How snipers use their scopes
A lot of people don’t realize that you have to account for gravity and wind and other factors at distance. They think you just put the target on the middle of the cross-hairs.
The longer a bullet is exposed to gravity, the faster it will fall, so you are shooting in an arc that gets steeper as the bullet travels farther. Gravity starts working against the bullet’s path as soon as it leaves the barrel. Faster bullets will drop less because they are exposed to gravity for a shorter time period. Heavier bullets will hold their speed more, etc. So there’s a LOT of math that goes into long range shooting.
Some scopes, like the one pictured, have markings in the reticle that represent a measurement of arc (or an angle at distance). From the center of one dot to the center of the next is the same for each dot, and it represents a specific distance at a given range. For example, in what’s called an MOA (Minute of Arc, or 1/60th of a degree) scope (there’s also one that uses Milliradians or MRAD, another way to measure an arc), each dot is 1 MOA apart, so at 100y, the dots represent 1.046 inches (we usually round to 1″ @ 100y).
If you know the bullet speed, weight, ballistic coefficient (fancy word for how well the bullet flies through the air), wind speed, and several other minor factors (spin of the earth, direction of shot, etc.) you can plug that into a ballistics calculator and it will tell you how many MOA to hold, or for simple crosshairs how many clicks of the adjustment dial to make to put the center where the bullet will hit at the given distance. Either way, you are aiming the actual barrel higher the farther you are shooting, and left or right more based on wind and drift, but adjusting the scope’s aim point so the target is under the right spot in the scope for where you want the bullet to hit.
Theodore Lee is the editor of Caveman Circus. He strives for self-improvement in all areas of his life, except his candy consumption, where he remains a champion gummy worm enthusiast. When not writing about mindfulness or living in integrity, you can find him hiding giant bags of sour patch kids under the bed.