Milrad and moa

[AlanF]

...The rifle shooter has been brainwashed into thinking they are more modern ...

or how about more glamorous ?

[bobbyaxe]

https://www.longrangeshooting.org/artic ... 00%20yards.

If you have a phone handy just google 2.5 moa to milliradians (doesn't know mils) and it will convert for you.

Also, the other thing to remember is that on 0.1mil click scope that one click equals 1cm move at 100m, 2cm move at 200m, 3cm at 300m and so forth.

You're also not going to be able to do the fine adjustments a 1/8 moa click scope can offer.

[cheech]

Sorry I wasn’t advocating milrads for fclass, Peter mentioned hunting and I wanted to offer an opposing viewpoint for practical shooting off the square range

All good Rich. And besides we're all entitled to an opinion.

Regardless of which one , it’s important to know how to use and understand each method best as possible at least for safety sake . Many times I see shooters that don’t know what the zero elevation is to actually start from , so we are really just guessing at best and takes a lot of time to get them on sometimes every week because they don’t write down to record the last range they shot

[Tim L]

Some 4000+ years ago the circle had already been cut into 360 arcs because that is what the sun said It was also realised that 6 equilateral triangles fit exactly in a circle and conveniently 360 is divisable by 6 "exactly". So they subtended those 360 buy another 60 and we got minutes, another 60 for seconds and life was good.
Mrads (the so called decimilisation) try to do the same thing by transcribing the radius of the circle onto the circumference, calling it a radian and then using pie! A number that is so UN -decimal it can't even be written in decimal form! But some clever arse thought it was a good idea and so we're stuck with it.

How many mrads in a circle? Well that depends who you ask.
A NATO compass says 6400, a Russian one says 6000, I'm pretty sure someone uses 6300 and matamaticians say,,, well they can't actually resolve their bastard child, it's 2 x pie x 1000 so 6283.1852 blah blah blah.
So 4000 years ago man had a system of subtending a circle exactly evenly into 6, 360, 21600 and it could be done with sticks!
Now we have a system that can not cut a circle into equal bits even using a supercomputer!
Ahhh progress!

So the history aside, and the point of this post. As has been pointed out 1moa is not exactly 1" at 100 yards, but it's close enough.
1mrad at 100m is not exactly 10mm either, it rather depends on how many mrads you want to use and even mathematically its not exact, but it's close enough.
So
Rather than disuading a shooter by telling them they need to invest in, what for most is, the most expensive part of their rig, we just promote the fact that an mrad scope is equivilant to a 1/3 moa scope! Do we tell 1/4 moa guys to go and change their scope?

The bit I find odd is that it's the TR guys that shrug and walk away when mrads are mentioned and yet they are all aware of 1/3 moa optics. They just don't realise they are the same.

I guess the time to worry is when you can read the wind to within that margin of error .

[Gyro]

But Timothy, the language ALL of us NRA range shooters use is MOA.

I went to a shoot the other day where there were a few shooting the new FPR Class and I heard a few guys were talking in "mils" ( sorry Peter ) and quite frankly from then on I had real trouble properly communicating with them re the shot errors they were experiencing.

Fine, that may mean I need to do some study so I'm up to speed with them if ever I need to converse in thier language in the future. That's ok.

BUT the question I have is what is driving shooters to go with the mil system i.e. where on the planet is it a 'better' way hence shooters need to go that way ? Regards Rob Kerridge.

[Tim L]

The point is neither is better.
We use MOA. We don't need to learn anything other than an mrad scope works in 1 third MOA clicks.
We already have 1/8, 1/4 and 1/3 adjustments on the range so it's actually nothing new for us.
For ease of communication just talk in clicks and it should all become remarkably simple.

What's driving it, the same thing that has driven rifle shooting since inception, the military!
Military maps are in meters and military compasses in mills. This allows and angular measurement on the map to provide a linier distance on the ground. So, where communication really does count the military has standardised. A rifleman can look through his milrad scope and talk to the FOO or advise the pilot. The tank commander can use the numbers in his binos to communicate with his gunner and the rest of the troop. Want to adjust the mortar, it's in mills too!
Large artillary and MLRS are pretty much GPS now but you had better believe all the operators can revert to mills when the need arrises.

