Focal point shooting???
For lack of a better term – Focal point shooting
How do you figure out your hold over..without a Rangefinder?
Do you…venture a guess..
Focus the scope till the image is sharp and clean?
FT guys shoot at every range they may encounter, and have made a Turrent Tape…with clicks
They use the focus of the scope…then look at the Turrent Tape., then count there clicks.
I’m a mil-dot hunter..I don’t want to be a counter of clicks.I don’t need pellet in pellet at 10-50 yards..I want 1/4″ or so accuracy at these ranges.
I want Mil-dots.
Well my scope has a sidewheel with range markings, and I have always turned the wheel untill I have a crisp and clear focus to get a good guess at the range..so then I look at the sidewheel range then at the scope cap cheat sheet..to get the mil-dot holdover, as generated by Chairgun.
The whole process takes time!
At times the critters, just don’t like to wait on me.
Is there a better way???
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Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
All the math your proposing for mildot ranging, which was in fact designed to be used for uber long ranges, not a bird in the top of a tree at 47 yards, is far more time consuming than simply using a rangefinder, and then using the holdover mildots that are in Chairguns reticle portion, that you have either reduced to memory or have taped to the bell of your scope.
Use your rangefinder, if you don’t have one buy one. For a air rifle with a loopy trajectory they are simply a must.
Regards,
Roachcreek
Dude, we are certainly missing each other somewhere.
This technique you use is awesome, no beef what-so-ever with it or even it’s accuracy. 1/4″ at 50 yards is awesomeness, worthy of FT competition for sure.
All i’m saying is the true range is relevant even if you choose to ignore it after you get the dots set on your wheel.
It’s not about accuracy or not doing it at exact yards or even about field target technique. I know you think i’m dissing your idea because I do it with clicks, that is NOT the case at all, I am not the FT snob you think I am. 😆
This is about the basics of how mildot hold over is dependent on distance to target.
You have created a simple range finding to dot hold over technique, note it includes RANGE FINDING, which is based on the ACTUAL distance to the target.
To say the distance doesn’t matter is patently false. I understand it doesn’t matter AFTER you get the range based dots marked on your wheel.
If you didn’t put out the targets you’d have no distances to range to to get your holdover.
If you are not able to use your focus wheel your dots no longer work right? That is because the distance to target is what determines your dot hold over. Therefore the actual distance IS critical to you hitting the target even if it isn’t known by the shooter when he pulls the trigger.
It’s semantics I know. 😉
Your technique is one of a few that actually work well in FT that doesn’t involved changing the elevation turret (in some FT classes clicking is illegal).
I shot with a guy at the Regionals that had the mil-dot holdover on his scope focus wheel, he was shooting in the open pcp class without a harness or even a high power scope (his was 32x, I know, high power is now 50-80x). On top of that he was shooting a regulated 177 MROD with magazines. 😯 Amazing shit right there, using a Hunter pcp technique in the open pcp class! How is it inaccurate as you stated earlier? It’s just as accurate, he did well.
There is another guy that actually ranges using the mildots and then determines his holdover via the dot estimated distance. That takes an amazing amount of skill right there. He kicked ass at the Nats this year using this technique. Hopefully I will be squaded with him at a future FT match so I can witness this technique in person.
I don’t count clicks, nobody in FT actually counts the individual clicks. No way I or anyone else is going to count up 98 clicks or 123 clicks when the clock is ticking (we don;t get all day to shoot btw, four shots in under five minutes, time starts when you ass hits the ground)… 😯 I just dial up to a given number, takes a second or two at most. If I counted 98 clicks i’d probably have to do it three or four times to get it right. 😆 Marine snipers may count actual clicks but at the distances they shoot they only need a few, not 100. 😉
A lot of folks set up targets every five yards and zero up to get their clicks at difference distances and don’t use ChairGun, perhaps they don’t trust it perhaps they are luddites, who knows. I use ChairGun and it works great! Only time I set up targets at certain yardages is to set up the focus marks on the wheel and this is only needed one time when the scope is first put on the rifle.
Why do I use a card and how it might be better than mil-dots on a scope wheel?
If I change pellets I simply change the card, you would have to re-range your randomly placed targets and re-mark your scope with the proper holdover.
I even set up a bunch of cards at different velocities so when I travel and the pellet speed changes due to elevation and humidity I don’t have to retune my rifle. I just grab the card that works for the distance I am off from my poi.
