Understanding Minute of Angle (MOA) | Long-Range Rifle Shooting with Ryan Cleckner

[Music] in our last video we talked you through how to mount your scope properly to the rifle so that it fits you well now we're going to talk about some of the adjustments you can make on that scope so that you can zero your rifle engage targets at different distances and just understand how the whole system works a whole lot better well most likely your scope adjusts like mine in minutes of angle so we're going to start with understanding what minutes of angle are and how we can use them hi I'm Ryan collector with the National Shooting Sports Foundation I was a sniper team leader in 1st Ranger Battalion and a sniper instructor and today we're going to talk about minutes of angle now a minute of angle minute is just a fancy word for one sixtieth think about 60 minutes in an hour well that's the same as saying one minute of time is a sixtieth of an hour well this minute is going to be a sixtieth of this angle and this angle is what we're talking about is on the circle the 360 degrees it's just one of those degrees so a sixtieth of one of those degrees is one minute of angle well we're in luck because that's actually quite easy for us to visualize it ends up being about one inch of 100 yards now I say about because it's not truly one inch it's one point zero four seven inches but for our purposes one inch and rounding to that one inch is close enough so here's the way to think about it it's not a size at a certain distance but rather it's an angle that we're making in the scope that ends up translating to a certain size of a distance so picture it this way these two markers we're going to pretend they're laser pointers and if I take these and I spread them the right amount apart let's say one minute of angle the dots from these laser pointers are going to spread further apart as they go out in distance well at a hundred yards those dots are going to be about one inch apart but they're gonna keep continuing spreading would be two inches apart at 200 three inches apart at 300 and so on but don't get confused those three inches at 300 yards are still just one minute of angle so we make those adjustments on the scope that's the angle we make which at the distance now there's a trick I use to figuring this out because it can get confusing at different distances whatever distance I'm shooting I think of what one minute of angle is going to be at that distance and I try and remember that increment in my head let's take an example of 400 yards so if we're trying to impact this spot at 400 yards the first step I said is to start thinking about what one minute of angle is of this distance well 400 yards one minute of angle equals about four inches so I'm gonna start thinking in four inch increments if my bullet impact impacts four inches low I know I need to come up one minute of angle if the bullet impacts 8 inches low I know that two of those four inch chunks fit there so therefore I need to come up two minutes of angle it's really that simple and you can actually break it down into smaller segments too so let's say at the same 400 yards my bullet impacts six inches low the way to figure it out is to think about those increments and realize that one and a half of those four inch increments fit into the six inch difference so that means I need to come up one and a half minutes on my scope and I can impact that spot it's really that simple well the question next should be so what why do we have these adjustments in our scope why does it matter that the minutes of angle translate to different sizes at different distances well the important part here is not just to learn how to zero your rifle you don't need to know what adjustments it means you just could keep turning it up until it hits where you want it to well but by knowing what these minutes equal different distances we can compensate for different distances and therefore shoot where we want to no matter how far away the target is so let's break it down first and what the bullets doing when it leaves the barrel there's plenty of factors that affect the bullet the second it leaves the barrel but the biggest thing that affects the bullet is also the easiest to account for its gravity now most of us know that the bullet leaves the barrel it travels in an arc but it's not a perfect arc and actually starts off dropping just a little bit and then it drops an awful lot as the bullet gets further away that's because the bull is traveling that first 100 yards in a much faster time than it's traveling that last 100 yards the bullet slowing down as the flies to the air well a bullet that's slower is exposed to gravity longer and therefore falls faster that's as simple as it is in a fraction of a second the bullet can only fall so far we're a full second the bullet can fall a lot more well knowing this we can account for the drop of the bullet now drop is the keyword there even though it travels in an arc the bullet is dropping the entire way I've met a few people that want to believe that because the bullet travels in arc they're convinced the bullet is rising when it leaves the barrel but that's just not the case