Couple Of Articles Regarding Mil, Millirad and Mil-Dots

[TattooedGun]

I posted a few weeks ago a couple of articles which may, or may not be of any use to some of you guys.

 

I've always been an MOA shooter, so getting my head around Millirads was somewhat of a headache, however after I "got it" i decided to try and word it in an easier to understand article than those I had been reading.

 

To understand what a Milliradian is (Shortened to Mil) then : http://blog.stegough.com/understanding-milliradians-mil-milrad/

 

Once you've got that an want to see how Mils relate to Mil-Dot Scopes then : http://blog.stegough.com/understanding-the-mil-dot-reticle/

 

Hopefully this helps someone. I dare say a lot of you guys that shoot all the time will already know it, but certainly one for the novices, and those that shoot MOA but want to know more.

[Cheetor]

There appears to be a problem with your maths on the Understanding MOA article? 2MOA @ 100 yards = 16 clicks with 1/8MOA click value not 18

[TattooedGun]

There appears to be a problem with your maths on the Understanding MOA article? 2MOA @ 100 yards = 16 clicks with 1/8MOA click value not 18

So there is, fixed it. Thanks for pointing that out

 

Concentrated on the complicated stuff, messed up on the easy stuff...! D'oh!

[Shuggy]

Radians were first described in 1714. The metric system was introduced in 1795.

 

Radians did not become an official SI unit until 1980. Minutes are also a recognised unit within the SI system.

 

Therefore it is not really correct to refer to Mils as a metric system. The Grad or Gon is the metric system of angle.

[TattooedGun]

Radians were first described in 1714. The metric system was introduced in 1795.

 

Radians did not become an official SI unit until 1980. Minutes are also a recognised unit within the SI system.

 

Therefore it is not really correct to refer to Mils as a metric system. The Grad or Gon is the metric system of angle.

 

I didn't refer to Mils as a metric system, I referred to it as being considered the metric equivalent to MOA which is considered the imperial measurement of angle.

 

My point really is that when using Millirads along side the metric system it forms an extremely powerful and easy to understand and convert scale for working out angles at distance. More so than when being used with Imperial units, due to the flexibility of the Metric system.

 

Of course it is not limited to being used only with the metric system, but seems to work much more elegantly when it is.

 

Since the article is primarily to get a basic understanding on the subject but not go completely in depth on the matter, I accept that my personal understanding on this subject at this depth is lacking, perhaps I didn't put across the above intention of the article in the way that I had hoped.

[TattooedGun]

Shuggy, I have taken on board the information you have given me, and learned a little in the process. Many thanks.

 

I have updated the article appropriately. Hopefully these few word changes make the intention clearer and don't perpetuate incorrect understanding of Radians as Metric Units.

[jcampbellsmith]

I think you need to be much clearer on your pies. Understanding the role of pi is essential. Regards JCS

[Cheetor]

I totally agree about the pies. A 3.533" diameter steak and kidney pie may be 1MIL at 100 metres, its still going to be cold by the time you get to it!

[bowji john]

Excellent articles TG

 

Thanks

 

J

[Shuggy]

Shuggy, I have taken on board the information you have given me, and learned a little in the process. Many thanks.

 

I have updated the article appropriately. Hopefully these few word changes make the intention clearer and don't perpetuate incorrect understanding of Radians as Metric Units.

Your welcome. I know that the trigonometry is much simpler for metres, but I think that the whole 'cm per click' thing is largely irrelevant for most shooters. For a target shooters we always know the range to the target and it is far simpler just to measure the angular offset in Mils with the reticle and dial the correction without worrying about any cm, inches, cubits or any other form of linear measurement on the target. Of course, this works a lot better with an FFP scope where the reticle is always true at any magification.

 

Most long range sporting shooters and indeed most military users will know the range by using a laser rangefinder. I can see the point for military users learning how to 'Mill' the range of a target for when the rangefinder is out of batteries, but the technique seems pretty irrelevant for most civilian types.

 

One other thing that you could add to your article is the difference between NATO mils (1/6400) and mathmatically true Mils (1/6283). As far as I know there a few sights, such as the March scopes, that are actually graduated in NATO mils. Not that any of us could really tell the difference in the real world!

[bowji john]

On courses I attended in the forces, we had to work out distance using mills on objects that we were previously expected to have measured the approx sizes of

 

We all wandered around taking measurements of door sills, fence heights, landrover and car heights etc etc etc

 

All went into a little 'snipers field book'.

 

Laser rangers were considered to be unreliable in the field for a host of different reasons - plus we had to 'do it the hard way' first

[bowji john]

That was the summer of 1903 though

[gbal]

....bj....the 1905 Mannlicher Schoenauer 6.5 resolved the unreliable laser problem by making scope fitting a bit fiddly..even difficult...still managed to be king of the hill .....

