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How to Use a Reticle on a Sniper Rifle to Estimate Range

The reticles on sniper scopes are equipped with ranging marks commonly referred to as mil-dots. These ranging marks are used to determine the distance to your target in meters. To estimate the range you need to know the height of your target in meters and a simple algebra equation. Sniper scopes are designed to find distance in meters, if you want the range in another unit of measure, such as feet or yards, then you can use a conversion table to convert the distance.

Instructions

- 1
  Identify an object of known height, in meters, at the range that you wish to estimate. As a point of reference, one meter is approximately three feet; therefore if you know that a particular object is 6 feet tall then you target height is two meters,
- 2
  Aim at your target and align the horizontal reticle with the bottom of your target. Count the number of ranging marks along the vertical reticle to the top of your target. If the top falls between ranging marks, estimate the percentage of the interval. For example, if the top is halfway between ranging marks, then it would be counted as .5.
- 3
  Divide your target height by the ranging mark count and multiply your answer by 1,000 for the distance to target in meters. As an example, with a target height of 2 meters and a mark count of 4, your equation would read: 2 ÷ 4 = .5 x 1,000 = 500, your target is at a range of 500 meters.

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