Rifle Scopes Hensoldt scope calibrations help

[Wiley Coyyote]

Am looking at a Hensoldt 6-24X56 which has great glass and a nice mildot reticle. The distance between the reticle dots is 10 cm at 100 meters which by my calculations is 1 milradian??? The issue is the elevation/windage knobs. Elevation is listed on the knob as 0.5 cm/click. There are ten clicks between each major number engraved on the elevation knob. So if my spotter calls add 0.2 mils that is two clicks with a Night Force but am confused as to what that is with the Hensoldt - four clicks approx????

Would appreciate some clarification by one of you guys before I pull the trigger on this great scope. I don't want something that is going to need a bunch of mental math each time a get a spotter call. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[pell1203]

Wiley Coyote, if your scope adjusts in increments of 0.05 mrad (0.5cm at 100 m) you would need exactly 4 clicks to adjust for 0.2 mils. While most mil scopes adjust in 0.1 mil increments, yours has twice the resolution at 0.05 mil and therefore needs twice as many clicks to cover the same angular displacement.

In the inch/MOA world , scopes are most often labeled 1 click = 1/4" at 100 yards. However, many target scopes have twice the adjustment resolution and are 1 click = 1/8" at 100 yards. You are up against the same issue, except in the parallel Milrad world.

I am not directly familiar with the Hendsolt scope you are asking about but am curious regarding the markings on your turrets since you state "there are ten clicks between each major number engraved on the elevation knob." Did you mean 10 tic marks or are there actually 10 clicks? Are you able to click in between each of the major markings? I ask because I would expect you would need 20 clicks to advance to the next major number (full mil), instead of the 10 clicks you state.

Just trying to help. I am sure someone with first hand knowledge will be along shorthly to better answer your question.

 

[Wiley Coyyote]

Pell 1203 Thanks much. I was laying awake last night and figured out I was mixing cm and yards. When I started working with cm and meters I got it. Your post I read this morning confirmed my suspicions. Thanks!

 

[FourT6and2]

Pell 1203 Thanks much. I was laying awake last night and figured out I was mixing cm and yards. When I started working with cm and meters I got it. Your post I read this morning confirmed my suspicions. Thanks!

Still doesn't answer the question of why you have 10 clicks between each full MIL on the turret when each click is supposedly 0.05 MIL. Unless you have 20 clicks but only 10 lines. Which means you can click between the lines.

 

[Wiley Coyyote]

Well there are only 10 clicks between the numbers and my impression is you get 0.5 mils between numbers. So you have to traverse to the next number to get 20 clicks and 1 mil (ie 4-6 = 1 mil). The elevation knob goes to 8 so you get 4 mils per revolution and a total of 4 complete revolutions are available for a total of 16 mils by my calculation. Upon mounting and zeroing you could lose a significant amount of that as the scope does not necessarily let you bottom it out completely after mounting, like you can with a Night Force. Since I thought there was a possibility of me returning the scope I did not mount, much less shoot it.

The scope has a mil dot reticle and after being thru a couple of the "Christmas Tree" reticles and lately a Mil R I had decided to go back to simplicity and go SFP Mil Dot for a 308 I shoot out to 1300. I had the Hensoldt and a NF NXS 5.5-22X56 Mil Dot at the same time to evaluate, and really wanted to like and go with the Hensoldt. Over a couple days I and my wife compared the glass side by side at a variety of distance and conditions, both set at 22X. Try as we might, we could not convince ourselves there was a significant difference between the glass of the two scopes. That and the limited elevation (I need 15.7 mils of elevation with my Mil R to get 1300 yards) I thought I was cutting that too close. Loved the Hensoldt parallax but felt the knobs for el/az were too small but nice firm clicks. Having my other scopes in mil/mil and working in yards was also an issue as the Hensoldt obviously is set up for metric. Finally both Mil dot reticles are illum and well thought out, but I have to give the nod to the NF design. Warranty for Hensoldt is 2 yrs and NF is forever.

In short the Hensoldt is a very, very nice scope, but just not for me. However I did learn about metric scopes<G>.

 

[FourT6and2]

Well there are only 10 clicks between the numbers and my impression is you get 0.5 mils between numbers. So you have to traverse to the next number to get 20 clicks and 1 mil (ie 4-6 = 1 mil). The elevation knob goes to 8 so you get 4 mils per revolution and a total of 4 complete revolutions are available for a total of 16 mils by my calculation. Upon mounting and zeroing you could lose a significant amount of that as the scope does not necessarily let you bottom it out completely after mounting, like you can with a Night Force. Since I thought there was a possibility of me returning the scope I did not mount, much less shoot it.

