Scope Reticle Question

[brstevns]

Please don't laugh. I am an old man that has used scopes for years, bad eyes since a kid. The scopes I have used have always been just a plain cross hair , Duplex hair or the old post design, What is it with these new scopes that have the military recticle? What are all those lines below the center cross hair ? Sometimes the scope will have these as just straight lines and others have them in somewhat of a bottom of a hour glass design. This is something all new to me.

[Omega]

If calibrated right, each cross will be a different range. There are mildot, and other types that are calibrated to a specific caliber.

[country gent]

There are a lot of different crosshairs out there now. Some are compensator type for different distances and windage also the mil dot is one. Shepard had one that was interesting also. The one that's confusing to me is the horus grid which is a grid at a set moa pattern.

I could never remember which pin was what on my bows sight let alone all these points in the new scopes.

[brstevns]

Alright but I am speaking of the grind that is below the bullet drop marks or lines.223549

[Texas by God]

I'm pretty sure that it's a crossbow scope.
I prefer the crosshairs that you and I grew up on. If I were a sniper or a competitive Target shooter, I might feel differently. I don't carry a cosine meter or a calculator while I am hunting, so Kentucky windage and elevation has served me well for 50 years.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[Drm50]

I have a bottle of Murine for long shots and a cue chalk for short ones one my front swivel.:Fire:

[brstevns]

I have been looking and it may be for range finding?

[Omega]

Alright but I am speaking of the grind that is below the bullet drop marks or lines.223549I'ts just a mildot with bullet drop compensator, there's a few rifle scopes with that one. Each line below the crosshair forms another crosshair which can be used at further distances than what you zeroed at. The lines, depending on intended target, are to measure a width, such as shoulders for mil-scopes. The lines get smaller as they go down, obviously because the target will look smaller the farther away it is. I just like the standard mildot scopes, these are just too busy for me. I just use holdover and Kentucky windage instead of the hashmarks.
223563

[brstevns]

Then all those lines or for figuring range. What would be the distance between lines? Something like 25 to 50 yards for drop downward ?

[WebMonkey]

Then all those lines or for figuring range. What would be the distance between lines? Something like 25 to 50 yards for drop downward ?

you're correct.
depends on each individual scope.

my crossbow scope tells me the width is 12".
so you find something 12" ( or 6") wide where you intend to shoot and fit it between.
whichever line it matches, that's how far away it is.
i have 6" fence posts everywhere so it can be useful.

my xbow scope does 25,30,35,40,45 yards away.

saying all that, i bought a rangefinder and use a cheatsheet for my nikon scopes the most.
they have a program that lets me enter my handload info and it tells me where each "dot" will land.
super helpful

[JMax]

Fowler Pride makes a number of scopes with ranging reticles based on different calibers.

[PB234]

Fowler Pride makes a number of scopes with ranging reticles based on different calibers.

I have recently been getting comfortable with one in 22 LR. Well thought out reticle with excellent glass, excellent construction quality and many features not expected at this price point. A pleasure to use.

[Marlin356]

If you're old and blind (like me) nothing beats a BIG dot. (Ask JOC !)

[mcdaniel.mac]

Then all those lines or for figuring range. What would be the distance between lines? Something like 25 to 50 yards for drop downward ?Depends on the reticle. ACOG and BDC reticles like the Pride Fowler Rapid Reticle specify range for XYZ caliber and load, e.g. 100m increments for M193 from a 20" barrel, or 100m increments for 168gr .308W match loads from an 18" barrel. The ACOG and PFI-RR both give you ways to estimate range based on the reticle. The ACOG TA31F horizonal hashmarks are supposed to be 19" at each range increment, meaning if you see something that's approximately 19" across (like a folded AKM, or an enemy combatant's shoulders) the hash mark that fits is your distance. The PFI-RR has little brackets that are desiganed to be (IIRC) 8" at each distance. My PFI CQLR is designed to keep standard 123gr 7.62x39, 147gr .308, and 62gr 5.56 on a pie plate accurately, with the caveat that you have to know where to hold on the bracket.

Others like my Leupold Duplex or the pictured USO reticle are denoting milradians or Minutes of Arc. With MOA or mil, you would use a ballistic calculator (I use Strelok on my phone, better shooters may buy one) to calculate how much I need to adjust for range based on the particular cartridge. With Strelok I have each rifle saved with a number of loads (bullet weight, caliber, BC, velocity) and the reticle used, and then I input the ambient temperature and humidity and strelot tells me how much drop the bullet will have at the distance in inches, how much to adjust in MOA and mils, and if I've input my scope data accurately how many clicks to adjust. With an MOA or mil reticle I'll sometimes just use the reticle to hold over, for instance if I need to adjust for an 11MOA drop, it's easy to just hold two 5moa marks high. If you don't carry a ballistic caluculator and you don't care about group size so much as making a hit, you can do the same math and just write out a dope card that prescribes holds or adjustments for temp, humidity, and distance. To come back around, dope cards aren't really for reading distance, but some shooters will out distance references on a dope card.

The final caveat is on variable power and focal plane. Mostly scopes you a second-focal-plane reticle, sometimes abbreviated SFP. What that means is that the reticle stays constant relative to magnification; at 10x the lines are the same size to you, but the image behind them is 10x larger. This means you can't really estimate range without doing the match to convert MOA or mil back relative to your current magnification. Other scopes are first focal plane reticles, or FFP. The reticle starts out tiny, but as magnification increases the reticle also gets larger, remaining constant relative to the size of the image. This means that an 8" pie plate stays the same size as an 8" pie plate bracket whether at 1x or 8x.