Two dial or to not dial?

[Rmauch20]

I picked up a tikka .243 T3 on closeout and now I’m trying to decide what to do optics wise.Looking at the maven RS2 with the shr reticle and a few others in that price range all have some type of ballistic reticle. The SWFA SS 3x9 has caught my eye as well mostly due to the recommendations on this board. I’ve only used ballistic type reticles I’ve never jumped into dialing and mils. After reading Form’s post on setting up the SWFA I think I could get used to a mill dot scope. For those of you that have made the switch any regrets or do you see any downside to the SWFA on a hunting rifle .

 

[huntsman22]

Nope. If you get a SWFA (or other turret/dot type scope) you can figure out your reticle drop ranges. You don't have to dial if you don't want to. The reticle can be used like a BDC.....

 

[huntsman22]

But the 'dial' option is still there, unlike a/many regular BDC type scopes.

 

[Huntingpreacher]

If you're shooting beyond 400 yards, I'd definitely go the dialing route.

 

[Newtosavage]

Love the Tikka .243. My buddy talked me out of mine and it's his favorite rifle now.

I had a VX-1 Leupold 3-9x40 on mine with the LR reticle. It was all the scope I needed - sighted in at 200 - for shooting up to 500 yards.

Dials are fine for open country when you have time and daylight to see what you're doing. Where I hunt, there isn't enough time to dial in a range (there's barely time to range something at 300+ yards) and usually it's in fading light when a dial would be hard to see anyway.

 

[matthewmt]

I've used both the Leupold LR duplex and now using a Bushnell LRHS 4.5x18 which is a lot of glass for my AO but a very clear light gathering scope, came recommended by another member here. It sits on a 20" Tikka t3x compact in 308. Another member whose local to me helped me Chrono and develop a dope chart, after 100 yard zero I dialed up to 600 and was successful. So I do believe there is benefit to dialing, I'm also new to it and in my area (north west MT) not a lot of open country but I'm gonna run it a bit and see how does .

I've heard nothing but good things about SWFA and wouldn't hesitate to go with the 3x9. I've wanted their 1x6 for some time as well as the x6 and x10.

Sent from my Moto Z (2) using Tapatalk

 

[Formidilosus]

I picked up a tikka .243 T3 on closeout and now I’m trying to decide what to do optics wise.Looking at the maven RS2 with the shr reticle and a few others in that price range all have some type of ballistic reticle. The SWFA SS 3x9 has caught my eye as well mostly due to the recommendations on this board. I’ve only used ballistic type reticles I’ve never jumped into dialing and mils. After reading Form’s post on setting up the SWFA I think I could get used to a mill dot scope. For those of you that have made the switch any regrets or do you see any downside to the SWFA on a hunting rifle .

A properly designed FFP mil based reticle with matching adjustments that work correctly is the most simple and intuitive system you can use. In actually use off of a known distance range from good positions- BDC reticles suck. Put multiple, realistic sized targets at varying uneven yardages and shoot them under some time constraints, off of field positions and no one goes out and buys a BDC scope.

Dials are fine for open country when you have time and daylight to see what you're doing. Where I hunt, there isn't enough time to dial in a range (there's barely time to range something at 300+ yards) and usually it's in fading light when a dial would be hard to see anyway.

Couple of questions-


So it’s dark enough that you can’t see the turrets, but you can see to shoot 300+ yards?

What in your experience is the time difference on say a 10” target at 300+ yards between dialing and holding for a 90% hit rate or higher, for even a moderately trained person from field positions?

How much long range experience do you have using both holding and dialing?