New guy question

ArcticFox

Member
Joined
Sep 21, 2010
Messages
7
Location
International Falls, MN
I'm new here and to the long range shooting, and seeing really good info. But have a new guy question... what are you talking about when you say MOA? Thanks for helping me out.


ArcticFox
 
They are talking about Minute of Angle. It is used to describe the accuracy of a rifle.
1 MOA is roughly:
1 inch at 100 yards
2 inches at 200
3 inches at 300
4 inches at 400
5.5 at 550, etc.

So if someone says that their gun is a MOA gun at 800 yards, then that means that their gun shoots 8" groups at 800 yards, 1/2 MOA would mean 4" groups at 800 yards.

Here's a link to get you started
Minute of arc - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hope that helps.
 
A Minute of angle or MOA is 1/60th of 1 degree. XP3Hunter pretty much hit it right on the nose for how you use minutes of angle off hand at different distances but technically 1 MOA is 1.0471996 inches at 100 yds. as you can see out to say 300 even 500 yds it works just fine reffering to it as 1in but at the farther distances where a bullet drops far more per distance distance traveled it is much more precise to use the actual value.

MOA can be used in 1 of 2 ways but both have to be considered while taking a long range shot. 1) The way XP3Hunter described which is used to determine the circle of accuracy you have at any given distance. EX: if you are shooting 1/2in groups (series of 3 or more shots) at 100 yds, generally you can expect to be in a 1in group and 200yds, 1.5 in groups at 300yds ect. 2) it is also used to describe the elevation (bullet drop due to gravity) and windage (bullets left or right movement due to wind deflection). If your bullet drops 2in from your POA(point of aim) at 200 yds its elevation drop is 1 MOA which would need to be compansated for either via holdover, dialing in, or some other form of BDC(bullet drop compensation) so you match your POA to your POI(point of impact)

Sorry for all the abbreviations but i figure you will run into all of them here on the site. I hope this helps :D
 
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