Is the Mildot dead ?

[drop_point]

I prefer the mildot to a lot of the Christmas tree reticles. The old mildot takes a bit more training and understanding to get the resolution out of it, but it is indeed there despite many not seeing it. Many reticles are just too busy and it actually slows me down. For the "tactical" style shooting, I still like the H2CMR reticle on the Benders.

 

[Eagle Six]

I don't think it is dead, just not as fashionable with the younger crowd due to long range competitive shooters needing a reticle with smaller increments. I've used 3/4 mil reticle with MOA increments adjusters for many years and accustom to the math fractions. I recently starting using an MOA reticle/MOA increments and have the mil dot on another rifle. I switch between the two rifles and scopes without a lot of grief, but many of my past students would fumble repeatedly with mil dots when splitting hairs on elevation, winds holds and were so slow making adjustments for moving targets they would miss the window of opportunity.

Hopefully shooters research the plus and minus of each before they buy and hopefully mil dots live long enough to outlast the trends.

Observation: Many of the shooters I speak with at our local range are setting up a new rifle with a new scope, zeroing at 100yards, checking the group size in prep for shooting 500-600 yards or greater and regardless of mil or MOA, they are still thinking inches. We know there is not much difference in MOA and inches when shooting in the bush country at white tails, but the new shooter starting to shoot long range needs to get accustom to the finer differences as they will make a difference past 600 yards and it keeps getting larger the farther out we launch.

Side note: It is more interesting to me that the majority of field shooters I have observed in the past 8-10 years selected their scope based on distance determination using the reticle on know size targets, which is still a selling point by scope manufacturers, but all are using a range finder and most cannot use the reticle to estimate the distance even if they had all morning!! Just another observation.

 

[mattri]

Vortex used to make an EBR-1 reticle in mil/mil, simple and effective, more precise than a dot.

 

[Eagle Six]

Vortex used to make an EBR-1 reticle in mil/mil, simple and effective, more precise than a dot.

I would agree anything with a hash either MRAD or MOA is more distinct than dots or 3/4 dots if the background cooperates with our vision. With aging eyes the more precise hash lines seem to blend more with the background in certain conditions and then tend to slow down my hold offs.

I moved from the high desert about three years ago to more forested terrain, after shooting for over twenty years in the high desert. I still have shooting areas nearby that are open plains, but many are forested and those small thin hash lines often want to disappear, especially with a FFP scope at lower powers. So for me, hash more precise, dots much faster.

 

[Ray123]

Nope, I still use mil dot scopes from the old days, with moa turrents! Gotta learn to convert .. fast. I Like them because of the open area and easier to spot impacts... not cluttered like the Christmas tree reticle, which a have quite a few but don't really use all the cluttered lines, hard to see with bad eyes, looks like a blury squiggly mess of lines and dots ...mil or moa either is OK , and I have both...but I just turn the turrents and use the center dot or crosshairs...so mil dot is all I need...but I like mil turrents to go with it, but moa turrents are okay too, easy to use when ya get used to it. One of my favorite scopes is the old mil dot USMC Mark 4 M3 10X with moa turrents ...big open area, fast on target, And a large 1 moa adjustment in elevation per click...about 10" per click at 1000 yds ...but I could hit eggs and pop cans at 1000 yds with it, yrs ago before the eyesight went bad.

 

[ebb]

You don't even have to know how to convert. Plug your data in to Stralok and if you give it good data it will tell what yardage all the mils work out to in yards or meters for you load and chambering. Ot shoot and back up the target till its dead on with each hash mark and record the distance.

 

[Eagle Six]

Nope, I still use mil dot scopes from the old days, with moa turrents! Gotta learn to convert .. fast. I Like them because of the open area and easier to spot impacts... not cluttered like the Christmas tree reticle, which a have quite a few but don't really use all the cluttered lines, hard to see with bad eyes, looks like a blury squiggly mess of lines and dots ...mil or moa either is OK , and I have both...but I just turn the turrents and use the center dot or crosshairs...so mil dot is all I need...but I like mil turrents to go with it, but moa turrents are okay too, easy to use when ya get used to it. One of my favorite scopes is the old mil dot USMC Mark 4 M3 10X with moa turrents ...big open area, fast on target, And a large 1 moa adjustment in elevation per click...about 10" per click at 1000 yds ...but I could hit eggs and pop cans at 1000 yds with it, yrs ago before the eyesight went bad.

M3 turret is my favorite, it's fast and forgiving. My old eyes like a bit more than 10x, but after all these years I'm extremely comfortable with that scope.