Reasonably priced mil/mil scope

[dolomite_supafly]

I was just wondering if anyone knows of a reasonably priced mil/mil scope on the market? I am looking for something less than $300.

Almost all of the scopes that have mildot reticles have MOA knob adjustments. I am looking for a mil/mil setup to make "on the fly" adjustments easier. With mil/mil adjustments there is no more need to do the conversion that you normally would when going from mil to MOA. I currently use a mil scope and use the mil reticle for calculations and holdover but the holdover isn't exactly precise.

The few reasonable ones I have found are:
Wonder Optics Tactical
Falcon Menace

Of course there are the higer end optics like US Optics, NightForce, and a few others. I am not in the position to be able to justify spending that much on an optic right now.

Thanks
Dolomite

[Don - LongRangeSupply]

Just calibrate the mil dots to MOA and you can use any of them.

Very simple to do with a 2nd focal plane reticle zoom optic. Set up a 1 or 2 inch grid at 100 yards and and turn the zoom dial to the higher end until it precisely brackets an even inch spacing. Take note of how many inches it covers and you can use it for holdover and ranging with MOA rather than mils. Make a mark on the zoom ring with something permanent (alkyd oil paint if applied to a clean surface is pretty tough) and set it there rather than to the mil ranging spot on the ring, and you are good to go. While you are at it make a mark where it ranges in inches / moa at one of the wider settings.
You can also scribe a line if you want something totally permanent.

[sharpshooter]

That's exactly what he DOESN"T want to do..... >
If you are gonna use the miliradian reticle, you want the adjustments in 1/10 of a mil. If you are gonna use m.o.a., get a reticle in m.o.a.
Making conversions from metric to english is confusing enough, and I would prefer to not need that kind of aggravation in the field. Simple is always better.

[rjtfroggy]

Your price range is going to make it darn near impossible for a quality scope.
Cheapest quality scope I have found is the ss 3-9x42 priced at $600 and their ss 10x42 hd at $800.

[Don - LongRangeSupply]

That's exactly what he DOESN"T want to do..... >
If you are gonna use the miliradian reticle, you want the adjustments in 1/10 of a mil. If you are gonna use m.o.a., get a reticle in m.o.a.
Making conversions from metric to english is confusing enough, and I would prefer to not need that kind of aggravation in the field. Simple is always better.

I was trying to show that you don't really need to use or at least for me, want a mil spaced reticle at all!
I would never want to go Mil / Mil if I could have MOA/MOA but MOA spaced reticles are unfortunately not offered in very many scopes.

I agree with you that simple is always better. MOA/MOA is much more simple than Mil/Mil. Why would you want to work with the fractions required with mils over the simplicity of MOA? An MOA click /MOA calibrated reticle is a more streamlined system than a Mil / Mil setup. What I was explaining was how to use a mil dot reticle which is the most common (albeit antiquated) ranging reticle out there, in MOA rather than mils. I say abandon the out dated mil spacing and go with MOA spacing on the reticle through calibration then you can use virtually any mil dot reticle scope out there with MOA clicks without the clashing of a mil spaced reticle and MOA clicks, thereby opening up a HUGE selection of scopes to choose from.

Working in MOA for the vast majority of shooters is faster to calculate and easier to understand than mils. Another plus to calibrating a mil reticle to MOA is that the click value will be finer with a 1/4 MOA knob vs. a 1/10 Mil. For my long range shooting 1/4 MOA is a bit too much movement at 1000 yards for a precision shot. With a 1/10 mil click you are going in the wrong direction with an even coarser per click value.

Unless you are already trained in using mils, I recommend not even going there. Calibrating the mil dot reticle to MOA is an easy to do technique to get what you want, system that has matching clicks and reticle spacing, in a much greater selection of optics.

