At what distance do you stop being a threat?

Well, since conscious has determined that the best scopes are metrically calibrated! And Mil-dots are are equally calibrated either metrically or by the Imperial English yard, MOA seems to be the odd man out. But if you think in yards, and can correct in accordance with what you witness? Use whatever means to make that first shot count. But ensure that you have the ability to instantly correct if you at first fail. How do you make a shot that your 120 MOA base, combined with a 22 MRAD adjustment for elevation, and 27 MRAD extended holdover reticle are at all thier limits? Ain't nothing but a simple math problem.

 

I guess what I'm asking is what is the advantage of Mil Dot over MOA? It sounds like the top tier scopes use Mil Dot, but there is no technical reason for one to be superior over the other.

 

1. It's all about ranging items of known size to determine unknown distance. What is the expected range of a human target? Now what is the width of an exterior door or window frame in America? I know (have low cost cards that tell me) that an exterior door is 36 inches wide, and window frames are 30 inches, not to mention that licences plates in America are twelve inches. Along with every street sign on the way to my target. So you could make all the calculations based on distance and MOA, but a Trained Professional using Mil-Dots and either the Imperial or Metric System will have already sent a fatal round your way prior to figuring out the mathematics. Second Place Trophies don't make it home to Momma & the kids. JMHO.

 

There's another effect, the GAS effect. That is EXACTLY the effect that struck me after the first three times I calc'd out the relative movement due to Coriolis accelerations on suborbital projos using vector mechanics. Now, since I know quite closely the distance one would need to shoot me from greater than about 100 yards (about 1.85 miles, and there is only one place that can be used with about a 5 degree access window) I care even less. The threats here are all under 100 yards clear unless someone comes in high.

 

So far we haven't even taken into consideration How the same 175 HPBT MATCHKING Ballistic Coefficient changes as the velocity decreases further from the muzzle.

Dia. (inches) Weight (grains) Sectional Density Ballistic Coefficients and Velocity Ranges
0.308 175 .264 .505 @ 2800 fps and above
.496 between 2800 and 1800 fps
.485 @ 1800 fps and below

Product - Sierra Bullets - The Bulletsmiths
So you need to factor in the increased rate of drop at distances which your projectile shall drop below 1800 fps.
There is also spin drift (Gyroscopic Spin Drift). http://www.appliedballisticsllc.com/Articles/ABDOC108_GyroscopicAndCoriolis.pdf

 

Found this at the Sniper's Hide forums RE MIL vs MOA: Mils vs MOA Which one is Right for you ? - Sniper's Hide Forums

Thought it was a pretty good comparison of the two systems.

Also this: Rifle Sighting Systems - Part 1: MOA & IPHY :: Primal Rights, Inc
And this: Rifle Sighting Systems - Part 2: Angular Mil :: Primal Rights, Inc

 

I realize this is simplistic , however the advantage to a semi auto rifle and a scope, is when shooting at any significant distance and seen the strike point , (if you can keep your scope back on target during the strike) . the point of view the strike makes is your new cross hair point . This way if the wind is consistent the followup shot made ASAP using the new reference should put the strike point reasonably close.
if I'm shooting rabbits at any significant distance there is no time to sit and calculate and readjust the scope , and then readjust the scope for the next distance .
If you know where the bullet went in your field of view and that direction making the correction on your feet as it were, get's the job done.
If I know my scope is zeroed at X yards, it stays zeroed at X, yards no tinkering.
I realize it's not as scientific as all those fancy sniper type calculations , but you must admit, wind is fickle and can change in a moment ,and the best laid plans still can fail . IMHO

 

Thank You 3M-TA3, far more descriptive than the short answer in post 163, but still the same result.
Thank You also arleigh, but I think this was mentioned previously?

 

I have no military training, but I have been shot at a few times. Usually it was a hunter pointing his weapon where he shouldn't, however, a couple were purposeful.

Any time you start taking incoming fire from an unknown source, the first thing you want to do is treat it as a lucky near-miss. Get your head down. Seek cover. When you show yourself again, be somewhere other than where you disappeared. If you're caught in the open, find the nearest depression or patch of weeds and dive in. If you're in the woods get behind a tree.

A man shooting offhand with a hunting rifle will probably have about a 50-100 yard range of being able to accurately place shots if he's shooting irons. If he has a scope, he's probably going to be able to hit double that. If he has an improvised rest, double that again.

A shotgun has about a 40-80 yard range. A pistol has about a 25-50 yard range.