Save some time in one place and increase it in another. 😉
No one technique is better, they each have their advantages and disadvantages. 😀
Man…
I need to get out more.
I’m still using my AF 4-16X50.
How does it compare to the nicer ones?
it’s good way to shoot. but my scope is not able to see the much difference each 5 yard fro 30 yard to 45 yards. it’s good for a little bit long rang over 50 yards.
Ok, I get it, so whether the numbers are 100% right or not, as long as it is consistent then you can hit where you want. I like it. 🙂
Hey Syn, were going the wrong direction here. Its just my silly thought to point out another way, a simpler way, a quicker way. No 11 turrent clicks, no looking at a Chairgun cheat cap, no rangefinder.
I don’t think I’m getting my idea across.
So lets try this example…
Round up 20-30 targets/boxes, put a dot in the middle..go for a walk in your backyard. Drop them every 5 yards or so…no need to be exact!!
Focus on 1st one..shoot…mark mildot..on scope wheel..lets say -2
Focus on 2nd one..shoot…mark mildot..on scope wheel..lets say -1
Focus on 3rd one..shoot…mark mildot..on scope wheel..lets say -0
Focus on 4th one..shoot…mark mildot..on scope wheel..lets say 1
Focus on 5th one..shoot…mark mildot..on scope wheel..lets say 1.5
Focus on 6th one..shoot…mark mildot..on scope wheel..lets say 2
Focus on 7th one..shoot…mark mildot..on scope wheel..lets say 2.5
Ect, ect. ect do all targets…
This is Exactly what you ft guys do..except you count clicks. Yes I know your way is much more accurate, but it takes time.
So a bird lands in the tree out back, I focus on him till I get a nice crisp focus. I look at my scope sidewheel..it says 2..so I aim 2 mildots high.
I’m done, no looking at scopecap, no rangecard, no turret clicking, no rangefinder..no thinking(i like that)..just point and shoot!
The true range is irrelevant, I have focused and shot at this distance before and know I need to aim 2mildots high. If I need to know the real range, I can look at the print on sidewheel, or look at my scope cap…
2md holdover=76yards.
Thus the term..Focal shooting.
Why do you use a rangefinder or rangecard?
Simple so you can look at all that info, and figure out where you need to shoot.
The above is just a simpler way, not as accurate..but good for shorter range shooting
I’m not sure you fully comprehend the relationship between hold over and ranging. Can’t have one without the other.
You say you don’t care what the range is but caring about repeating the focus is actually caring about the range so your mill dot holdover is correct…
If you really don’t care about the yardage don’t use the wheel and do it all by estimation (no dots on the crosshairs), otherwise the yardage is ultra critical to all techniques of holdover, the label one uses for the yardage doesn’t matter for any type of shooting.
At 40-45 yards there is an 8 click difference on my rig. That is about 1/2″ of poi difference if the distance determination isn’t exact. If you are aiming at a 1/2″ kill zone you may miss it.
I have noticed that having the yardage numbers marked on the wheel has greatly enhanced my ability to pre-range the distances by eye before I look through the scope, i’m usually off by less than 3-5 yards.
The bigger the wheel the better the chance to repeat the focused distances exactly. Higher magnification helps too, 50x is going to be easier to focus at distance than 24x. Which is why 50x scopes with 6″ plus wheels are used in field target.
I have mine set up so that every 8 clicks is 1.0. So 11 clicks is 1.3, seven clicks is 0.7…
Some guys write the clicks on the scope wheel instead of the yardage.
Focus, read the click number from the wheel and dial in the scope then shoot.
If you are shooting 10-65 yards you can’t beat a scope wheel and dialing up the elevation knob, just ask the Hunter FT shooters. 😉 😆
Well my current setup is kind a hybrid of the above.
I have a 4″ sidewheel..and I put the simple mil-dot holdover on the wheel. At many of the common distances. It does not matter what the true range is…if scope has nice focus at target and the mil dot is.5, then I know its about 40yards..even is the actaul range is 45…it does not matter, i have shot at this range before..and this is where to aim. The only hard part is my ability to repeat a nice clear focus on target.
In effect..I don’t even care what the range is..its all been shot before..
The ability to get a good repeatable focus is all that matters.