.....it still does OK with a scope...but there are more fashionable-dare I admit-better options now,especially for strong young lads. :-)

 

gb

[Lashendei]

But mils in the army were different, surely - 6400 mils in a circle? Was that just rounding up 62381 to an easily divisible figure? I also sort of remember that Warsaw Pact equipment used 6000 mils?

[Lashendei]

Point already made, oops

[TattooedGun]

I purposely made the article simpler and avoided the alternative Mil measurements such as milliemes (circle/6400) and the Red Army's adoption of expanding the 600 unit circle into a 6000 unit one (as it has nothing to do with milliradians as its origin). I also omitted decigrades, Gradians and a number of other angular measurements.

 

It gets complicated to explain all of them, especially when you don't really understand much of any of them.

 

Further to your request on NATO 6400 adoption of millemes, the direct comparison units would be as follows:

 

1 NATO 'Mil' is 0.98171875 that of a true Milliradian.

 

To try and put that in perspective. There is less than 2% discrepancy between Nato and True.

 

At 100 meters that's 10 CM True mil vs 9.817 CM NATO - A 1.83mm discrepancy.

 

Which equates to 0.183mm discrepancy per click.(.1 MIL Click) Or 0.0915mm per click (.05 Mil Clicks)

 

At 1000 meters that's 1 meter True vs. 98.17 CM NATO - A 1.83cm discrepancy.

 

Which equates to 1.83mm discrepancy per click.(.1 MIL Click) Or 0.915mm per click (.05 Mil Clicks)

 

As mentioned above, not sure most people would be able to tell in the real world.

 

As far as I know there a few sights, such as the March scopes, that are actually graduated in NATO mils. Not that any of us could really tell the difference in the real world!

[Strangely Brown]

But mils in the army were different, surely - 6400 mils in a circle? Was that just rounding up 62381 to an easily divisible figure? I also sort of remember that Warsaw Pact equipment used 6000 mils?

 

From an artillery point of veiw 6400Mils is easily devisble for all 8 points of a compass.

 

Anybody else on here old enough to remember the Eastings Northings book you started a fire mission with in the command post?

[eldon]

No but I remember the NOD HASE and LASER as an OP on the sharp end.

[KatoomDownUnder]

On 3/6/2016 at 1:11 AM, Strangely Brown said:

 

From an artillery point of veiw 6400Mils is easily devisble for all 8 points of a compass.

 

Anybody else on here old enough to remember the Eastings Northings book you started a fire mission with in the command post?

 

On 3/8/2016 at 3:24 AM, eldon said:

No but I remember the NOD HASE and LASER as an OP on the sharp end.

Correct, Correct, LOAD

[Popsbengo]

Holy Resurrection Batman !

[Chanonry]

Have to say, I can never understand the desire to make MOA and MILS complicated. They are different definitions of an angle. There is a ruler in the scope, clicks on the turret. Adjust and shoot. No need to be able to translate that into linear dimensions on the target to make a hit.

It may be interesting to understand the maths but there is no need.

How is any of this hard ??

[gazzarM1]

Agreed …clicks are clicks

[gazzarM1]

Couple of good vids on topic…Ryan Cleckner ex US Ranger sniper instructor does a good job of getting it across

[Mattnall]

On 3/4/2016 at 9:56 AM, Lashendei said:

But mils in the army were different, surely - 6400 mils in a circle? Was that just rounding up 62381 to an easily divisible figure? I also sort of remember that Warsaw Pact equipment used 6000 mils?

This is because Mils is not short for milliradians. There are 2π radians in a circle or roughly 6283 milliradians.

Mils were a military approximation to the milliradians and from what I've heard the west/allies? went with 6400 because it is easily divisible for standard compass points but the Russians and some others went with 6000 as a more rounded figure.

It gets confusing when people keep calling them milliradians or worse still, mil-rads.

 

They'll be calling 'bullets', 'heads' soon and if enough people doeventually it'll become right.😉

[VarmLR]

On 2/27/2016 at 12:35 PM, bowji john said:

On courses I attended in the forces, we had to work out distance using mills on objects that we were previously expected to have measured the approx sizes of

 

We all wandered around taking measurements of door sills, fence heights, landrover and car heights etc etc etc

 

All went into a little 'snipers field book'.

 

Laser rangers were considered to be unreliable in the field for a host of different reasons - plus we had to 'do it the hard way' first

Same here john.  The course we attended had us mark up range cards for various field locations and targets and use the mil rets to gauge distances, the beauty being that this also negated getting it wrong for "dead ground".  It was way better than a small group of use guesstimating distance and taking an average!

Where it fell short was on longer distances where any sort of slope was involved because you were ranging angular distances, so some quick rule of thumbs for adjustment in the field or a good understanding of trig came in handy!

For me, it doesn't matter whether a scope uses a Mil or moa based ret, as long as the turrets are correspondingly graduated.  I use the ret to compensate for POI to POA then hold off or dial accordingly.  Rapid and effective.  Holding off is my preference as wind changes sometimes rapidly.