That is freakin' confusing. So if you want to dial 2.5 MIL, you have to dial the turret to read "5"???? If that's really the case, then I don't know wtf they were thinking....

 

[pell1203]

Wiley Coyyote, that appears to be confusing as hell if it works as you describe and I find it ridiculous a manufacturer would design a product requiring that amount of mental gymnastics to set.

Having said that, don't get yourself confused. A Mil is no more metric than an MOA. An MOA is equivalent to 1/60th of a degree and a Mil is equal to 1/1000 of a radian. Neither is a linear measure. Both are angular measurements whose linear equivalents increases as distance increases. In other words, an inch is an inch at any distance, but an MOA linear equivalent is an inch at 100 yards, 2 inches at 200 yards... 10 inches at 1000 yards, and so on. Similarly, a Mil is 10 cm at 100 meters, 20 cm at 200 meters... 100 cm (1 meter) at 1000 meters.

However, none of these linear measurements matter in the least. If you are using an FFP Mil/Mil scope. All you need is the reticle to measure and correct your shots. If you hit low and right, use your reticle to measure the vertical and horizontal displacement relative to your point of aim. Lets say your impact was 1.5 Mil below and 0.7 Mils to the right of your point of aim. Simply correct for your next shot by dialing in +1.5 Mil (up) elevation and 0.7 Mil Left windage. Your next shot should be on the point of aim.

Best of all, when using an FFP scope, this method works for all and any distances as well as any zoom level on a variable power scope. You don't need to worry whether distances are in meters, yards, feet, or hands since all you are measuring is the angular displacement.

This article is a quick intro on How To Use Milliradian-Adjustable Scopes and some of the theory behind it. Also, lots of discussions regarding this topic can also be found via Google.

Edit to add: Be aware Frank Galli (Lowlight), wrote that article about 6 years ago... hence, his recommendation on ballistic calculators is a bit dated.

 

[Wiley Coyyote]

Well I agree it is confusing and the reason I ultimately returned the scope. The documentation that came with the scope was somewhat sparse and did not help. The reticle description indicates the distance between mildots is 10 cm/ 100 meters, and nowhere indicates that is 1 mil - which it is. The section on mounting the scope said the scope should be mounted by a professional familiar with Hensoldt scopes and if it was not the warranty was void.

I am very familiar with the MIl/MOA differences and the fact that is an angular measurement. Have owned several FFP and SFP scopes and also understand the limitations of each. Since I shoot on a range with mostly known distances or use a LRF to get distances of unknowns, the ranging "advantage" of the FFP vs SFP is negligible for me. The finer reticle of the SFP at distance for me is an advantage over the magnified FFP; but we could have the FFP vs SFP discussion all day<G>. However using a typical mil/mil scope with 0.1mil clicks and 10 clicks or a mil per each number is pretty easy compared to what I interpreted was the issues with the 0.5cm/100meter clicks of the Hensoldt. If you desire, on the .1mil/click scopes you can certainly use meters but you still have 10 clicks/1 mil which is what most of us are accustomed too. Once you understand that scope it works like all the rest of the milradian scopes, just requires you to be attuned to its particular idiosyncracies. IMO if all you shot was Hensoldts then no big issue, but jumping back and forth between the Hensold on the 308 and say a ATACR on the 300WM could lead to some confusion such as forgetting to set your LRF back to yards from meters.

Lastly I do want to emphasize that I have zero range time with this scope as I did not mount it - ring marks increased the re-stocking fee considerably. Perhaps someone on the Hide has one and can add some real world experience with this scope and clear up what misconceptions I might have. I do not mean to be "dissing" this scope as I have no range time and from the few days I handled it, found it to be of very high quality - just not my cup of tea.

 

[FourT6and2]

Well I agree it is confusing and the reason I ultimately returned the scope. The documentation that came with the scope was somewhat sparse and did not help. The reticle description indicates the distance between mildots is 10 cm/ 100 meters, and nowhere indicates that is 1 mil - which it is. The section on mounting the scope said the scope should be mounted by a professional familiar with Hensoldt scopes and if it was not the warranty was void.

