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When laser rangefinders started appearing in the late 1990’s, scopes with several aiming points on their reticles started appearing as well, and eventually we could choose among several dozen versions. But beyond 500 yards just about any bullet started dropping too steeply for the method to always work. This provided a range estimation that can theoretically vary about 7%, but in practice is usually less, sufficient to place shots into the volleyball-sized vitals with a flat-shooting rifle out to 500 yards. I killed several bucks at 450-500 yards, both during my own hunting and when finishing off wounded bucks shot by others, and eventually used the method on other big game.īut antelope were the big teacher, partly because they’re pretty uniform in size, with a mature Montana doe or buck measuring 15-16 inches from the bottom of the chest to the top of the shoulders. I used a 3-9x Weaver with their plex reticle when guiding pronghorn hunters in the 1980’s, and it proved to be much more accurate at longer ranges than “holding a little high,” partly because it bypassed the common advice of estimating how many football fields stretched between a hunter and a distant animal. 257 Roberts that took this late-evening whitetail. For most hunting a basic plex-type reticle works very well, like the one in the scope on Eileen’s NULA. But plex reticles provided a simpler version. Some previous reticles had included extra horizontal crosshairs, or dots on the vertical crosshair, for range-gauging and aiming at longer distances, and in fact Elmer Keith used a scope equipped with such a reticle hunting antelope, as I recall on a. Neither of these principles were totally new. Some hunters discovered a plex reticle could be used to estimate range by comparing the distance between the tip of the bottom post to the intersection of the crosshairs to the size an animal–and the same tip could be used as a secondary aiming point at longer ranges. Soon other companies offered the same basic reticle, often with names including “plex,” and by the 1970’s they were more common than plain crosshairs, and far more popular than posts or dots. This weakened the wires slightly, and in fact the few Duplex reticles that have broken in my Leupolds snapped right at the juncture of the flat and round sections. Leupold did it by flattening the outer portion of the crosswires.
Scope crosshairs how to#
The Duplex consisted of four heavier posts surrounding finer crosshairs in the middle, which wasn’t a new idea: European scope manufacturers had provided similar reticles for decades, because many European countries allowed shooting longer before sunrise and after sunset than the semi-standard America half-hour, or even all night.īut apparently most American scope manufacturers either didn’t think such reticles were necessary for daylight hunting, or couldn’t figure out how to make them. Leupold introduced their Duplex reticle in 1962, a little before I started using scopes, but I didn’t know anybody who used a Leupold, since they were comparatively pricey compared to the Weavers most hunters used, and a lot more expensive than the “off brand” Japanese scopes then flooding the market. I used a 1.25-4x AccuPoint on this Alaskan grizzly.
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Trijicon’s tritium/fiber-optic reticles work very well, and don’t require electricity. The same principle also applied to dot reticles or various sizes, the reason most hunters (including gun writers) advised using post reticles for woods hunting big game, and crosshairs for smaller game, whether edible or varmint. With heavier crosshairs some aiming precision was lost. If the crosshairs were thin, to aid precise aiming, they tended to disappear in sunless woods, partly because most scopes weren’t very bright optically, so there wasn’t much contrast between woods and reticle. None of those three reticles worked great for all hunting. This worked pretty well, partly because back then my hair was all black, and the reticle never turned silver or brass when the sun angled over my shoulder when looking through the scope, as crosswires often do. Back then most scopes could still be taken apart by hand, so I managed to get the reticle cell out of the tube and replaced both crosswires with my own hair. But very early rifle scopes often did use actual hair for reticles, and in fact back when I was young and poor one of the crosswires in a cheap 4x scope broke. Some purists point out that “crosshairs” aren’t actually hairs, but fine wire, so call them crosswires, a term that’s never caught on with the general public, including most shooters.