Like it or not mills are here to stay and MOAs are the dinosaurs, and (just because life is a funny bastard) the TR shooters are already using them!

[cheech]

The point is neither is better.
We use MOA. We don't need to learn anything other than an mrad scope works in 1 third MOA clicks.
We already have 1/8, 1/4 and 1/3 adjustments on the range so it's actually nothing new for us.
For ease of communication just talk in clicks and it should all become remarkably simple.

Yes Tim , that’s basically what I was after and from all the posts it’s given a few of us now a good understanding

[bruce moulds]

i used to think 1/4 moa scopes were sufficient, and 1/8 moa was over the top.
until i worked out that if i was going low in the 6 riing some of the group could go down into the 5, so come up a 1/4, and some of the group was going over the top into the 5.
coming up 1/8 proved to be a far better option for obvious reasons.
aiming a bit high or low helped a bit in clear conditions, which do not always exist.
1/4 moa is better than 1/3 here, but 1/8 is better than both.
mil radians might suit military, but we are not military.
for scope reticles they are supposed to be good for ranging human targets, a thing that is of no importance to us.
in fact i tried ranging goats this way and they vary so much in size it was futile.
bruce.

[pjifl]

Rather than disuading a shooter by telling them they need to invest in, what for most is, the most expensive part of their rig, we just promote the fact that an mrad scope is equivilant to a 1/3 moa scope! Do we tell 1/4 moa guys to go and change their scope?

When shooting seriously on a minute derived target I would still tell shooters to infinitely prefer MOA scopes. Try coaching a serious team where 1/2 the shooters use mRad scopes and the other half use MOA scopes. And how about two coaches trying to coordinate their coaching !

BUT I did learn something. I never realized just how close the click conversion is to 1/3 minute for a 1/10 mRad scope.

But I digress. I want to defend the use of Radians as angle measure in the appropriate place. They are not some obscure thing because someone wanted to be different. In many circumstances they are an absolute necessity.

Humanity cannot choose the physical world in which we live. We have to fall in with the Physical restraints around us if we wish to understand and master our environment and progress. Straight lines are a part of life. BUT so are Circles - especially when we live on a Spherical World. (OK - not perfectly Spherical but very very close).

There have been attempts to pretend to change the Physical World to suite us. For example, the infamous Indiana Pi Bill.
Worth reading about it just for laughs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill

We cannot change the fact that when we cut worm wheels and matching Worms we MUST introduce the natural Physical Constant Pi. When we move around the curved Earth's surface instead of move in a straight line we MUST introduce Pi in the calculations.

There are other natural Physical Constants. They keep surfacing in Mathematics. Another hugely important one is Eulers Constant
'e'. And others. 'e' (2.718281828459........) like Pi, can never be exactly expressed as a decimal number. Nothing sneaky about that. Nor can 1/3 or 1/7 for example. Blame the fact that Humans have 10 fingers as much as anything else and seem to think that 10 is a magic number. Don't get me wrong - Decimalization of values is a great concept but it is not a fundamental thing in our natural world. Just a man conceived convenience. But Pi and e go further because neither can be exactly expressed as a fraction. I will not detail the origin of 'e' . People can research that if inclined.

A consistent system is needed for Mathematics and Calculations. Pi and e MUST be introduced to keep it consistent - no amount of ignorance such as the Indiana Pi Bill can override that. It flows out inevitably into calculating many basic things.

Whenever we calculate the effects of spin of a projectile we MUST introduce Pi. Rotational velocity, Rotational acceleration, Rotational momentum and Rotational energy calculations are part of a consistent system ONLY when Pi is involved. All essential in Ballistics. The results of calculations all come out in Radians or Radians/sec etc. It is convenient to then convert to more common units such as Degrees or Rotations or Rotations per sec because that is what people relate to. Just as on Historical Rifle Ranges and Targets, people relate more to MOA.

