OK....this has been posted before, but we didn't get into any real in-depth 'how-to' the last time, so I figgered I'd be a hero and post it again.


This is why the mildots are considered a 'must have' with so many tacticool people. You can estimate distances very accurately (within 5 yds at 1000 yds and beyond) but it does take a lot of practice.

Since I can't help you with the practice part, here's the procedure and the math.



First things first: Know your scope! If your scope is a First Focal Plane, you can range at any zoom setting. Most scopes made for sale in the US are 2nd Focal Plane, and are calibrated to range at one particular setting--either the highest setting, but the more commonly at 10x. (for instance, my 2-12x32 and 4-14x50 IORs are calibrated to range at 10x)



Pick a target of known dimensions....car tire, depth of a deer's chest, average height of a person, etc. I run around with a measuring tape and randomly measure weird things. For instance, I know that the split rail fence posts outside my house are 39" tall. I know that from the ground to the roof of my truck is 74" tall. Military snipers usually have a notebook with them whenever they're in the field with the dimenions of enemy gear--knowing the true size of an object makes this systm much more precise.

Bracket the target between the mil marks and count how many mils the target fills--to be more than roughly accurate, you need to break those mils down to hundreths.....it ain't easy--hence, the practice.
ETA: if you're off by .1 mil on an 18" target at 1000 yds, with a .308 you'll be shooting over or under by 200 inches or more!!

This is the way I was taught:

Take your target size in inches and multiply times 27.778


Example, using an 18" target: 18 x 27.778 = 500.004. (round down to an even 500)

Divide 500 by the number of mils the target brackets into. If the target is 1.25 mils, your equation is

500 / 1.25 = 400.0032. (round down to an even 400)

the complete formula is: (18 x 27.778) / 1.25 = 400

Viola. You just ranged. The more accurately you can estimate the mil reading and the size of the target, the closer you'll be to the actual range.....practice makes perfect.






**An example of another equation that works well: **and quite a bit easier to use than the inches method



(size in target in YARDS X 1000) / mils = range. This will give you the same solutions as the previous method. You need to be precise with the decimal (dividing inches into yards.)

Using the new formula, and our previous 18" target and 1.25 mil reading, the equation looks like this:

(.5 X 1000) / 1.25 = 400






edited to add: For a very good demonstration and a chance to see how well you can do this, check out http://shooterready.com/ and try the demo!

This post has been edited by Colt45Guy: November 8th 2007 7:39 PM

you da man! i'm gonna bring my scope to work with me tomorrow and practice ranging things out the windows.

ETA: that simulator is going to be awesome to play with.

it really helps, but you're going to need a stable rest. Holding the scope still enough to read the mils is virtually impossible without a rifle under it. I practice at work all the time and rest the scope on a block wall so I'm not even touching it. (my commander came out of his office and saw his resident gun nut with a scope glassing across the flightline to other side of the base....the conversation started with "WTF ARE YOU DOING???" Everything that followed is what sparked this thread)

You sound like you know what you're doing, so tell me what I'm doing wrong. I measured a distance to a shed using Google Earth and it came to about 450 yards, give or take a couple of feet or yards, being that it isn't the most accurate tool to use but at least it's in the ballpark range.
I have a S&B 5-25x56 scope mounted on a AI 300 Win. Mag., I put the scope at full power(x25) to get a more accurate MIL reading, and measured two things from the shed, a window approx. 30 inches wide coming out to 1.75 Mils and a A/C wall unit about 20 inches wide, .75 Mils.
And I came out with these calculations - (window) 30in. x 27.77 = 833 divided by 1.75 = 476
(A/C unit) 20in. x 27.77 = 555 divided by .75 = 740

The A/C unit is directly next to the window, now if the A/C unit was the only object to get a range estimation from, I'd be over 260 yards off. But yet the window gave a better rough range estimate? What if you needed to take out that A/C unit and came up with those calculations, you'd be off by a mile! I know the Mil Dot formula gives just an estimated range and isn't accurate down to a dime so how do you compensate between those measurements that I gave?

