Thread: mil-moa

I did this article for the gun club I used to belong too. It's pretty much cut and tucked from a magazine article (apart from the example and I hope the math is right) so I don't deserve any credit. Fun to muck around with though.


Milliradian dot scopes were developed in the late 70's for U.S. Marine snipers to estimate distances.
They have a designated magnification for ranging which is normally the highest setting (i.e. 9x). The distance between the dot centres at 100 yards should be 3.6 inches or 10cm at 100m for metric scopes.
You can confirm this by putting two pieces of tape on a fence post 100 yards away, centres exactly 3.6” apart.

To range find for targets in inches:
((Target size in inches/39) x 1000) / (number of mil-dots)= distance in yards.
Example: You spot a rabbit at an unknown distance through your scope, assuming most rabbits in the “sit” position is probably around 9” from chest to tail, you see
that it measures about 1.25 dots in your scope so:
9/39 x1000 /1.25 = 184.6 yards… simple.

For larger targets ((Target size in yards or meters) x 1000)
/ (number of mil-dots) = distance in yards or meters.
As game tends to be malleable, distances given may be more ball park figures.