BLUF: stop making M193 20” barrel BDCs. Just stop. Save your time and money.
55gr at ~1000 M/s shoots flat. Crazy flat. All the way to distances that it should never be used for. Its a laserbeam, but with wind drift. In fact, it sucks in wind past 300M. And in every other way, past that. I can’t think of many more ways to say that there is no need for a BDC for a fast-and-cheap short range load with piss poor BC. Even if everything else I say is dismissed as a crazy rant, know that 193/20” BDCs are dumb for duty optics. Every single one of them.
Honestly, its such a stupid application that I would instantly be turned off from a brand for even offering it on a “duty focused” optic, if it weren’t for the fact that nearly every manufacturer does it. Tells me that the dude who designed it neither shoots, nor studies ballistics. Certainly, he or she does not pay attention to who’s loading what, or why.
.Mil doesn’t care about 193. Cops that are issued 55gr ammo and near-roached M16 uppers aren’t shooting anyone at 500+meters. 3 Gunners have the Vortex JM-1 reticle, which you can’t do better than for this niche, and is sub-optimal outside its niche. Basically its the only BDC that makes sense for light/fast on a medium-range UKD 10” target with short ID/engagement times, and thats the ONLY place such a BDC makes sense.
Soooo, when does a BDC even make sense? Easy. Medium engagement distances with a velocity and BC where drop is more of a concern than wind. Simple, right? Ok, lets define that. Call it 300m-600m. 800 is stretching it, IMO, and I only rarely use LPVOs for this. 400m-600m is what I mostly like them for, but I do like to have the extra 700 and 800 hashmarks for screwing around, as an optional “luxury”. You’ll use a slightly heavier, higher BC bullet at more modest velocity to design an optimal reticle. Like, a 68-70 grain (full power)223 or 5.56 16” would split the difference between M855a1 14.5” and Mk262 18”. I tend to shoot from 62-70 gr, myself, as do many professional users. Upside down Cristmas trees on autoranging reticles such as Steiner LPVOs/prisms and Triji ACOGs have are the best kind of BDC, IMO. The whole point of a BDC is to get quick hits without clicking dope, right? So, right-side-up Christmas trees make less sense. Because if I’m measuring my wind, and I have an alternate method of ranging, I should just be clicking dope.
Steiner accidentally does a really good job with this. I say accidentally, because they offer both M193/M16 and slow/heavy .308 options on their more expensive optics. Strangely enough, they split the difference on their entry level P4Xi, and arrived at subtension values on an auto-ranging reticle that very well match everything from 12.5”-16” with 62-70gr bullets. It’ll even work well with light 62gr -69gr 3-Gun loads from an 18” or 20”. It looks like they did this to cut down on SKUs, but it actually works really well. Be more like Steiner. Keep your 308 reticles. They might even work OK for AK dudes. I know they work pretty well for Grendels. They do OK, but not great, on Mk18s. I’m sure they’re great for LE snipers trying to make that difficult 87yd shot with a .308 F-class gun. But ditch the M193 reticles in favor of something more middle ground, like the P4Xi has.
TLDR? Just do M855/14.5” autoranging instead of M193/20”, and I’ll make it fit the other guns. No one has a M16 loaded with M193 and topped with a 1-6x. No one. Thats been obsolete since the year after I was born. Until then, I’ll continue to prefer the 3 or so brands that roughly do that. As will the DoD, who rather obviously agree with me.
Sidenote, fiber optic illuminated center dots are sweet. I assume there is a reason so many choose the other methods, but I prefer fiber dots for several reasons.
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