[sharpshooter]

I agree with sticking to m.o.a, it is a standard for 99.9% of shooters. But try to convince a european that inches are better than millimeters, some are just accustomed to a different system.
Personally, I would get a scope that best suited my purpose and have a custom reticle with dots where I want them.
On a side note: The Bushnell 6-24 4200 elite mil-dot has mil dots relative to 12 power. When changed to 24X, the dots are 1/2 m.o.a. and 1-1/2 m.o.a. apart. This is very usable for varmint calibers and easier to figure than 3.6 m.o.a for a mil.

[dolomite_supafly]

The biggest reason I wanted MIL/MIL is I have gotten used to calculating ranges using MIL. The formula is easy for me to remember. I am able to get hits inside a 6" circle reliably using the mildots for holdover out to 400 yards. I think if I were able to dial up the holdover I think I would be able to shrink the groups a bit. Aiming dead center of the target I can shrink the groups to sub MOA but the drop puts them off target. As it is right now I don't use the dials for anything after I get the scope zeroed. I only punch paper and steel so this isn't life and death but would like to be very comfortable with whatever setup I decide to use.

I have and use Ballistic FTE as well as Knights Armament BulletFlight on my Iphone. Both these programs can be setup to give solutions in MOA or MIL. They are wonderful programs and would recommend them to anyone. You put in all the geographical and atmospheric data on the day you zero. After that any time you go to shoot, regardless of conditions, you can update it with current geographical and atmospheric data "on the fly" and the program makes changes to get you on target. I have found them to be very accurate and are basically high end versions of a drop chart.

I guess I can do a drop chart with 1/4 MOA and only use the reticle to range. This shouldn't be an issue because the turrets on the scope I use are marked in MOA. Actually this is probably what I will do, have a drop chart with MIL and use it for quicker shots. And if I have time I can dial in more precise shots using the turrets.

Thanks for all the advice and options,
Dolomite

[Don - LongRangeSupply]

The biggest reason I wanted MIL/MIL is I have gotten used to calculating ranges using MIL.

If you are trained on mils that is definitely a good reason to stick with them. I just have never enjoyed the fractional aspect of them.

[bigngreen]

I'm rockn a WOtac and really like it. It's the variable so I run it in MOA/MOA with Patagonia ballistics and it works for me. If you run the straight 10x it is MILL/MILL, with .5 mill between the hash marks. I have never used true mill dots for ranging so I don't know which would be more accurate to range with.
If it comes to customer service Matt at Wonder Optics is the man with a life time warranty, Falcon comes up with 5 yrs which I find weak.
At any rate I would call Matt at Wonders he will sell you the right scope even if it isn't his with no BS and he could give you a good idea the strong points of each and the weak points.

[dolomite_supafly]

I made up a cheat sheet with drop. I have holdover to 500 yards in mils at 10X and 12X, 12X is the max on the scope I am using at the moment. I added a column that has hold over in MOA for when I want a little more precise and have time to use it. I think it will work well and I will get a chance to try it out this weekend if the weather breaks.

The biggest reason I like ranging in mils is the formula.

Target Height x 1000
Mils in the scope

This gives you the distance to the target in the same units of measure as the target height.

To give you a practical idea:

The average person is 2 yards tall
Multiply 2 yards by 1000 giving 2000 yards
The target ranges at 5 mils in the scope
2000 yards divided by the 5 mils is 400 yards, the distance to the target.

You can use whatever unit of measure you want, feet, yards, meters, whatever you want and the output will be in the same unit.

Dolomite

[tammons]

If you can live with MOA knobs there are quite a few scopes like the Super sniper.

Just a cheap decent hunting scope is the Sightron 3-9x mildot. Mils at 9x.
Several Nikon Buckmaster, they all mil at 12x so you might as well just get a 4-12x unless you are going to do a custom calc.

Sightron is a little different in their approach to mildot scopes. All their high power scopes mil at the highest power like the SII 6-24. Mils at 24x.

I had an IOR 3-18xFFP snipers hide edition scope that was mil adj and it drove me nuts. Been dialing 1/4 moa too long. Besides I bought it to shoot holdoff only as it was milhash II with 15 mils of holdover. 11.5 visable at 18x.
Once it was diled in it did not matter. It was expensive.