The reticle generally does what they wanted it to do- be useful at low and high powers. But they did it in a way that is... “eh”. First, I dislike “donuts”. It’s a lazy way to make a reticle visable on low power, it obscures the target and surroundings in the most critical location in the scope where you need to see impacts/splash the most, and generally screws up the intuitiveness of the reticle holds. This one does all of those.
Overall the reticle is broken down in .2 mil increments. That’s great. Tick marks should be in linear and consistent fashion, I.E.- 1 mil, .5, or .2 mils. The problem with this MRAD1 reticle is that because of the donut, the tick marks inside the center go- dot, .2 to the near side of “cross line”, .4 to far side of line, then nothing usable until 1 mil (or .9, not really sure). You actually have to look at it and think about what means what, until you get to 1.4 mils (where the horizontal reticle starts. A lot of winds holds in actual field shooting tend to be in the .5 to 1.5 mil range... right where this reticle sucks. Or I should say is compromised. It’s usable for sure, but I shoot a lot of scopes and reticles, and I had to play with it to figure out what the subtentions are from center to 1.5 mils. Multiple shooters that are extremely capable and experienced had to do the same thing when they picked it up.
Next is the spacing between horizontal bold posts. Or, how much windage can be held. Holy Pete, who in the flip needs and can use over 6 mils of windage in the reticle!?
At sea level with a 308 and crappy BC bullet that is 52 miles per hour at 500 yards. Fifty-two miles per hour of wind. With a 300WM and 215gr Berger at 500 yards it’s EIGHTY-ONE mile per hour wind to drift 6 mils. At 1,000 yards for both it’s- 21mph and 36mph respectively. That’s just silly, and the only reason companies keep doing that is lack of critical thinking and public perception.
Reduce the windage to 2.5 or 3 mils to bold posts, and now you can see and center the reticle on animals on low power even in low light, while still having way more than enough windage available for shooting. Or, keep the windage 3-4 mils out, but bring the bottom 6 o’clock post in to 1.5 mils or so, then it looks like a German #4 on low powers with all the great attributes of that reticle, keeps the center clear for spotting impacts/splash, while still offering quick elevation holds out to 450-500 yards.
Both ways are better and more usable than a donut.
Explanation-
Reticles are a weak point for manufactures. This is brought on by two main things it seems- One, is that consumers are ignorant. I do not mean this maliciously, but people have no idea how stuff works, nor a broad enough base of experience in actual shooting and performance to know what they should want. Two, manufacturers and designers are generally NOT skilled or experienced shooters with a broad base of experience to know what works better and worse, and they are being inundated by the public’s ignorance to build compromised stuff quite frankly. Both don’t know, what they don’t know.
These lead to things like donuts, inconsistent spacing in reticles, huge windage spacing, BDC’s, SFP, extremely high zoom ranges; especially coupled with short length, small tube size, and lightweight. I/we’re constantly shooting with people that are rabid about these things. They will argue endlessly, yet it is all their feelings or beliefs, not actual performance. Take them off the square range, put realistic sized (that’d be much smaller than most use) targets at varying ranges with real wind, or shoot from unconventional positions (sitting off of a pack, kneeling over a downed tree, MPAJ, etc), put time constraints on them, and maybe a bit of heavy breathing, and NO ONE walks away wanting any of that stuff. I’ve shot with several good dudes from this forum alone, some were all about those things and just knew they were going to learn me something.
Then they actually shot as above while being measured, fail miserably, and then watch the chick crush what they just did with a 223 and SWFA.... dudes are swiping cards for new gear within an hour.
I say all this to say- reticles and “features” should not be designed or implemented in a vacuum. We would all like to think, and most do, that manufactures have a full staff of professional level shooters telling the designers and engineers what to build, and the engineers know enough about field use to build it correctly and robustly, then the company gives the product back to the pro shooters to ensure it actually works before it’s sold to you. Except for one company- nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is with most companies that some marketing dude brings an idea he thinks will sell, then they take it to another company that actually makes the optics and they tell those engineers how to build it to a certain price point. I’m not saying Meopta did that here... I’m not saying they didn’t either.
Whew...
That out of the way, the reticle while being compromised, is usable, and does work. It IS better than most in that regard, and I would not let the issues of it hinder a purchase.
