mil dots

[Coyote8302000]

I was wondering how you guys set up you're scope zero for mil dots and how do you field judge for holdover ,thank you

[Martis 1]

That's a good question.  I was shooting my de-tuned disco last night.  It's shooting the 18.3 gr. JSB's at around 650 fps.  Zeroed at 25 yards, and with the scope dialed up to 9x.  My 50 yard poi is almost half way between the second and third mil dot down.  I'm either gonna have to zero the gun at a different range or crank the power back up and live with 10 shots per fill.
Ron.

[Ginuwine]

Nothing beats trigger time out on the range.  I used chair gun pro app and came up with a 25/38 yard zero's (near and far) with a kill radius of 17 yard all the way thru 42 yards with no hold over or under of +/- .5 inches.  After that turns in to hold over which i plotted on the range and thru chair gun pro.  .22 jst 18.1 gr pellet shooting at 880 FPS.

[Martis 1]

Nothing beats trigger time out on the range.  I used chair gun pro app and came up with a 25/38 yard zero's (near and far) with a kill radius of 17 yard all the way thru 42 yards with no hold over or under of +/- .5 inches.  After that turns in to hold over which i plotted on the range and thru chair gun pro.  .22 jst 18.1 gr pellet shooting at 880 FPS.

I absolutely agree that nothing beats trigger time.  I was having fits with my center fire rifle that I was using for pronghorn.  Wanted to get consistent to 400 yards.  Worked up a load, ran it through the chrony, and figured out my drops at different ranges from an online ballistic calculator.  Turns out, that's a good starting point, but when I actually got down on the gun and shot at different distances, I found that it's not exactly dead on.  Since then, with any rifle, be it center fire, rim fire, or AG, I set targets at increments from my closest to longest range and shoot a lot. 
Not that my rambling really has anything to do with anything...
Ron.

[only1harry]

Trigger time is everything.  I have my low-mid power rifles zeroed at 25yds, and my PCP's and Magnum Springers at 30yds.  This allows me to compensate very little (if at all in some cases) at +/- 5 yards since I do most of my hunting between 20 and 30yds with few exceptions out to 35 yards.  But to figure out the holdover/under you have to practice and see what that translates to you in mildots.  Sometimes you just have to compensate 1/2 of a mildot.  It all depends on the muzzle velocity, pellet weight and your scope.

Set up and zero at a certain distance where you think your target will be most of the time, and then move the target in 5 yard increments closer and farther out to determine the exact amount of holdover/under.

Harry

[Jr_Explorer]

I'll jump in with the gents above...  Number of shots taken (trigger time!). 

But step 1 is DO get Chairgun.  It's free on your computer.  Play with it so you can see the effects of where you zero, elevation or declination when shooting, the effect pellet velocity will have on your range vs holdover, pellet weight, etc.  It's a very interesting exercise.

Step 2:  Get out and shoot!  If you are pesting hopefully you have a fairly target rich environment.  Try to pay attention to where your shot hits if you miss and range in on them that way.  But the pesting provides targets at random ranges and with enough experience everything will start to click.

Optional Step 3:  Get a range finder and use it.  When you start getting the accurate range info and the shooting results (hit high, low, dead on) it will start to register in your brain.

[Airgun.Sniper]

 I sit out a box that has targets 10 20 25 30 35 40 yards. I shoot that and look at my bell curve. Once that is establish I then play with it. For most of my guns though 30-35 yards keeps me covered from 8 yards out to 35 yards. 

 I also try to get the most distance out of my mildots with out adjusting my moa. Sometimes I can other times I cant.

 Jay

[sscoyote]

JR's got it down, Chairgun is fun to play with. I've taken it to the Philippines for shooting long distance with an airgun, and found most of my calcs (even guessing mv) were very close if not dead-on-the-nose out to 80ish yds. or so. I think it has a std. calculation for the mil (and MOA) subtension unit. Just be sure your optic is set to the correct power for the mil spacing to be correct (assuming you're using an optic with the reticle in the second focal plane--most optics are). I use a laser for almost all of my rangefinding, but math can work in a pinch (no matter what multi-stadia reticle you're using).