I am in process of building a Precision 308 Rifle for shooting out to 1,000 Yard. I have the actual rifle specced out, but my main questions are about the optics. As stated earlier, I will be shooting out to 1.000 Yards.
I have little to no experience shooting at longer ranges so I may need some help with Mils, VS. MOA, although all my previous scopes have been MOA. The First thing I hear everyone ask, is what is your budget. My budget is $6,000 as I want to have a very nice optic So I suppose what is comes down to are
Brands,
Magnification range for maximum 1,000 Yard Shots,
The scope must have an illuminated reticle, ( I may use this for low /no light shooting )
Mils or MOA, ( I can learn to use Mils )
As stated earlier I am new to long range precision shooting so Please bear with me.
While I’m no expert, and haven’t used some of the “tier one” optics, I will give you my opinion.
I’m a huge fan of Vortex Optics, especially the fact that if you happen to have any sort of issue it can be warrantied without question. However, if I could get one scope my choice would be the SWFA SS HD 5-20x50. It’s illuminated and $1500. SWFA puts out some VERY high quality optics, and I can’t imagine you would need more than 20x for 1000 yards. As far as mils or MOA, I would say that it’s personal preference. I do think though, that you will have more options going mil/mil.
For what it’s worth, and illuminated reticle is almost useless. There’s about a 20 minute window as the sun drops where it’s slightly beneficial. Before that, you don’t need it. And after that, it’s to dark to see the target, and the reticle being lit up only makes it worse.
If you have that kind of money to spend, I’d get a Nightforce and add a NOD to the front of the stock. For 2k you can get a great optic and have 4k left over for a very nice NOD.
Other than that, you can go Schmidt and Bender… But for .308 a 12 or 15 power variable FFP Nightforce is more than adequate. I never felt under glassed with a fixed 10 at 1000 yards. And any time I get on someone’s gun with a 15 or 22 power, I dial it back to 10 or 12 for better FOV and less mirage anyway.
For that kind of cash there are a ton of quality options.
Nightforce (I have an NXS 12-42 on one of my varmint rifles and love it for long range and I also have 2.5-10x42 on my hunting rifle and it is also a awesome scope)
S&B
Premier (I do not have one of their scopes, but I do have a conversion done by them and it is a very nice scope)
Hensoldt
March (Have one of their BR scopes (straight 50) and love it, but not cheap and one must really know how to read mirage and wind)
Leupold (I run many Leupolds on different rifles and never had any major problems but slowly starting to replace them with either Nightforce or Vortex)
Vortex (starting to switch over to Vortex from Leupold on my varmint rifles, great customer service and I personally have never had an issue with the ones I have)
U.S. Optics
The list is long once you start looking at the models and reticle options that each company offers. As for reticle that is something that is best found out by looking thru the scope and everyone has their own personal opinion. I like a mil reticle because I find some of the other options start to become to much when trying to focus on the target, the wind and also having to deal with reading the mirage, but that is just my opinion. I would suggest trying to find a local dealer who has or can get a NF for you to look at and start from there.
That’s a good point too. Knowing what reticle you like is huge. I like a plain old Mil Dot reticle. I’ve nearly broken shots on the wrong half mil mark because plain old cross hair style mil and half mil reticles aren’t optimal in my brain.
Another reason I dial down on FFP Scopes it to get the whole reticle a little smaller in the sight picture relative to the target. If I dial up too much I get lost in a busy reticle.
Markm brought up something else important and that is one needs to think about if they want FFP or SFP, First Focal Plane or Second Focal Plane and one must decide which works best for them.
I do prefer First Focal Plain for the above reason… I like to dial down and shrink the reticle. Also… I’d forget to dial up to mil targets if I had a 2nd Focal plain.
Our shooting spot is low to the ground and often very difficult to laser targets through the bushes. 3 weeks back I had to old school mil our 400 yard target to confirm that it wasn’t actually at 300 or 500.
FFP works good for guys like me who make mental errors. :mad:
MIL all the way for more commonality. Both work. But we’ve switched to all mil.
The one thing that’s more important than all this mil, reticle, and glass stuff… and equipment though…
THE MOST important thing you can have is a good spotter. You can get it done with crappy gear and a good spotter, but the reverse I’ve not found to be true.
Thanks for all the info guys, I’ll post pics when its all set up, probably about a year from now. In the mean time, how would you recommend learning to shoot at long ranges?
Another thing to consider, and Mark can expand on this I’m sure, is the adjustment lost when you step up in magnification.
If you look at the Viper 4-16 it has 75 minutes of adjustment. The 6-24 has 65 minutes of adjustment.
Is the loss of adjustment worth the increased magnification? How much scope adjustment do you need to drop a 308 on target at 1000 yards? Is 65 minutes more than enough, maybe enough for 1400 yards or more?
Thing like wind readings, I am familiar with how to shoot a tactical Bolt Rifle, But nothing more than 300 yards, in which case I have simply used holdovers
Wind is just a matter of practice. Once you start scoping out past 500 and stuff… the heat mirage gets more clear… on hot days it’s so much that it can make the target/hits hard to spot.
If you can pair up with a shooter and learn together, it’s so much better. You can really end up chasing your ass if you’re pushing your abilities on your own. Both Pappabear and I have gone out alone when one of us couldn’t make it and it’s amazing how quick you realize the value of your partner.
How much elevation am I going to need in the optic itself, the nightforce has 110 moa elevation and 80 moa windage. The US Optics has 80 moa elevation and 70 windage,
A thousand yard shot is requiring in the ball park of 40 MOA. To get my glass to have enough come up to comfortably shoot 1000 or more, I used a 20 MOA scope base. I started with a standard base, but it wasn’t enough.
so it would make things slightly easier, whats your opinion on MOA vs MIL