I also forgot to ask, once you have your yards estimate, how do you use the Mil Dot to hold it at that specific range? For example, minus the wind and temperature factor, if my scope is zeroed in at a 100 yards, which Mil Dot would I hold it at to hit a target 630 yards away?

i am a stumbling newb at this myself, but i will ask you 1 question. what zoom setting does your scope need to be on in order to range and are you using that setting? i think that might be your issue. each one is different. it will not range correctly at all zoom settings. depending on what plane yours is set to will make a difference.

i think i am correct in saying that most IOR scopes are supposed to be on 10x when ranging, but i could be wrong, and probably am. i have NO clue about S&B.

colt will be along soon enough. just give him time, he is deployed at the moment.

ETA: i think that might have been 2 questions.

AFAIK, the mil dots are only for ranging distance. they are not "hold-over" marks. you need to adjust your turrets to match the distance, once you have figured it out.

again, i could be wrong, but from what i have read, that's how it's supposed to work.

they could work as "hold-over" marks if you know exactly how much your bullet is going to drop in X amount of yards, but that will vary so much with each load that nothing can be truly precise. bullet weight, amount of powder, barrel length, etc, makes every rifle different. for that, you will just need to practice with your rounds, and make up your own dope sheet.

i hope that helped until colt arrived.

and don't take everything i said as 100% correct, i am still learning myself.

it's a complex game, no?

Hey Mp--most of what Racer said is pretty much correct. First thing to do is find out what magnification setting your scope is calibrated to range at. Most manufacturers set their stuff up at either 10x or max magnification.....no idea about yours. (look at the adjustment ring--one of the numbers should have a ring around it--that's your ranging setting)

The other thing to find out is how your reticle is calibrated. Some manufacturers don't use standard 1 mil increments on the windage--no idea about yours. See if the dots are equally spaced from the center.....my Nightforce NPR2 ret was in 2 and 5 mil increments on windage. It made for quicker guesstimations and a less cluttered image, but it kinda sucked for precision.

eta: I think this may be your problem--you were too close on the 30" window for your math to be off....I'm thinking that you misread your mils, and quite possibly due to a different windage scale. What model scope?


The mildots can be very effectively used as hold over/under marks, but you need to know your load and your rifle. You'll need to enter the velocity, bullet weight, ballistic coefficient, and barrel length into a ballistics calculator to get a close approximation of what your chosen loads will do--and then, you'll need to actually shoot at known ranges to get the precise data.


I mentioned it in the original post--I highly recommend the ShooterReady.com website. Try the demo. It'll give you quite a bit of practice at the basics, and it's free. It'll show you a basic range card, explain the math, and it touches on the holdover/unders that you asked about.


***you have some EXCELLENT equipment! I have gun envy

This post has been edited by Colt45Guy: May 14th 2008 1:05 PM

Colt45 replied back but he's offline right. But part of his reply said, "Hey Mp--most of what Racer said is pretty much correct. First thing to do is find out what magnification setting your scope is calibrated to range at. Most manufacturers set their stuff up at either 10x or max magnification.....no idea about yours. (look at the adjustment ring--one of the numbers should have a ring around it--that's your ranging setting)
The other thing to find out is how your reticle is calibrated. Some manufacturers don't use standard 1 mil increments on the windage--no idea about yours. See if the dots are equally spaced from the center.....my Nightforce NPR2 ret was in 2 and 5 mil increments on windage. It made for quicker guesstimations and a less cluttered image, but it kinda sucked for precision."


I checked my scope and there's no indications or markings saying what power it needs to be at for ranging. The thing is, I think maybe, for this particular scope, it may not matter because when I ZOOM, the RETICLE and the object ZOOM's together, so the MIL DOT stays at the same increments with the object, the same increments as it would be at it's lowest power?

As far as the MIL DOT increments on the reticle, it looks pretty standard with a floating center crosshair, four ROUND MIL DOTs with the heavy post at the ends. Nothing fancy.

