Poll: MOA or MIL...Which is better?

[P7M13]

I still use one for properly sizing ductwork...

You do Bernoulli calculations on the fly? I'm impressed!

 

[Kruel J]

My two bench rifles are one of each. And I admit, I get confused switching back and forth.

 

[Stomper]

You do Bernoulli calculations on the fly? I'm impressed!

Yeah, I get that a lot.

 

[P7M13]

It's been almost a year since I used shooter, and had a sneaking suspicion I had described it incorrectly. Yup.
Went to my phone, forgot I had scrubbed it last fall - shooter was gone. Reinstalled it and downloaded my data profile from the cloud.

Here's an example, and how you work with it.

1. Set up your rifle. This includes scope information.
2. Set up cartridge data.
3. When you're shooting, select the rifle and cartridge, then enter in the shot variables.

 

[DB is Here]

shooter

Paid app?

 

[P7M13]

Paid app?

Yes, $9.99
Here's the publisher website. Shooter - Ballistics Calculator for iOS and Android
You can also edit your rifle and dope information in the cloud using your computer. Then when you install it on a new android device, you just reload the data from the cloud.
[edit to add] I've also purchased Strelok. Both apps work great, prefer Shooter.

 

[11Charlie]

Yes, $9.99
Here's the publisher website. Shooter - Ballistics Calculator for iOS and Android
You can also edit your rifle and dope information in the cloud using your computer. Then when you install it on a new android device, you just reload the data from the cloud.
[edit to add] I've also purchased Strelok. Both apps work great, prefer Shooter.

One time charge? Hopefully not a monthly thing.

 

[2A2Dend]

After a lot of reading about the different ballistic apps available, I bought Strelok Pro and moved on. This App is a one-time purchase. Updates are free, or have been.
One thing I don't like, I'd like to have the ability within the app, to not need to go online to utilize all the functionality. Having the ability within the options to save rifle configs to my PC would be ideal.
I thought about using an older smartphone. Just hook-up via wireless at home to check for new updates. I haven't looked into things enough in-depth to find out if it would work.

 

[P7M13]

One time charge? Hopefully not a monthly thing.

Paid for it many years ago, forgot that I had actually bought it, whenever I go to Google Play it automatically downloads fully authorized. Plus, zero recurring charges, unlike On X Hunt.

 

[Stomper]

I have the Hornandy ballistics calculator on my iPhone. I haven't had a real chance to use it, but playing around with it I've found it will take an azimuth reading via the compass app to properly compensate for coriolis effect, and you can enter in cosine values for proper hold-over....

 

[v0lcom13sn0w]

used MOA my whole life. always stuck with it. FFP is new to me and i'll never go back to SFP

 

[P7M13]

and you can enter in cosine values for proper hold-over

But you don't need those - ya got yer trusty slide rule ! Arrgghhh !

 

[rcnpthfndr]

learned on a Mil reticle, Moa Adjustment scope in the early years of my military career. i use whatever these days. Doesn't matter Mil/MOA, MIL/MIL, MOA/MOA, FFP or SFP. In the current days of LRF's and ballistics software it really doesn't matter the match up or focal plane.
Now, I don't lament for the days of range estimation and math to find your adjustments as technology and reticle advancements have all but made this a moot point.
its still good to understand the mechanics of how things work in case your LRF went down.

 

[TTSX]

I've always understood that if you think inches/yards to use moa, and if you think centimetres/meters to use mil

 

[74bronco]

Moa for me , much easier for me to think in yards and inches , example, short math , shooting at any target in multiples of a 100yrds , 1 moa @100 is 1" at 200 2" 300 3" and so on, so if im shooting say 600 yrds and my spotting tells me im 9" hi or low , or l or r , i can quickly divide 9 by 6 and know i need 1.5 moa adjustment, just easier for me , your milage might very

 

[RedRover]

MILs turrets are better if one is going to be ranging their targets with a Mil-Dot reticle.

There is a common misconception that MILs are metric and MOAs are imperial.

It just so happens that the calculations tend to seem simpler for those that primarily use imperial measurements to employ MOA -- due to 1 inch(1.047) being 1 MOA at 100 yards.

However...

A 1 yard target at 1000 yards is 1 MIL. A 1 foot target at 1000 feet is 1 MIL. A 1 inch target at 1000 inches is 1 MIL.

1 MIL = 3.438 MOA (or 3.6 inches at 100 yards).

Once one learns how to calculate in MILs, it is an intuitive system to apply and to make quick solutions for long distance shooting.

 

[bikemutt]

I think it's more important to select one method and stick with it rather than being concerned about which method to select.

Whether you're hunting, where every shot counts, or trying to make that one ragged hole in paper, where every shot counts, the last thing a shooter needs is one more thing to think about.

Both methods divide a circle (or arc) into subdivisions, I think it's a legitimate claim that decimal arithmetic is easier work with fractionally than sub-multiples of 360. Still, I've been MOA for so long I stick with it.

 

[blurry6]

Having started out using MIL/MOA (MIL Reticle / MOA Adjustments) scopes (long ago they commonly used this crossed-logic combination), then moved to MOA/MOA and was fine with it, but found the reticle stadia too small, and doing quick calculations and ranging math for targets at unknown distances was a pain. After some time, I realized that MIL/MIL makes too much sense. 1/10th adjustments, and speedy ranging math that I can actually do pretty accurately IN MY HEAD makes it much easier. Yes, MIL adjustments are a bit coarser than 1/4-MOA adjustments, but not enough to matter much. While not entirely the same, MOA is the Imperial to MIL's Metric,... and if I were starting out, I'd get used to working with Metric,... but it's a matter of taste.

 

[Skier]

That's easy, metric is better. Moving the little decimal point is lot easier than learning and using 1/2", 1/4", 1/8" 1/16", 1/32", 1/64", 1/128" and inches, feet, yards, mile.The sooner this country accepts that and switches the sooner our kids can compete in mathematics.

"Mil" has nothing to do with "military." It is an abbreviation for milliradian, 1/6400 of a degree in angular measure. That's 3.6 inches at 100 yards, or 3 feet at l,000 yards.

Mil/Mil for me.

While I agree that, in general, the metric system is easier, I also find it fun to point out that for anyone who knows binary, the numbers:

1/2", 1/4", 1/8" 1/16", 1/32", 1/64", 1/128"

are also just moving the decimal point over each time, i.e. those same numbers in binary are:

.1", .01", .001", .0001", .00001", .000001", and .0000001"



As a side note, my Leopold AR scope BDC is in mil, and each turret click is 0.2mil (aka mrad), which is roughly equal to a little less than 3/4", and whenever I use it, my brain thinks of it as 3/4" for every 100 yards. I know I can also think of it as ~2cm at 100 meters, but for some reason I just don't. Perhaps because I have a good mental picture of how long a football field is and 100 meters just isn't quite the same. ; - )

 

[Vrod]

Learn and use both. Knowledge is everything. Unless you are easily confused.