By now you’ve probably seen and heard a lot about the new ZCO reticle called the MPCT3. This new reticle has many small details that may go unnoticed until the reticle is being used. Because we’ve talked to numerous shooters around the world who are curious about the MPCT3, we’ve noticed a trend that most of these shooters hadn’t realized some of the smaller details in the reticle. We’ll describe these details and explain the advantages of them. As we all know, it is often the small details that set one thing apart from another, and the MPCT3 is no different in that regard. The many small details found in the MPCT3 ultimately lead to enhanced speed and efficiency for target engagement, which was one of the design goals when we started this new reticle.
1. We increased the open area around the central floating dot ever so slightly from our already popular MPCT1 and MPCT2. We still include a 0.2 mil reference hash around the floating dot for absolutely zero doubt to the shooter where this point is. The increased space around the floating dot provides a better view of the target for spotting impacts and calling a correction.
2. Looking at the primary horizontal crosshair, the upper half of the horizontal lines have a single upward facing tick mark at the 0.5 mil points. This provides for an amazingly fast hold point that is easily found for rapid engagement. Along the bottom half, we have 0.2 mil indications for a higher level of precise hold capability to engage small targets. Within the first mil, the lower indications draw your eye toward the center. Moving out to the left and right from the one mil point, the 0.4 and 0.6 mil marks are slightly longer than the 0.2 and 0.8 mil. The increased length helps your eye find these hold points faster and more efficiently, especially with the aid of the 0.5 mil mark on top.
3. Moving to the vertical primary crosshair, the 0.4 and 0.6 mil marks are longer here as well and extend to both sides of the crosshair giving it a visually balanced appearance. Again, the increased length helps your eye find these hold points faster and more efficiently instead of having to count lines. The vertical crosshair extends up to 2.0 mils from the central floating dot, thereby providing additional hold-under points if desired. A 0.1 mil ranging scale is provided from 1.0 to 2.0 mil where it is near the center FOV should it be needed. The bottom of the Fatal Funnel is positioned at 3.0 mil up from center as an additional reference point.
4. Most notable of the MPCT3 is the use of open circles at the whole mil points throughout the entire reticle. These open circles provide four distinct advantages:
a. They provide cohesion of the whole mil points throughout the reticle instead of hashes on the primary crosshair and then different sized dots in the tree portion. This cohesion enhances your brain’s neural pathways so finding the whole mil points is seamless when transitioning from the primary crosshair to the tree. Increased efficiency is the result.
b. The open circles stand out better than just using fatter dots when looking at targets with a shaded or cluttered background. Their increased size makes them easier to distinguish in these scenarios meaning less time spent identifying the correct hold point.
c. When an increased field of view is desired and the scope is at a lower magnification setting, the open circles still give the reticle functional usability. This makes the MPCT3 at its best at the mid to higher magnifications but still has higher capability in the tree portion while at lower magnification settings than other reticles of this variety.
d. Finally, the open circles allow you to still see “through” the dots very easily as they do not obstruct very much of the target or background at all, making spotting impacts or observation still easily done even though this is a “tree” reticle.
5. Moving down below the primary crosshair, we have included a single open circle in each lower quadrant at the one mil down and one mil left and right. This single whole mil value open circle provides an easy reference for holding elevation and wind in that region but obscures very little of the target.
6. Moving to two mils down, we provide a wind hold capability of two mils left and right but with small dots spaced at 0.2 mil apart. The eye can easily cross reference the primary vertical above and below the two-mil value for an elevation hold but a wind hold is much more precise with the included dots starting here.
7. The whole dot-matrix grid starts at three mils down from center. It extends to three mils of wind hold and includes both elevation and wind hold dots at 0.2 mil spacing. The whole grid starts here to provide the utmost precision for holding both elevation and windage when the wind is blowing pretty hard.
8. A 0.1 mil scale for ranging targets in the vertical orientation is located between the 4.0 and 5.0 mil points.
9. Moving down the primary vertical crosshair, mil numbering is labeled at 4, 8, and 12 mils. Many other tree style reticles that include numbers along the vertical only number every fifth mil. Often times the eye loses track of which mil has been counted requiring the user to recount and be sure of their hold as they moved down the vertical crosshair. Numbering every four mils corrects this problem as it is easier for the human eye to keep track of in this location. These numbers are positioned in the corner of the whole mil value thereby keeping the 0.2 mil wind hold dot clearly visible and precise. Also, the numbers are reduced in size to obscure much less of the target area but are still easily readable.
10. Moving down to six mils of elevation, the dot-matrix extends out to four mils of wind hold capability. We provide a wind HOLD reference at 3.0 mils to again keep the shooter on track when needing to hold this much wind. The hold numbers are labeled as 3L and 3R denoting a 3.0 mil HOLD to the right or left of the target. These labels help to reduce shooter error by making a clear reference of a wind hold value, reducing counting of mils, and thus making things more efficient for the shooter.
11. Finally, the entire dot-matrix grid is specifically sized to handle a 308 Winchester shooting the ubiquitous 175 SMK at 2650 fps in a 20-mph wind while under standard atmospheric conditions. Nearly every other modern-day cartridge will stay within these ballistic parameters under widely different atmospheric conditions. This means the grid is only as big as absolutely necessary, keeping the lower half of the field of view as open as possible and not have anything extra.
Nick Gebhardt – Zero Compromise Optics