That doesn't mean you're safe beyond that. It just means the shooter is going to have to work at it. All this is predicated on someone who doesn't practice regularly with the weapon and just picked up whatever's at hand. If you've got someone with experience and knowledge of the weapon, you may be screwed. In fact, your first hint of something wrong will be the lights going out. However, if your first warning is a shot going over your head, he's already announced himself. He's just taken his best shot at you.

I hunt deer and turkey. It's no big deal for me to pick off a standing buck at 200 or 250 yards with my 30-06. However, if had to do it standing, offhand, unsupported, I'd be sweating at 75 yards. With turkeys, I've killed at 60 yards with a shotgun, and wounded at 80 with a scoped, dedicated turkey gun. In the latter case, I recovered the bird, but I had to go run him down and put in a finishing shot. At 80 yards with buckshot, a man could easily walk through a pattern unscathed. However, he might just as easily die . The shot pattern of a 00 Buck load at 80 yards covers a deer nose-to-tail and then some. There's also going to be considerable drop. If the shooter doesn't know that, the pellets are going to go low.

Pistol is interesting. Let's say someone takes a 45 ACP and shoots at you straight-on from a standing position. If he's dead-on at 50 yards. He'll be shooting 30 inches low at 150 yards.

Distance is a mother. Yes, a 30-06 will kill at several miles. However, the point-blank-range of a 150 grain round sighted 2" high at 100 yards is under 250 yards. Meaning, you're going to have to know the trajectory of the bullet and accurately know the distance to the the target. If a shooter, armed with a 308 WIN sees you walking across the field at say, 600 yards, and he does not know the exact distance, a difference of 10 yards + or - is going to be the difference between a hit or a miss. Example: I once tried a shot at a doe just for the hell of it. The deer was standing at 400 yards give or take. I'd zeroed my rifle at 100 yards. I rested my rifle against a tree trunk and aimed for her heart, knowing full well that I wasn't going to hit anything. I just wanted to see what happened. The round landed 7 feet down the hillside from her. Yes, if she'd stood there long enough, I might have been able to walk it in, but that wasn't the point. If you'd been the target, you'd have been able to get to the treeline before I'd gotten you ranged in.

Let me re-interate: every shot towards your general vicinity is a basic life-or-death threat. Get to cover. Evade, Escape. Above all: Surpentine!

 

I don't believe I mentioned that a 600 Meter/650 yard zero is optimum for the 175 grain 7.62 x 51 mm M118LR out of a 22 inch barrel? When shooting at a distance out to 100 meters, use the top dot on your Mil-dot scope. (Hold under) The maximum amount of hold over when using your mil-dot scope shall be determined by it's characteristics. (ie Standard Mil-dot or Extended Mil-dot.)

Now determining distance without a Mil-dot (ie irons) can be a bit harder. Some iron sights have a notch that gives you a rough distance on a predetermined target size. For iron sights a 250 zero gives you point blank out to 300 yards, with just about all of the .308 Win loading's. That means you shouldn't have any trouble with a kill-zone shot on deer sized game from 0-300 yards provided you do your part. Just level the front into the rear and squeeze.

I strongly recommend that you practice shooting 200 yard Standing (with .308 Win or better) from a hasty until you become proficient at it. As I have posted prior, 10 shot's slow fire standing at 200 yards with iron sights is a minimum specification for rifleman's qualifications in days gone by. To expect any less from an adversary could be a tragic miscalculation. JMHO.

 

Probly already asked this, but what is an acceptable group for 200 yards offhand?

 

200 yard 10 ring dimension: 3.35 inches.
http://www.bcsingleshot.com/NRA_HP_Targets.pdf
10 for 10 is 100 points. Experts need a 98% through out. Just an answer to your question AXE.

 

What I recall is at least 98% to qualify as an expert. Perhaps there are a few "Old Marines" around to confirm or deny Iron Sighted Shooting back in the day of the Rifleman!

{I just need to mention that these were the minimum scores required to attend Precision Instructed Gunman (PIG) Training.}

 

I'll give y'all a practical example of what I was saying:

About 16 years ago, I was having some work done by contractors to get the farm house in shape before deer season. I think it was the electrician that called me at work one Monday morning:

"Sir, I just wanted to let you know there's a guy up the road that keeps shooting at your deer."

"Oh? Do tell!" I replied.

"There was this herd of deer out on your property. He came out of his trailer with a 30-30 and emptied the magazine at them. He was in his bathrobe out on the deck. The deer just went back to eating. He went back inside and reloaded, and then came out and did it again. This time the deer ran off."

"Did he hit anything?"

"No, I don't think so."

