Your thoughts on Holdover Style Reticles??

[nuance231]

Didn't wanna hijack SS13's Scope and Base topic but it did bring up a question I have...

I'm wondering if any of the holdover reticles ie Burris Ballistic plex, Leupold LR, Viper Dead Hold BDC etc. have been effective for longer range shots? in what light conditions? Do you feel better off with a duplex type reticle and adjusting turrets?

I need a scope for a 300WM at ranges of 600 yards or less (my personal limit) with my primary hunting area northern Minnesota. I may be shooting over prairie, fields, or primarily. logging cuts.

Thanks
Jeff

[jeffreyC]

The main problem I see with the holdover type reticle is that they are calibrated for a specific cartridge and load or a specific trajectory.

Usually I am shooting something different. (Could be why I have a Savage)

[skypilot]

Jeff, a mildot may be in your future. One has the option to 1] Range the distance 2] dial in the necessary come-ups 3] holdover 1 dot 1 1/2 dot 2 dots etc.

I hunt coyotes with a mildot and I holdover based on the "validated trajectory" of the load that's in the magazine. I usually carry 2 mags, one with a 1-300 yd range and one 300+ yds for wind.

It is real easy to correlate a particular bullet's drop @ distance with mils dropped and therefore mils holdover. Example a 10" drop @ 300 yds is: 1 mil @ 100=3.6", 1 mil @200 =7.2" and 1 mil @ 300yds =10.8". So if you were zeroed and knew your round would drop from your zeroed distance 10"@300yds you would simply holdover slightly less than 1 mildot spacing on the reticle(1st mildot below the crosshairs) and send one. This doesn't address the difference in a FFP or a SFP reticle options available on many riflescopes now.

Or if you are shooting targets(and therefore have time to dial in your come-ups) just crank in your 1/4 clicks,13=~10"@300yds, center the crosshairs and shoot.

P.S. I agree that a BDC reticle is marketed as a solution for distance shooting with a particular cartridge. A mildot will work with any bullet trajectory once you know the "validated drops" at each distance.

[jpdown]

I've been slowly converting my scopes from ballistic reticles to the newer exposed ballistic dial models (Leupold CDS, Vortex TMT). The dials can be calibarted to your pet load and you don't have a bunch of dots/hash-marks/circles clutering up your reticle. A good rangefinder makes it pretty simple.

[CJ in WY]

Most holdover reticles will not get you to 600yards without turning down the power.....Kinda defeats the perpose for me. Most will require you to taylor loads to it or adjust the power???? Kinda hard to keep track of things once you get a couple different setups. I pickt up a 4-14 Leupold that is hitting the road because its too limiting on yardages(does alright to 450 yards) and the little triangles just dont work for me.
Mildots are a good standard and depending on what power they calibrate the dot @ can be a great option.
My main hunting rifle is a 7mag with a 3-9 mildot scope. 9x is plenty for 600yards and in good conditions it does alright to 900yards.
The fixed power 16x IORs have ½mill hashes that work great in the field as the field of view is much larger than most scopes @ 16x.
The 6-24 IORs have the MP-8 reticles that are calibrated for mill @ 10x but @ 18x the hash marks then are MOA hashes wich with nost loads can get to 900 yards without dialing.

[Smokey262]

I think that holdover reticles are the cats azz and have them on all my main hunting rigs. I do not want to f-around turning the elevation knob when a target appears out of no where, I want to aim and shoot. And yes, the separations are calibrated for a certain load but so what. If I am off by two or three inches at 400 yards I do not care, its still a dead deer.

You will need to be either a really good range estimator, or if you shoot from a fixed stand know the yardages in your area. A laser rangefinder is cheap and a great tool.

I am good at math. No, really. I use it in my job everyday. But I do not want to have to calculate Mil-Dots in my head.

You also need to practice at the max range you want to hunt at.

Last but not least, research the reticles you think you might want to try and calculate the drop at the various holdover points. My two favorites are the Burris Ballistic-Plex and the Vortex Dead Hold. I think the Nikon circles are garbage. I had a Leupold B&C that was OK, but the Burris and Vortex are better. I had a Minox Z3 BDC that had good glass but the reticle design was stupid.

[leatherlunger]

in my humble opinion, as long as your turrets match your reticle you are good to go. It makes ranging with the reticle easier for known target sizes or if you use a good rangefinder it makes spotting follow up shots a breeze. I personally like moa reticles and turrets. Moa's are easier for me to quantify in my simple mind. I like 1 moa or less windage subtensions. Untill the Vortex HS LR comes out with the new xlr reticle, im stuck with the current BDC. I also like capped windage ( so i can hold off for wind) and uncapped elevation with (so i can dope elevation). I took the Gunwerks 2 Day shooting school last july and that is how I learned what works for me and what I like. I bought the their G7 BR2 and it has been a game changer for me once i got all my load data validated and tuned in. it tells you what your shoot to range based on reltime environmentals it calculates internally, how much elevation to hold or dope and how much windage to hold or dope from 5mph to 50 mph. Ive never had so much cold bore confidence in my life once i got everything working together. Find a system you like and use it to see what else is out there that would make it better.

[nuance231]

Thanks for all your responses.

With ya'lls help I'm kinda narrowing it down to what I might want... I like the idea of aim and shoot, figuring the range for each holdover dot/dash can be worked out for whatever round(s) I end up loading for this rifle. example - if a holdover dash is at 262 yards and I know the drop, I can hold high on the deers shoulder at 289 yards. Maybe the holdover reticles would have some use as a crude shorter range rangefinder for quick shorter shots, using the rangefinder and turrets for longer ranges where more precision is needed.


In the often spoken of last 10 min of legal shooting on a cloudy day with the deer of a lifetime stepping out of the woods 317 yards away, are any of holdover reticles visible?

Thanks
Jeff, who is wondering about a clear variable power scope with a plex type reticle with a few MOA or MIL dots and a matching turret that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

[JASmith]

You can get a feel for how well a mil-dot scope might work for you by going to http://shootersnotes.com/calculator/build-sight-pictures/ and enter your trajectory information. The info you will want is the drop and drift at 500 yards when using a 200 yard zero. Select a scope and target from the pull-down menus and then try a handful of different ranges and wind conditions.

You will find that a Mil-Dot can work very well within 500-600 yards even when you don't want to do all the math in the field! The reason is the dots increase the number of reference points for getting the holdover and windage right. They also give a path to rough range estimation, but I would recommend a laser range finder unless you do an awful lot of shooting at those ranges.

[308law]

Knowing your range is key and good laser rangefinders make that a lot easier. My experience with long range prairie dog hunting has taught me that, not knowing ranges can make 300 to 400 yrds shots very difficult but a good range finder, and knowing the dope on your particular cartridge make these shots fairly easy. During my first pd hunt I had no rangefinder and a standard reticles with a 22-250, our longest shot was 225 yards and we thought that was far for something that small, since then we are consistently kill pds out past 700yrds and even making a few shots past 900yrds. At those long ranges misjudging the range by even 25yrds is a clean miss. I like the holdover Reticles for sub 600yrd shots if I know the range exactly but beyond that its all turning knobs.