Scope and Reticle Choices

[Scalce]

I have been trying to decide what optic will be permanently attached to my 300 Whisper build.

I have an IOR Valdada 2.5-10 power with an MP-8 dot reticle but it is on my AR10 right now.

The MP-8 reticle has 5 and 10 mil holdovers so I was thinking it may be optimal for the 300 Whisper as I figure the drop is 30" at 200 yards and 93" at 300 yards.

So that is roughly 4.2 mils at 200 and 8.6 mils at 300.

Anybody have real world drop charts made up for their rifles out to 300?

[dksd39]

Personally I like a mil based scope and the IOR would be fine. I'm not sure what you are shooting or at what speed but you my experience puts my 220 SMK's fired at 1050 doing 5.3 mils at 300.

[Scalce]

Originally Posted by dksd39

Personally I like a mil based scope and the IOR would be fine. I'm not sure what you are shooting or at what speed but you my experience puts my 220 SMK's fired at 1050 doing 5.3 mils at 300.

Thanks for the response

I haven't taken the rounds further than 100 yet and I found those drops online from someone who claims there are accurate for 220 SMKs at 1050 fps.

http://www.larrywillis.com/trajectory.html

So what kind of drop are you seeing at 200 and 300 yards?

Your 5.3 mils at 300 would be a 57.24" drop.

[LouBoyd]

I've recently discovered the Horus Vision reticles and like them for preision shooting both for subsonics and long range high power cartridges. I use a laser to determine distance and an ultrasonic anemometer to check the shooters position crosswind. (and modify that with available visual clues from mirage and plant movement downrange). Then a lookup table (or PC) gives mils offset to tenths each axis. Then just move the target to that position on the reticle and fire. There are no knobs to twiddle or clicks to count other than initially zeroing the scope. The Horus Raptor with the H25 reticle is a good choice for a subsonic in my opinion. If you need more vertical than 15 mils (over 50 moa) the H37 reticle is available in the Horus Falcon model. .

A Mil Dot reticle can be used in the same manner, but only has 10 mils (36 moa) of range on the reticle and you can only roughly guess the correct position when both the elevation and windage have a significant offset. This may look complex, but functionally is just a mil-dot reticle with the blanks filled in. Each major division is one mil with ticks at 0.2 mils. Unlike BDC reticles or knobs it's not bullet/velocity/atmosphere specific. It will work with any cartridge and bullet. It's the best scope I've found if you don't like the "spray and pray" method of aiming and find target knobs to be too slow and error prone. The Horus scopes are made in Japan and (my opinion) are of similar quality to Nikon or Weaver. http://www.horusvision.com/scopes.php For a truly top of the line scope US Optics sells some ot their models with the Horus reticles.

[oregonshooter]

I'm just starting my build but when it is done it will be a dedicated 9" with Trident9 and OAL 16.5" running 220gr @ 1050fps (that's what I'm calcing with for now at least) and looking for the perfect scope for 0-200 yards I found only (2) so far. One is the S&B short-dot which is $2400.00 and the other is not out yet but looks very promising.

I made a spreadsheet using random range and size to see which reticle would be best and found the mrad better than the MOA for this application.

The scope I'm getting is: http://www.vortexoptics.com/product/...eticle/reticle

The spreadsheet using JBM calcs on the Ballistic iPhone app is on my website: http://oregonshooter.com/share/300%2...pe%20calcs.xls

[Scalce]

I have seriously been considering a Horus reticle to be on my next scope.

I like their DMS-1 type scopes that have holdovers but still have a large aiming point for close range.

[LouBoyd]

Scalce: By DMS-1 are you referring to the Horus "Blackbird" model or what?
http://www.horusvision.com/blackbird.php

The only one I have (so far) is the Horus Falcon with the H37 Reticle but they all work on the same principles. At the present it's on a DPMS LR-6.5 (6.5 Creedmoor 24 x 8.5T bull). When choosing a Horus scope I'd suggest looking though one before purchasing. The Falcon is 5 to 20x but under 10X I find the reticle difficult to read. I don't have great eyesight. The good part is that this scope can move from rifle to rifle. The knobs have only a small adjustment range (1 turn of +/- 3 mils) but that's enough do zero it on all the rifles I've tried it on. The H37 reticle requires the scope to be mounted on a 20 MOA base. I use 20MOA rings so it will work on 0 MOA rails. Just write down the zero setting for each rifle/cartridge/bullet , and click them in when you change the rifle or ammo. That's the only time the knobs get touched.

The Horus is also the easiest scope to zero I've ever used. One shot will do the job within the accuracy of the rifle. The Shepherd dual reticle scope is the only other scope which I know of which might be easier. I haven't used one of those.

[Scalce]

Actually, I was referring to the Talon model since it is a 1-4x.

What distances have you shot the Falcon out to?

I find that most FFP reticles are hard to see at lower magnification levels even on my IOR scope which I rarely have set to 2.5x.

[LouBoyd]

Originally Posted by Scalce

Actually, I was referring to the Talon model since it is a 1-4x.
What distances have you shot the Falcon out to?

I find that most FFP reticles are hard to see at lower magnification levels even on my IOR scope which I rarely have set to 2.5x.

I've only zeroed the Falcon on the 6.5 Creedmoor at 200 yards. So many guns..so little time. ;-)

I looked though a Talon at BlackWeapons Armory in Tucson (a Horus dealer) . The reticle even at 4X was just too small for my tired old eyes to resolve the numbers on the reticle. I also looked at t Raptor with the H25 reticle wiich I could read easiy but chose the H37 Falcon instead.
Here's the reticle patterns of the 1-4x H50 Talon. This is pretty much what it looked like...
At 1X:

At 4x:

[Scalce]

Yeah I was wondering it the reticle was even usable on the Talon.

I need to find someplace or someone local that has scopes with Horus reticles so I can check them out in person.