It can be intimidating to start with a rifle and select the greatest telescope you can buy for that gun. You have probably done your homework on the best rifle to buy based on the type of shooting you plan to undertake, or you will do so soon. Whether it’s for self-defense, hunting, or target shooting. The kind of telescope matters just as much. Red Dot scopes are excellent for firing in a tactical self-defense manner. It works well with guns, tactical long guns, and other weapons. A decent telescope is necessary for long-range shooting when hunting or shooting targets at the range. I’ll be talking about these kinds of optics in this article.
Overview
A telescope is just a tube that has been filled with several excellent pieces of glass. Some scopes’ magnification is fixed, while others can be changed. Turrets are knobs that are found on the top and sides of all high-quality scopes. The crossbar or reticle of the scope’s aiming reticle is adjusted using the turrets.
The view through the scope is of a crossbar. Some have dots, lines and numbers or a combination of each. The two measurement system types are either MIL Dot or MOA. Your choice between the two is completely your preference.
MILS
Milliradian are referred to as “Mils”. It does not signify “military,” despite the widespread belief that it does. An angle within a circle is measured in milliradian. You will notice either a series of dots or hash marks on either side of the vertical and horizontal crosshairs when looking through a mil-based scope. Mils are the dots or hash marks that you see while looking through your scope along with your crosshairs. The space between these dots, which is a typical sighting distance for hunting rifles at 100 yards, corresponds to a target height of 3.6 inches. The representative distance between your mil-dots or hash marks changes depending on whether you are getting closer to or farther away from your target.
You will hit your target 3.6 inches high if you are shooting at a target from 100 yards away and the bullet hits the target center left-to-right but impacts at the first dot above the crosshairs top-to-bottom. When rotating the dial on your turret, you’ll need to know how much the crosshairs are adjusted. The majority of contemporary mil-based scopes adjust in 0.1 mil steps, therefore to hit your target dead center, you will need to move the crosshairs down 10 times on the wheel.
MOA
MOA is an acronym meaning “minute of angle or moment of angle.” Just like milliradian, a minute of angle is a measurement of an angle within a circle. The bigger of the two is mils, yet they are different sizes. Mils are more difficult to comprehend than minutes of angle, though. Minutes are merely a scaled-down version of the degree. A degree is made up of 60 minutes, like an hour.
You normally see your crosshairs, as well as lines or dashes on both the vertical and horizontal axes, when looking through your MOA scope. The space between these dashes, in the 100-yard example from before, corresponds to a goal height of 1.047 inches. 1.047 inches is so near to 1 inch that it can simply be rounded down, despite the fact that there is a standard known as Shooter’s Minute of Angle (SMOA) where that value is a real 1 inch between dashes.
For the purposes of this illustration, we are sighting our rifle at a distance of 100 yards, hitting the target perfectly top to bottom, but we are striking the initial sprint to the left of the crosshairs. This indicates that we are off by 1 inch, making the adjustment simple. You must be aware of how much your crosshairs shift with each adjustment of the turret’s wheel, just like you would with a mil-dot scope. Modern scopes adjust in 1/4 MOA steps. Therefore, to hit your target dead center, you will need to move the crosshairs to the right 4 times on the wheel.
What is superior? Both or neither. It all comes down to individual preference. Trying both is the greatest approach to figuring out what you prefer.