by UnaStamus on Wed Mar 16, 2016 12:10 am
With benchrest, Palma and F-class style shooting, MOA adjustment turrets are almost mandatory due to the extremely fine incremental adjustments. This is why you see target and benchrest scopes with 1/8 MOA adjustment. Most milrad scopes have 0.1mrad adjustment, which corresponds to about 1/3 MOA. With milrad scopes, the finest adjustment you might find is 0.05mrad, which is about 1/6 MOA. The problem is that 0.05mrad turrets are extremely rare, whereas 1/8 MOA are more common.
The caveat to benchrest scopes is that they're generally not very durable when compared to the tactical grade scopes. With the exception of the March scopes, I have yet to find a 0.05 MRAD or 1/8MOA adjustable scope that is durable enough to take the kind of abuse I throw at my rifles. May not be relevant to the discussion, but just food for thought.
The MOA and MRAD argument is indeed 6 of one, half dozen of another like everyone has said. The popularity of MRAD right now is heavily due to the tactical precision community and the military and LE influence on long range precision. Military and LE reticles have been using milrad reticles for decades, and fortunately in the past decade the turrets have caught up to the reticle for continuity and speed. When you jump on a line at a tactical precision rifle match or a tactical precision shooting training course, the vast majority of spotting scopes will have mil reticles of some type. If people are not using spotting scopes, they are using their own riflescopes to spot for other shooters. A vast majority use mil reticles, so most people want that continuity. Nothing sucks more than someone making a correction in one increment that you don't have correlation with. When we train with the snipers, we don't make adjustments based on the reticle, we make them based on the turret. If your reticle and turret don't match, it complicates the process.
If you foresee shooting in a TPRC type match, you can probably find someone with an MOA reticle to spot for you. That said, MRAD is far more common in that shooting community. If you get yourself a spotting scope with MOA reticle, it's obviously not an issue.