Hello, I am on a very limited budget. I was hoping for some advice on my bare bones setup. I am hoping to get out to 1000 yards on steel recreationally and extend my deer hunting range a bit past the usual 100-200 yards. I am limited to a savage 110 in .270 win. I know its not ideal but I was going to load the 150 grain Bergers, I am already setup for reloading other calibers so would just need dies and components. I have a decent bipod like rex recomends. I just picked up a swfa super sniper fixed 10 used for $200, I screwed up because I got moa adjustments on a mildot reticle. How much will this hold me back? Should I save and get a mil/mil? I could also use recomendations on good scope rings on a budget and any general advice.
Thanks.
Tony
Howdy Tony!
The easy(ish) question to answer is on the scope rings. I'm not real familiar with Savages, but you might want to check the specs and see if TPS makes rings that fit. Also, check and see if a SWFA mount will fit if you take the bases off. The SWFAs have a good rep, especially for the price.
As for the scope itself, if you can't return it to the person you bought it from, you might also contact SWFA and see how much they'd give you on a trade for a mil/mil. If it's not enough, then run with it until you can get what you want.
For shooting steel, once you get your dope figured out, any misses due to wind can be corrected using the reticle. The hard part, in my estimation, will be trying to convert mils to MOA while you're doping your rifle/scope/load combo. I'm not sure where they found it, but I've taken some classes that have clear templates in eithr mils or MOA to help zero your rifle pretty darned accurately, but that's not going to help correct whatever calculations your ballistic calculator gives at 400 yards and beyond, unless you like walking quite a lot, or have use of a motorized means of transportation!
To find how many MOA a certain number of mils is equal to, muliply the mils by 3.438. For example, 2 mils x 3.438 = 6.876 MOA. MOA/3.438= mils, of course. I'd suggest doing your best to remember that these are measurements of ANGLES, not distances and you should be OK for a while.
General advice. Watch all of the 101 series several times over and get thee to a seminar as soon as you can! Great fun and very informative!
Hope this helps a tiny bit!
Thanks so much for your reply. I will look into the rings. I also didnt know that SWFA does trade in stuff so Im in the process of seeing what they will give me. Ive been watching the videos and cant wait to do the seminar.
I was just napping with the video on preripheral equipment playing-trying to absorb more via osmosis-and realized that you can use a MILDOT MASTER to give a a down and dirty approximation of the conversions of mils to MOA and vice versa. I took the inner portion out of the sleee and lined things up horizontally as best I could, and it's going to be pretty darned good, actually, at least up to 15 MOA before you hace to break things subdivide your MOAs into two numbers.
These things are pretty darned great, inexpensive-ish- and will never run out of batteries! SWFA sells them, too!
As an aside, the only affiliation I have with SWFA is the purchase of the fixed 10 last week and as a frequent browser. :-D
Just got my mil dot master and tps rings. Im going to roll with the mil/moa and convert. looking for a cheap gps to help with ranging and a chrono and i should be set to get started.
Sounds like a plan! I can't help you with the GPS, but if you find one that works, let us know. Also let us know how the process of working those conversions goes.
Good luck and have fun!
Visit ballisticxlr.com if you want custom ballistics tables including custom BDC maps. meccastreisand on YT. Rex is never going to help you with the issue. If you want proper advice email ballisticxlr at gmail dot com and we can answer all of your questions. Short answer: You're fine. Scope is sub-optimal but not enough to say a cuss word over. You want your wind and movers DOPE in MRAD and your drops in MOA and you're good to go.