“Mil” and “MOA”

    First, what do these even refer to?  Both Mil and MOA are standards that apply to scopes.  They are each different ways of addressing the reticle marks inside the scope to indicate where your shot will land based upon the round being fired, weather conditions, distance to the target, and other factors.  All things being the same except distance, Mil and MOA tell the shooter where to aim in relation to the target based upon the change in range from zero (the distance at which you zeroed your scope).  Should the shooter desire to adjust the reticle to zero at the new distance, Mil and MOA tell the shooter how many “clicks” to turn the scope reticle dial in order to make new distance the zero on your reticle.   So what are each and how do you use them?

Mil’s are the standard the military has adopted.  No, “Mil” doesn’t stand for “military,” though that would be a reasonably guess.  It actually is short for “milli-radian” and is also sometimes called MRad.  Geometrically, a “radian” is found by transferring the radius of a circle to the circumference of the same circle.  The ratio comes out to be about 6.  3.  Within each radian there are 1000 mils.  All this is nice but how does that help the shooter?Easy - turns out the military uses mils because at 100 meters, 1 mil = 10 centimeters!If you want to work in inches and feet, 1 mil = 3.  6 inches at 100 yard.  Then there is MOA.

 

    MOA stands for “minute of angle” and is probably more familiar to us Americans.  You might recall from High School that the 360 degrees of a circle are divided into “minutes,” seconds, and even further divided beyond this.  For us it’s the “minutes” we are concerned with.  1 MOA = 1” at 100 yards - which is why most American hunters prefer to use scopes with reticles marked in MOA versus mils.  Most scope turrets are set up such that one click = either 1/4 or 1/2 MOA.

    When purchasing and using a scope it is incumbent that you know whether your scope’s reticle is set up in mils or MOA, and how your turret cap is set up (units per click).  One more thing to note.

  

    It has become popular with scope makers to create turret caps that are changeable.  You may have heard you can get a “.  223” turret cap for your scope.  That will work fairly well for military 5.  56 ammo but it won’t necessarily be okay for your .  223 non-military rounds.  The caps are set up for the specific round - not a generic round.  So if you do get the turret cap you will STILL need to create a data table for your rifle and rounds.