exacting holds. Most use ballistic calculators to determine the amount of the holds depending on, distance, wind, look angle, and station pressure.
There's no hard fast rule for using any scope however you want to. You can dial elevation and windage, or hold both those instead, or use combinations. It is easier if you have a FFP scope and a tree reticle to take advantage of the utmost versatility.
Although there are instances when one type of riflescope might be be more ideal for one purpose, the name of the game for me is "versatility" since I use my scopes for many purposes. I've really done these things with my FFP scopes via tree reticles, winning a Extreme Long Range match with a BIG centerfire(I ran out of elevation travel so I had to holdover the rest and holdoff for wind)(I've also hit a 3' plate at 1900 yards without dialing), many steel matches with tactical rifles while holding over and holding off the whole time, tactical matches with 22 rimfires when I used both methods, FT matches with airguns using both methods. Now if that doesn't qualify as a versatile rifle scope I don't know what does??!!
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"Keep in mind most mildot scopes are calibrated at 10X, no matter if it is a FFP scope, or a SFP scope."
FFP scopes keep the same calibration at all magnifications. Standard mildots are calibrated at 10x in SFP scopes.
"... Getting back to why most scopes are calibrated to 10x...."
That applies to SFP only. Besides needing to have a setting where the user knew they actually had a milliradian spacing, standard mil-dots are proportioned visually to look their best at 10x when spaced as milliradians. And those visual proportions do not change with magnification on SFP scopes. So standard mildots are easy to read at any magnification while using SFP, the user just needs to apply the correct magnification ratio. For FFP the user does not need to worry about magnification ratio, but the reticle can become hard to read (too thin or too thick) if the magnification spread becomes great.
"...The Russian equivalent scopes have a different mildot to mildot placement within the scope. ..."
There are 6283 milliradian in a full circle. The Russians rounded it to 6000 at one time, though that would not be a true Mil(liradian)dot.
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Scott,
Thanks for clearing those things up, I didn't really know how to word it properly, or how to put it.
We (military) rounded that number up to 6400. We had an accuracy of around 2% of the distance compared to the real 6283. Being that the Russians rounded down in the opposite direction, their error percent was 3 % in the other direction, making the error difference potential between us and them almost 5%. The Russians produced scopes with a different mildot spacing, that would give them more accurate rangefinding calculations being they rounded down. I have one of these scopes, and when one does the American calculations for the mildot rangefinding method, the math isn't even close. I did a test with a Russian scope ( don't remember the name), and a fixed US Optics 10× that was popular with our military. After doing both calculations, I got 2 different numbers. My 4 inch target was placed at 87 yards. The Russian scope measured it at 79 yards, the US Optics at 85. The distance to target was measured after the calculation was complete.
Anywhoo.....that's too complicated for what I was trying to explain, didn't want to get too technical.
Have a good New Year, and the same to all.
Tom Holland
Field Target Tech
Thanks for clearing those things up, I didn't really know how to word it properly, or how to put it.
We (military) rounded that number up to 6400. We had an accuracy of around 2% of the distance compared to the real 6283. Being that the Russians rounded down in the opposite direction, their error percent was 3 % in the other direction, making the error difference potential between us and them almost 5%. The Russians produced scopes with a different mildot spacing, that would give them more accurate rangefinding calculations being they rounded down. I have one of these scopes, and when one does the American calculations for the mildot rangefinding method, the math isn't even close. I did a test with a Russian scope ( don't remember the name), and a fixed US Optics 10× that was popular with our military. After doing both calculations, I got 2 different numbers. My 4 inch target was placed at 87 yards. The Russian scope measured it at 79 yards, the US Optics at 85. The distance to target was measured after the calculation was complete.
Anywhoo.....that's too complicated for what I was trying to explain, didn't want to get too technical.
Have a good New Year, and the same to all.
Tom Holland
Field Target Tech
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Thanks guys, great info. My shooting experience is mainly archery, where we hold under(gapping). Ill probably look hard at element scopes, guess advertising does pay off. Really enjoy the SA guys on YouTube
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