"That's O.P." I replied. "He's the neighborhood poacher. He's a terrible shot. Nobody pays him no nevermind including the deer. Thanks for letting me know though. I'll have a talk with him. "

Half a box of 30-30 ammo or better. Half a dozen deer at 150 yards, and one crazy hillbilly in his bathrobe and fuzzy slippers. No runs, no hits, no errors. The side retired on 10 pitches. You figure old O.P. was trying his best to get his freezer filled. It's a nice scoped Marlin 336. It had happened so often, the deer weren't even stopping their feeding.

Is a trained ex-soldier going to have that kind of luck? Probably not. However, in my neck of the woods the air is thick with multiple shot strings on The Rifle Opener. Mostly it's guys with 30-30's shooting at deer that are too far out or in too much brush. Then they compound the problem by emptying their magazine. Me? I haven't taken a deer offhand this century. Even the ones at 30 yards I've taken from an improvised rest. Why? Because I know myself and I know I'm no damned good at offhand shooting. O.P. committed two sins. Unless he'd taken the time to sight in at that distance, he probably had no idea where that gun shot at 150 yards or more. A lot of guys think bore-sighting's all you need, or they sight in at 25 yards and think they're good to go out to 300 yards. The second sin was not using the railing of his deck as an improvised rest.

The good news is that the world's full of these people. It's also full of people that don't know that you need to cock a single-action revolver or load the first round into a semi-automatic pistol.

 

That may be true ,however I don't think it will take long for may of these to learn, since there will be nothing else to do but concern ones self with survival.

On a different tangent in the subject of being a threat or being threatened , I've discovered that many do not know how to lead a moving target .
I'm sure you boys have some experience on this issue ,it would be nice to see what you have to say on it.
Many years ago I went flying with a friend out to the desert and met up with a big group that all shoot together regularly .
Roughly 30 people and a hundred different guns .
This was not serious competition , just fun and mild experimenting .
The curious thing was ,my friend took a model plane with remote control and flew it 100' in front of the group for them to shoot at, and NO one could hit it . He did it several times and still no one hit it.
Having been a navy seal , he had some one else fly the plane and he took out the tail with a 22 rifle so as not to destroy the plane altogether. Saving it for another day.
Point is few people know how to lead the target .

 

You wouldn't believe how much more challenging skeet shooting becomes when your using a 1911.
Skeet head-cam with a shotgun:

 

Or it won't take long for them to become mulch.

Case in point: I was helping a guy with a new 308 WIN rifle a while back. He'd bought it, because he wanted to do prepping. He's had it a year now. He came out to sight in his rifle and left me sitting at the bench while he sat in the grass and shot sitting cross-legged. What's more, he left the bipod extended so the legs were swinging wildly the whole time he shot-- went through two boxes of ammo trying to hit a small canister of tannerite at 100 yards.

 

Did you sight in his .308 Win. rifle at 100 yards prior to his shooting spree?
Or did you sight in his .308 Win rifle at 250 yards (Normal .308 Win. iron sight zero) and explain that it might be a smidgen high at 100 yards?
Or was his method of sighting in the rifle blazing away at the tannerite?

 

I bore-sighted it for him before we went to the range. When he got the rifle out of the case, he proceeded to start twirling the dials having no clue what he was up to. When I asked him why, he said he was "Zeroing the scope." What he meant was that he was returning the marked indicators to zero.

When he saw he was going no where in a hurry. I offered to get him printing on the paper again, and after that, came the incident I described.

My point is that most folk haven't a clue how a scoped rifle works.

I answered questions regarding deer rifles for well-known magazine for 8 years. Believe me. About 20% will take a scope mounted and bore-sighted at Walmart and think they're good to go out to 300 yards. About another 20% sight in at 25 yards and think that's all they need. Another 20% would say "Dead-on at 100 yards." is fine.

I once wrote an article working back from those assumptions. The funny thing is that they're all partially true. For instance, you can go to Walmart on the Friday night before the Opener and get a bore-sighted rifle and be fairly certain that you can hit a deer at 30 yards. A 30-30 sighted dead on at 25 yards is actually pretty close to where you want to be. A 30-06, sighted dead-on at 100 yards is not the best idea, but if you held on a whitetail's back at some unknown distance out to 250 yards, you really might kill it.

My overall point is that the "well-regulated militia" ain't so well regulated, at least when it comes to their deer rifles. I'd put myself in that category as well. I'm a hunter that shoots much more than the other way around. I can reliably take out both lungs and clip off the top of the heart at 200 yards, but at 500 yards? I'm moving closer. The reason is that the longest shot I can take on my property is 450 yards, and most of my shots at whitetails have been inside 80 yards. Why practice for something that ain't gonna happen?