MOA vs. MRAD

C

Coyote-conquest

Member
I've always had scopes in MOA. In the last few months I've bought a Leupold Mark 4HD 2.5-10 and an Arken LH4. Both are FFP in MRAD.
For some reason I can't get used to mils. It just don't seem natural to me. I know a mil is 3.6 inches at 100 yards and the adjustment is .36 inches.
I don't understand how that makes more sense to people. Am I missing something? Is there and easy way to think of it? To me it's so much easier to look at MOA as close to an inch at 100 yards. I would like to hear your thoughts and opinions.
Just to add I don't shoot competition. I bang steel out to around 600 yards at my house.
 
You gotta get the inches / linear measurements out of your brain. Both MOA and MRAD are angular measurements. It's just a coincidence that 1 MOA is roughly 1 inch at 100 yards.

So for example, when zeroing your scope, and it shoots to the right, you should think "I shot about .3 mrad to the right", not "I shot about 1 inch to the right". It helps a lot if your scope has a reticle that allows you to easily measure this. You can see right in your scope that you hit .3 mrad right. Dial it .3 mrad left and you're zeroed.

Angular measurements work at any distance. For example, if you're .3 mrad right at 100 yards, you're going to be .3 mrad right at 600 yards (assuming there's no wind), and measuring with your scope reticle will tell you the same thing at both distances.
 
If your not competing than the best answer IMO is get what your buddies have so you can call corrections on the fly, doing math and doing conversion for most people is a struggle.

MOA is a smaller angular of measurement and in the benchrest community it's going to be around awhile but the PRS and steel shooters is probably 95% running MRAD. I don't have an issue with either but I much prefer MRAD as I think it makes communication much easier, I've noticed it's much easier to teach a newbie to dial or hold 2.3mils versus 1 3/4 minutes!
 
Like SYS said you need to learn to think in the system your using. My wife is learning to design on the computer and the printers use metric, she is having the hardest time. She wants to convert instead of thinking in metric.

I dabbled in both just to see how they work and if they are useful to me, they're not. 99% of the time it doesn't affect my shooting and a BDC works for me when I need to stretch a shot.
 
AWS said:
Like SYS said you need to learn to think in the system your using. My wife is learning to design on the computer and the printers use metric, she is having the hardest time. She wants to convert instead of thinking in metric.
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Just like learning a new language. I translated Spanish to English for years but you can't keep up in a conversation that way. Ya gotta think in the language you are conversing in to be proficient.
 
The original purpose of mils was to use a mil dot as a rangefinding unit before the advent of rangefinders, as I understand the system. Now that we all have rangefinders I doubt that it is used for that much any more. I can easily use either one and both are simple so I'd say pick the one you are most comfortable with and stick to it. I will continue to buy MOA scopes as long as they keep making them because I'm used to them and my purposes are for hunting. My rangefinder gives corrections in MOA and I dial accordingly if needed. If I was shooting matches and my other team mates and competitors were using mils I would probably switch just for ease of conversation but I don't shoot matches so it's really not relevant.
 
Thanks everyone. I was out shooting earlier and was trying to use the reticle to measure from as recommended. It worked fairly well with the Leupold but didn't seem to work as well with the Arken when dialing. It could be ammo but most likely its the scope. I had switched it over to my 223 AI. It didn't want to adjust how it should just sighting it in at 100 yards. I'll have to mess with it some more.
The Leupold sits on my Ruger SFAR in .308 and dials as it should. I really like that scope. It's great for hunting. Sometimes when target shooting I wish it had a thinner reticle but it's never been in the way. It's just a mind thing. The dot in the middle is small enough.
I think my biggest problem is that most of my scopes are MOA and it's what I'm used to.
 
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