Example 30yard focus.=-1…20yard=0 40yard–.5 63yard =1..ect
Focus, read the dot holdover from the scope wheel then shoot.
This does seem to work very well out to 100 yards..the Hawk scope sure helps
I shoot between 10 and 50 yards. I lasered targets every 5 yards between 10 and 50 yards. Sighted the gun in at 30 yards, then shot at 10, 15, 20 etc, out to 50 yards and recorded the mildot holdover at each distance. Made a chart showing the mildot holder at each 5 yard increment and taped it to the side of the gun. Since my parallax yardage markings were inaccurate on my scope, I taped the accurate yardage markings on the parallax adjustment ring. When I’m ready to shoot, i estimate the yardage, make the parallax adjustment, check the mildot holdover, and shoot. Probably not the 1/4 inch accuracy newbie is looking for, but good enough to whack rabbits in the head 8 out of 10 shots. The 2 misses are either inaccurate yardage estimation, and consequently the wrong holdover, the critters bolting just as I pull the trigger, or just a bad shot.
With a 6″ scope wheel the difference between 60 & 70 yards is about 1/8″ on the wheel…. 100, 125, 150 & 175 would be right on top of each other on a 6″ wheel.
We don’t count clicks, we dial up to the number we want. Counting clicks would run out the five minute time limit to hit all four targets real quick. 😉
I have mine set up so that every 8 clicks is 1.0. So 11 clicks is 1.3, seven clicks is 0.7…
Some guys write the clicks on the scope wheel instead of the yardage.
Focus, read the click number from the wheel and dial in the scope then shoot.
If you are shooting 10-65 yards you can’t beat a scope wheel and dialing up the elevation knob, just ask the Hunter FT shooters. 😉 😆
The dots are going to be more accurate than the sidewheel, especially the farther you get. The sidewheel will get you in the ballpark, but I wouldn’t trust it that much. I will give it that it’s been a while since I have shot close up with an airgun, my experience is mostly long range, and half of the really high end scopes don’t even put numbers on the parallax knob for the simple reason that people mistakenly look at it as range estimation, when it isn’t. I do know the FT guys use it though, so it may be more accurate than I remember, but I definitely wouldn’t use it past 50 yards or so.
Mil dots, once you learn them, can be super accurate. It does take math, so if you are figuring out a squirrel in a tree, it’s probably not going to be the best method, but if you have a stationary target it’s great.
Scope quality matters in all of this though. Cheap scopes won’t have accurate mil dots, especially since many (most) of the people that buy cheap scopes with mildots don’t even know what they are really for, just think they look cool. A cheap scope also won’t focus nearly as well, so your sidewheel isn’t going to be as good. Good scopes matter, you can’t hit what you cant see. 😉
You could use the dots for calculating range. That’s what they’re there for. If you have a droid phone there’s a mil dot calculator app. If not the math is semi-easy
Target range = Target height in yards *1000
———————————-
Number of dots hight
If you want your range in feet or inches the math is the same but sub the yards for whatever.
EG 1′ tall tree rat
1/3 of a yard * 1000
————————
Number of dots
.3333*1000 = 333.3
—————————
Number of dots
1 full dot would be 333.3 yards
2 dots would be 166.665 yards
3 111.11
I’m also assuming you have a first focal plane scope which means the dots are good at all magnifications. If you have one of the ones with the reticle at the second focal plane (99.999% of the mil dot scopes on the market) the mil dots are only good at one magnification (usually 10x)
The way to check is to cut a 9 inch strip of something reflective, put it at 50 yards and then zoom in on your scope until it reads 5 dots high. That is the magnification that your mil dot scope is actually reading milliradians.
9 inches is .25 yards so .25*1000 is 250. divided by 5 dots is 50 yards.
And if you bought one of those cheap ZOS scopes like I did don’t bother. the mil hashmarks never add up. They’re just there for appearance.
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You can’t do all that in your head RC? 😆
For 75 yards and less a 4″ or larger scope wheel is going to be great for range estimation (chose your favorite way to holdover, MrNewbies is quick and easy).
For 100 yards out a range finder (for those less maths inclined) with clicks or mil-dot range estimation (for those with the maths skills) with clicks is the way to go.
I can’t imagine holding 1/2 a mil dot over a small bird/varmint with a 12 power scope at 300 yards… 😕 😯