the truth of the matter is your barrel is actually angled up and the bullet is dropping when that leaves here's the way you can picture it imagine yourself on a football field and someone's down down the field and you want to throw the football to them we all know that you need to throw the football up at an angle in order for it to make it all the way to that person well let's just call that 45 degrees well right as I throw that football if gravity just turned off that football would stay on that 45 degree line and fly away from the person but because gravity is affecting the football all the way it immediately starts falling away from that 45 degree line and falls to the person same thing happens with your barrel your barrels pointed up at a certain angle but as soon as the bullet leaves it starts to drop but it still travels in an arc all the way to the target the good news is it's going to do it pretty consistently so we can account for it at different distances let's use my rifle for an example the 308 that I showed you how to mount the scope on just my bullet flight path is going to look something like this this is just a rough estimation okay this is the flight of the bullet and this is gonna be my line of sight looking straight out of the scope I'm gonna call this 100 yards because that's we're gonna have my rifle zeroed so the bullet is rising and meeting my line of sight and impacting where I want it to at 100 yards if this is 200 yards we'll have 300 400 and for the purposes of this demonstration we'll just go out to 500 yards well I don't have to make any changes of 100 it hits where I want to already but as we get up to 200 you can see that the bullet starts to drop away from where I'm looking that's okay we can account for it now for my rifle I know that the bullet drops four inches low at 200 yards so how do we account for this step one remember is to think about what one minute of angle is at that distance well one minute of angle at 200 yards equals about two inches and then we then ask ourselves how many of those chunks can fit into that difference well two of them can so I need to adjust up two minutes of angle to impact for one at 200 yards well let's move out a little bit further at 300 yards 400 yards and five four yards it drops more and more at 300 yards I know my ball it drops 15 inches just because of the experience of me shooting before at 400 yards I know my bullet drops about 32 inches and at 500 yards I know my bullet drops a full 60 inches so let's work our way through each of these and practice using the minutes of angle to figure out what we need to do step 1 figure out one minute equals of that distance one minute 300 is 3 inches how many of those 3 inch chunks fit into the 15 5 minutes I need to come up 5 minutes of angle it's really that simple if we do the same thing here one minute is 4 inches 8 of those 4 inch chunks fit into the 32 so I need to come up 8 minutes of angle and now even all the way out at 500 yards one minute is how many inches at 500 yards 5 how many 5 inch chunks fit into that 60 12 so I know I need to come up 12 minutes of angle in order to hit where I want to at 500 yards if you notice these numbers get quite a bit bigger each from 100 being zero minutes we come up two then three then three then four it'll get bigger to five then seven and every hundred yards you'll have to come up more and more to account for that drop well as long as the factors are pretty consistent where I'm shooting these numbers are going to be consistent and I can actually write them down I can take a notebook and I can write down at 200 yards equals two minutes up for my scope then next time I'm engaging that target I can just pull up my book and I can look and see what that distance is well if you look up here closer even earlier than 100 yards the bullet is still rising when it comes to hundred which means I would have to change my elevation closer to well we're hunting prairie dogs and something small we need to be very precise with that shot even up close let's take 25 yards for example at 25 yards I know my rifle shoots about one inch low so what do we do to fix that well go back to how many minutes how many inches a minute of angle is at that distance well it's one inch at 100 which tells me it would be half an inch at 50 so a quarter of inch at 25 all right so one minute of angle equals one quarter of an inch how many of those chunks fit into that one inch for them so I need to come up four minutes of angle maybe not what you expected but if you come up for 0 up to 5/8 and up 12 you're gonna be able to hit these distances consistently when you go back and forth to the range now we can use minutes of angle just to zero our rifle as well I like to zero my rifle 100 yards but you can zero to any range you want because now you know what minutes of angle are so if I want to hit right here at a 100-yard target but when I shoot my group to zero I end up hitting the group down here and that group ends up being 4 inches low and 3 inches is too far to the right well the hundred yards what do we do this one's easy we come up 4 minutes and we come to the left 3 but how do we do that on your scope well