And for ranging I used the "Mil Dot Method" read from a website (http://www.mil-dot.com/Mil_Dot_User_Guide.htm#Math)

I had already visited that shooterready website and got my calculations from there. There's another great site also (http://www.mil-dot.com/Mil_Dot_User_Guide.htm#Math)

I replied back to RACER because at the time you were offline, so you can read my reply from him and give feed back.

RACER mentioned that you're deployed? Where at?

Thanks for the equipment KUDOS!

check out the 3rd question in the Q&A on their website.

http://www.schmidtbender.com/faqs.shtml

i called them on lunch break to ask them what magnification it needs to on to range, but the poor woman i talked to was clueless and she said the tech guy just left for the NRA show and won't be back in the office till the 20th. we will find out then.

Mp--you have a FFP scope. It ranges at any zoom setting. (that's a good thing!) The reticle is still in question--depending on how it's calibrated is going to depend on how you use it. The way you described it, it sounds like the P3. I'm going to hazard a guess that you either mis-read it, or your estimation on the size of the window or that a/c unit is off.



(you could always just send it to me and I'll try it out for you )







eta: I'm in the middle east directly supporting OIF, OEF and Horn of Africa.....I'm not supposed to say where, and since this is a .gov computer, I'll follow the rules.....but I should be home by Sunday

This post has been edited by Colt45Guy: May 15th 2008 5:09 AM

Well, I'd better not ask anymore Q's about your where-abouts, don't want you to get into trouble.

Yes, it's a P3-Illuminated. You can see what I see by clicking here, http://www.schmidtbender.com/reticlesPM.htm But as far as calibration, I don't know because my scope came without a manual for some reason. I'll probably just have to call S&B.

But as far as ranging calculations, the window's calculations came out roughly to about the right distance. But as far as the A/C unit, I can't see it being no more than 2ft. wide, even if it is a large unit. When I have the power cranked up, it's hard to get a bad reading because the unit is so squared and the MIL's are huge, giving you a more exact reading. I even tried calculations, giving and taking a couple of inches and giving and taking a 1/4 to a 1/8 of a mil(.75,.65,etc.), and the calculations are still pretty hay-wire. And I just thought of something, the average width of a person is about 22-24 inches wide. And in most situations, snipers calculate their estimations using a person upper torso as reference? So how the heck is the numbers not adding up?

I don't know, maybe you could try a test similar to what I did with your scope, picking two objects of different sizes at the same distance and try to see if they range at the same distance? If your calculations comes out then I'll just get a simple crosshair scope and a range-finder and call it quits with the mil dots. LOL

Thanks for the help!

Check out the last paragraph in the recent reply to Colt45 about the "object test" ,and see if I'm really that off? I hope we're all off target because I don't want to be the only retard here! LOL

i am not near my rifle right now, and it will be dark when i get home.

When ever you get the chance.

12" nipple to nipple and 12" neck to navel. Basically, a 12"x12" square of vital organs.


Don't call it quits on the scope Bro! Mildots are hard to get the hang of, but once you've got it, it's like light from above--it took me a long time to get reasonably accurate ranging with my scopes, and a whole lot of practice. Since you've got the open area, I'd recommend placing a few targets of known size at known ranges and work at it until you can get accurate estimations. (that's how I learned)

No, of course I won't give up that easy. I'm one of those people who, out of frustration, will keep doing something until I eventually get it.

I'll just keep practicing! Thanks for all the help!

OK... lets see if we can't teach Tim too

I can't figure out the first stage of the demo....

we are looking at a 12" x 12" target. I am estimating it from the 10x magnification.

I am thinking the target appears to be 12in off the ground, so my math is 24" X 27.778 / mils(which I am reading as 2 - this is # of mil dots right?)

my math puts it at 380 yards.

according to the chart I adjust the top knob to about 6 and 1/2 and the wind is adjusted back to 14. I hit low and to the right. I wind up adjusting it up more and to get on target. When I hit the target, it shows range as 420 yards and 380 meters...

I am not sure what I am doing wrong....

OK, I think I got it...

I think I was estimating height wrong...

I can get close... but still its tough...

I can't get the windage figured for the life of me though...