I am very familiar with the MIl/MOA differences and the fact that is an angular measurement. Have owned several FFP and SFP scopes and also understand the limitations of each. Since I shoot on a range with mostly known distances or use a LRF to get distances of unknowns, the ranging "advantage" of the FFP vs SFP is negligible for me. The finer reticle of the SFP at distance for me is an advantage over the magnified FFP; but we could have the FFP vs SFP discussion all day<G>. However using a typical mil/mil scope with 0.1mil clicks and 10 clicks or a mil per each number is pretty easy compared to what I interpreted was the issues with the 0.5cm/100meter clicks of the Hensoldt. If you desire, on the .1mil/click scopes you can certainly use meters but you still have 10 clicks/1 mil which is what most of us are accustomed too. Once you understand that scope it works like all the rest of the milradian scopes, just requires you to be attuned to its particular idiosyncracies. IMO if all you shot was Hensoldts then no big issue, but jumping back and forth between the Hensold on the 308 and say a ATACR on the 300WM could lead to some confusion such as forgetting to set your LRF back to yards from meters.

Lastly I do want to emphasize that I have zero range time with this scope as I did not mount it - ring marks increased the re-stocking fee considerably. Perhaps someone on the Hide has one and can add some real world experience with this scope and clear up what misconceptions I might have. I do not mean to be "dissing" this scope as I have no range time and from the few days I handled it, found it to be of very high quality - just not my cup of tea.

Just seems weird to have a scope turret on which, what you see is NOT what you get. When I dial to 1.5 mil, I expect it to be 1.5 mil. Seems like on the Hensoldt you need to do math in order to figure out where to dial your turret JUST to get it to read the value you want? Seems strange. I really doubt that's how it actually is. If the turret reads 5.6, it needs to be 5.6. Why would they design a scope where you need to double the values in your head just to get an accurate turret value?

 

[Wiley Coyyote]

I cannot disagree with you. In fact the only documentation referencing the calibration of the scope is on the top of elevation and azimuth (windage) knobs and says 0.5cm/click and the included booklet mentions this and the distance between reticle dots as 10 cm/100 meters. There is no mention of how many clicks between the major numbers; however the numbers are subdivided like a standard .1mil scope so there are 10 marks and clicks between two subsequent numbers. The only way to interpret this in my mind is these are 1/20th clicks (o.5cm/click) and it takes twenty to equal 1 full mil. This requires 20 clicks and the movement of the knob two full numbers ie 4-6.

Again I am open to clarification from someone who own and shoots one of these. That aside I decided not to go with the Mil Dot scope used by some of the Dutch or German military and went with one used by some of the U.S. Military.

 

[FourT6and2]

I cannot disagree with you. In fact the only documentation referencing the calibration of the scope is on the top of elevation and azimuth (windage) knobs and says 0.5cm/click and the included booklet mentions this and the distance between reticle dots as 10 cm/100 meters. There is no mention of how many clicks between the major numbers; however the numbers are subdivided like a standard .1mil scope so there are 10 marks and clicks between two subsequent numbers. The only way to interpret this in my mind is these are 1/20th clicks (o.5cm/click) and it takes twenty to equal 1 full mil. This requires 20 clicks and the movement of the knob two full numbers ie 4-6.

Again I am open to clarification from someone who own and shoots one of these. That aside I decided not to go with the Mil Dot scope used by some of the Dutch or German military and went with one used by some of the U.S. Military.

No, not arguing or anything. But it blows my mind that the turret will say, for example, 8.7, but that really means 4.35 MIL. In what universe does a scope manufacturer not realize that's a bunch of BS??? Why do that? Why not label the turret so that what you see is what you get? Returning that scope was a good idea lol

 

[Graywolf.260]

TLDR the whole thing but it seems you think the minor turret markings are not 0.1 milliradians, they are 0.05 milliradians so that the major markings are 0.5 milliradians instead of the conventional 1.0 milliradian. I have a hard time believing Hensoldt would design the turret that way. I understand the instructions in the book said .5 cm/100 m (0.05 milrad) per click, I can't help wondering if there was a change in the turret design that didn't get updated in the instruction book (maybe snafu with the Zeiss/Hensoldt to Airbus back to Hensoldt ownership changes)? You never actually checked the scope and verified the clicks/milliradians value did you?

 

[Wiley Coyyote]

No I did not run any calibration tests on the scope mainly because to do that adequately I would have to firmly fix the scope to something. Company selling said they look at returned scopes with a magnifyer for any ring marks, scuffs or other blemishes and you lose 20% at least on the refund. So I handled the scope extremely carefully and did not mount , fix or otherwise scuff it. Hard to run a tall target test hand holding a scope or steadying it with a shooting bag.

Perhaps they did change the turrets but as mentioned above they did not change the turret caps which also read "0.5 cm /100 meters". That notation is therefore not only in the manual but engraved on both the elevation and azimuth (windage) turret tops. Again I did not have the ability to fully test this. However I am surprised a couple people have not chimed in with real world experience with this scope which could clarify the situation. Must not be too many out there in the USA???