here's the disclaimer depending on the quality or scope the adjustments may or may not be precise high end scopes are gonna be almost dead on we're some of the lower quality scopes you may not adjust one minute on the scope and actually get one minute downrange that's just the nature of the accuracy of the scope and the how the adjustments work inside that's going to be up to you to figure out how it works however many over-the-counter scopes you're gonna buy for your hunting rifle really commonly come in one click per quarter minute of angle well you can tell that way either looking at the manual or by taking the scope cap off and looking at the turret and you might see something like one click equals one quarter inch at 100 yards well since you understand minutes of angle now you know that a quarter inch at a hundred yards is one quarter minute now here's where it seems like it might get confusing but just take it one step at a time and it's going to work think in minutes of angle I told you that a 200 yards I need to come up two minutes in order to hit where I want to hit well here's what we're gonna at 200 yards here's where I'm hitting four inches low because that's my two minutes I need to come up well let's say my scope like yours adjusts in one click per quarter minute how many clicks do I need to come up to adjust for this always start and figure out the minutes first I even suggest you write it down here at the range well the answer is I need to come up two minutes of angle write that down and if my scope adjusts in one click per quarter minute that means four clicks are needed for one minute that's not one minute at a certain distance that's one minute any distance remember minutes of angle or independent of distance we figure out how much it is later I just know I need to call two minutes I can forget all the rest of that do not get confused with the distance that's what you need to do to your scope so to come up to two minutes I need four clicks per minute selectively means a total of eight clicks up if your scope adjust properly you come up those eight clicks you'll impact where you want remember separate the steps out figure out the minutes first think about how many inches one minute equals of that distance figure out the adjustment you need to make if you need to write it down and then forget everything else then look at your scope and figure out how many clicks it is I tell you this because even though most of your scopes may be four clicks per minute you might have a scope like mine which is actually one click per minute or one I have on another rifle which is actually a half a click per minute so don't think it clicks think in minutes and you can use the clicks to figure that out now what if you say you only have a hundred yard range for your app and you want to be able to shoot out further well you can reference tables and data books to see what your bullets should perform at a certain distance but remember it's should perform every gun every scope every bullets gonna shoot and adjust differently there's going to be no substitute for figuring it out for yourself but for example if I only had a hundred yard range and I just showed somebody how to mount their scope of the rifles so my zeros off and I want to reconfirm but I want to see what its gonna be at the 200 let's go ahead and fake it a little bit and see what we can do if we're shooting back at a hundred yards because that's as far as my range goes out to but I want my hunting rifle to be zero to 200 and it's my 308 I know that I need to shoot two minutes high to hit where I want at 200 yards well just like I said earlier minutes of angle or independent of distance two minutes on my scope is two minutes on my scope it doesn't matter where the bullets going the scope is still adjusted before I shoot anyway so at 100 yards I can shoot until I hit two inches high because we know that's two minutes I then know my scope is adjusted two minutes of angle up which means I'll hit dead-on at 200 I'll hit a couple inches high at 100 and a little high or low depending on there between but that's a good distance because in my hunting range being within a couple inches either way it's gonna be a nice band to be whatever you do take your time to shoot good groups write this down use multiple targets and bring a measuring tape to the range you can see how this works out for you I think you'll be impressed about how much more you can actually do with your scope now and how much more you can make the system work for you if you don't have a place to shoot feel free to check out our website where to shoot org and remember firearm safety depends on you [Music] you [Music]

Channel: National Shooting Sports Foundation | NSSF

Views: 2,807,205

Rating: 4.9409523 out of 5

Keywords: Target shooting, #LongRange, scope adjustments, long range shooting, shooting instruction, Rifle, #precisionrifle, Minute of Angle, learn to shoot, shooting technique, MOA, sighting in, #NSSF, #LetsGoShooting, #longrangeshooting

Id: VA2PZBD5Tjg

Length: 16min 13sec (973 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 15 2011

Reddit Comments

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