Computer calculations are all the time converting from some commonly used rotational measure into Radians then back again. It is a MUST. There are probably more stuffups in Engineering computer programs than anything else because the conversion to and from Radians is forgotten. It even flows over to entry of angle values in hand held calculators and spread sheets.

The fact that the mRad became common in Artillery Plotting is because the value of an angle in Radians is conveniently close to the Sine of its Value for small angles. For large angles this fails and proponents had to pretend that the value of mRads is somehow sacred. Hence approximations for the full circle in mRads have been redefined as the NATO, or Swedish or Japanese or Russian value. Again the Indiana Pi Bill comes to mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milliradian gives good information.

I do think it is worth gently insisting that a mRad be called by its right name. It is the first step in understanding what a mRad really is. A Radian as approximately 57 degrees (180/Pi) and the 'm' means 1/1000 of that. Just as in m Metre, m Amp, m Volt, m Sec. The word Mil is a lazy meaningless concept as a measure used by itself. And Mrad is also wrong. That means one million radians !!!!

Sorry to be pedantic. But sometimes there are places when these concepts do matter.

Peter Smith.

[Gyro]

Leave me out of the pedantry and stuffiness pleeeease ……… just some basic tools to work with here is fine with me to better connect with fellow shooters using different gear.

[Tim L]

I think the discussion is clouding the point. I too much prefer the resolution of 1/8 moa to 1/3.
But,,,,, let the shooter discover that rather than telling them they have the wrong gear. Work with them, rather than excluding them on their first visit "because I don't understand".
Use thirds, get them in the middle and get them hooked. At that point, investing in a new scope becomes a "want" rather than a "need" and folks will always pay more for something they want
That's all this is about.

[Rich4]

I think the discussion is clouding the point. I too much prefer the resolution of 1/8 moa to 1/3.
But,,,,, let the shooter discover that rather than telling them they have the wrong gear. Work with them, rather than excluding them on their first visit "because I don't understand".
Use thirds, get them in the middle and get them hooked. At that point, investing in a new scope becomes a "want" rather than a "need" and folks will always pay more for something they want
That's all this is about.

So well said, I too prefer 1/8's for Fclass, really the point of mRad's being tens divisible, to ME has nothing to do with Military (Where TR came from I believe) or precision, in my less than important opinion it's merely the fact that math in the head in a hurry (real world) is faster, move the decimal point, no more than that, as a fitter in the Ag world I've had my fair share of imperial measurement and hate whoever came up with the concept of 16th's and 12th's , anyone who can do those sums in their head on the clock has my sincere admiration But run what ya brung, just as long as your having a go

[Wingnut]

Gents, shooters will use the scopes they have and are comfortable with. Rule of thumb when I was using my Mrad scopes was 1 click = 1/3 Moa. It worked, I hit the target and had a good time. Everything else is of no consequence. Stop pushing your biases onto others and just be thankful people are out joining us shooting. Let’s not scare them off with a list of shit we think they need to have.

Rant over.

[bruce moulds]

Gents, shooters will use the scopes they have and are comfortable with. Rule of thumb when I was using my Mrad scopes was 1 click = 1/3 Moa. It worked, I hit the target and had a good time. Everything else is of no consequence. Stop pushing your biases onto others and just be thankful people are out joining us shooting. Let’s not scare them off with a list of shit we think they need to have.

Rant over.

trying to get the best elevation setting possible is not a bias, but rather a very important aspect of marksmanship.
bruce.

[Tim L]

Gents, shooters will use the scopes they have and are comfortable with. Rule of thumb when I was using my Mrad scopes was 1 click = 1/3 Moa. It worked, I hit the target and had a good time. Everything else is of no consequence. Stop pushing your biases onto others and just be thankful people are out joining us shooting. Let’s not scare them off with a list of shit we think they need to have.

Rant over.

An excelent rant. Mirrors my own thoughts exactly.