I just purchased an IOR 4x14x50 with the MP-8 reticle from mike at csgunworks (very nice guy and fast service thanx mike)....I was wondering if there are any real good resources on the mildot rangefinder reticle?  I get the basics of it but would like to learn alot more about M.O.A. Dot  and get very proficient in its use...From what I have read the MP-8 seems alot like the regular mildot just with dashes in place of the standard dots.....I just need to understand the whole concept alot more to feel comfortable shooting with it in the field.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Semper Fi,

I have been using the MP-8 for years, and am more than content with it.  I like it much better than the Mil Dots on our issue scopes.  

The long hash marks are at 1 mil intervals, and the shorter ones are 1/2 mil.  THe ones right along the outer edge of the horizontal line are 1/4 mil (right next to the thick part of the reticle).

What you have to do to estimate range w/ this (called "milling") is determine the approximate size of your target in inches (a head is about 7" wide, 10" tall, shoulders for most guys about 20" wide, etc - this also works for objects).  You put the scope on 10x, and measure how many mils the target subtends to the nearest 10th.  So if you have a 10" tall head that subtends 1 mil (fits right between two long hash marks), you just plug it into the following formula:

27.77xtarget size in inches/mils = range in yards.

So, the 10" head is one mil.  27.77x10= 277.7.  Divide by one, and you have 277.7 yards.   Say if the noggin subtended 2 mils, he would be about 139 yards away.

Buy a small calculator and this becomes very fast.  A mil dot master makes it even faster.  Buy a stock pouch, and put both in there along with a lense pen, and you'll be happy.  We ceate cheat sheets that we tape to our stocks that have things like license plate, stop sign, and door sizes in inches, so we can mil to a building or common object and figure out about where we are from structures and such.

This sound difficult, but becomes real easy once you do it a few times.

As far as a resource for all the info, I learned it at schools and at my department.  It's all in our manual.  I'm sure someone else can come up with a site with this stuff.

 Outstanding, exactly the kind of info I was looking for.

As far as the side focus is this something you would only need to use at say 12-14x and at long distances or is this something that is supposed to be used at all powers and ranges??

Thanx alot this is really informative,

Semper Fi

If you plan on taking any kind of precision rifle training you might be happier with the mil-dot.  I can guarantee that most of these classes will teach based on the use of a mil-dot reticle.