I have a friend who just put together an AR to use for long(ish) range shooting on his property.

He came to me for advice on a scope to top it with. I was trying to steer him in the direction of a mid tier scope, then asked what his budget was.

Of course this guy can't hold on to a buck to save his life, so he answered with a $200-$300 range

I recommended getting a cheap PA 4-14x r-grid like I have on a beater rifle of mine. Zero it, and use the grid for holds. I tried explaining  MILS to him, but it didn't click.
He's a salt of the earth guy, but not the sharpest knife in the drawer, if you know what I mean. He ended up getting a 4-14x with the MOA reticle because 1" at 100 yds
made more sense to him.

The MOA reticle has no ranging scale in the reticle. So I wrote down the ranging formula for MOA for him, and showed him several calculations on the calculator app on my phone.
I think he 'got it' but I know he will not when he's out shooting.

I had him download strelok, and he can use that just fine, but he's still going to have to range his target.

Does anyone know if they make a simple MOA ranging app for android?  This would simplify things for him when he's out

Thanks

Wait... he's got a non-scaled reticle and he wants to do stadiametric ranging with it? Maybe if you post the reticle he's got we can be more helpful.

If he's not using a FFP scope with a scaled reticle or an SFP scope with a definite magnification value that's calibrated to the reticle itself then he's assed out. I would also caution that using a reticle to do ranging is imprecise in the best of circumstances and requires a great deal of practice to get good enough at it for it to be at all useful. It's better to use a scaled reticle hold-offs than ranging if any kind of precision is being saught.

It's an Arc-2 MOA reticle. It's a FFP scope.  Primary arms isn't the best quality glass, but their reticles are on.

I tried to talk him into an r-grid MIL reticle with the 'tree' but he couldn't wrap his head around 3.6" at 100yd, 7.2" @ 200, 10.8" @ 300........ where as he could, get the jist of 1" at 100, 2" at 200, 3" at 300, etc.

Should’ve taught him mils are 1/1000th of whatever distance.

Buy him a range finder..even at 700 yards its going to be tough for a newby to get consistent hits by trying to range off his reticle...Did you explain to him that 1 MOA is 1" at 100 yards but that same 1 MOA is 7" at 700 yards? That always seems like what my buddy's struggle with when shooting distance...

I did, Base-10 is easy,  but something tells me that math classes weren't his forte when he was in school



He's got that, or at least he seemed to get it






Again,  maths are a bit of a struggle for him


I think I'll talk him into a Mildot Master, hopefully he'll remember how to use it, after I show him how.

EDIT: I just pulled mine out and realized that the ranging feature is only in Mills on the Mildot Master, so I'm going to keep looking around to see if I can find the equivalent but in MOA

Cool, I see that now. Known target size and line it up to # of MOA. That will certainly get him pretty damn close.

Thanks!