What velocity/bullet matches up best with DOA reticle?

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dand883

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I have a bushnell scope i am going to put onto a .270 for next years deer season and looking into the DOA reticle they do list it as working for the .270 caliber. Their chart lists a few loads anywhere from 2950fps to 3150, but nothing more specific that i could find.

I know i am going to have to do some testing myself to make sure it works for each of the marks for the 100, 200, 300, etc, but what bullet i go with and the speed it is going can be tailored a bit to what will line up best with the reticle drop marks.

I'm sure lots of people have used it already who can comment, what load matched up best with the marks, what speed/bullet were you using? Did anything you tried not work well and you would avoid?
 
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I can't help with experience with a DOA reticle and 270 Win. But you specifically mention for deer hunting. I have taken many dozens of deers (White Tail and Mule Deer) in Saskatchewan. About main selling point of that 270 Win is how flat it shoots - especially with 130 grain bullets. Sight in dead on at 200 or 225 yards - shoot your deer with a kill zone hold out to 275 - 300-ish yards or so - do not need to worry about reticle marks out to that far - the bullet will be within 3 or 4 inches of the reticle - high or low. You are aiming to hit about a 12" diameter target, not a specific hair. It will make not one bit of difference which part of that 12" zone that your bullet passes through - the deer will be dead. Beyond 275 - 300 yards, have to start holding high, above desired impact point - so those ticks may help out there. But easy, easy 2 and 3 feet of windage required, also, at those ranges, out here. Some days double that. The DOA does not much to help you judge windage allowance required. Is about 90% of my misses - did not judge the windage correctly - bullet drop, in comparison, is pretty predicatable - there are multiple charts out to 600 yards or more, with various bullets and muzzle velocities.

So your rangefinder says that deer is at 425 yards - pretty straight forward to know what the drop will be - how much to hold over or dial up. But 2 feet, 4 feet or 6 feet into the wind? To get that bullet to impact where you wanted it to. Gets much worse with first shot miss - now, usually, the thing started to move - just got much more complicated to make that next shot. Versus a deer at 175 or 250 yards - just hold on it and shoot it. Pretty much need to be in a hurricane, I think, for windage to cause you to miss the 12" target area at those ranges.
 
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dand883 & 'Miner - I have the 4-12x40 Trophy DOA on my 308-722. I used the Bushnell Ballistics Calc program - http s://appsplayground.com/bushnell-ballistics-pc/ - and plugged in the factory ammo I use. In that case, the FGM-SMK 165g, and it's within 1-2 MOA @ 200yds (all my range has). It may not have your ammo if you're reloading. The program worked fine for my .223 w/64gSP (better than 1MOA) when the scope was on that, too.
 
Potashminer said:
I can't help with experience with a DOA reticle and 270 Win. But you specifically mention for deer hunting. I have taken many dozens of deers (White Tail and Mule Deer) in Saskatchewan. About main selling point of that 270 Win is how flat it shoots - especially with 130 grain bullets. Sight in dead on at 200 or 225 yards - shoot your deer with a kill zone hold out to 275 - 300-ish yards or so - do not need to worry about reticle marks out to that far - the bullet will be within 3 or 4 inches of the reticle - high or low. You are aiming to hit about a 12" diameter target, not a specific hair. It will make not one bit of difference which part of that 12" zone that your bullet passes through - the deer will be dead. Beyond 275 - 300 yards, have to start holding high, above desired impact point - so those ticks may help out there. But easy, easy 2 and 3 feet of windage required, also, at those ranges, out here. Some days double that. The DOA does not much to help you judge windage allowance required. Is about 90% of my misses - did not judge the windage correctly - bullet drop, in comparison, is pretty predicatable - there are multiple charts out to 600 yards or more, with various bullets and muzzle velocities.

So your rangefinder says that deer is at 425 yards - pretty straight forward to know what the drop will be - how much to hold over or dial up. But 2 feet, 4 feet or 6 feet into the wind? To get that bullet to impact where you wanted it to. Gets much worse with first shot miss - now, usually, the thing started to move - just got much more complicated to make that next shot. Versus a deer at 175 or 250 yards - just hold on it and shoot it. Pretty much need to be in a hurricane, I think, for windage to cause you to miss the 12" target area at those ranges.
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That's what i have done with all my other rifles. Most of the places i hunt 50-75 yards is about as far as you can see and for the occasional longer shot i am sighted in for the MPBR and don't think about it.

This time around it's a combination of:
-This rifle is going to be my dedicated field hunting rifle, i recently got access to a farm with some longer shots to fill a nuisance tag, so it's purpose built for this application.
-I already have the DOA scope from a while back, not sure where i got it, bit if it have it why not use it.
-it's the process/fun project/something to do in the off season while i think about next deer season.

Basically it's just my winter project and fun thing to think about while i can't be hunting.
 
Buck1950 said:
dand883 & 'Miner - I have the 4-12x40 Trophy DOA on my 308-722. I used the Bushnell Ballistics Calc program - http s://appsplayground.com/bushnell-ballistics-pc/ - and plugged in the factory ammo I use. In that case, the FGM-SMK 165g, and it's within 1-2 MOA @ 200yds (all my range has). It may not have your ammo if you're reloading. The program worked fine for my .223 w/64gSP (better than 1MOA) when the scope was on that, too.
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I didn't realize they had an app for it, i'll have to check it out
 
Yeah, I think that I get that. But as I tried to explain recently to someone - because a scope has an adjustment or whatever, does not mean that you have to use it. Get a 3-9 power variable scope - set it on 4 power - done - leave it - don't fiddle with it - is equivalent to a fixed four power scope. Practice - get good with that. I have shot too many 1" and less size 3 shot and 5 shot groups at 100 yards with 3x scope to believe that more power is necessary to take a hunting kill shot. Need to have a target that allows a very repeatable aiming point for the reticle that you are using, though. Or chose 6 power. Or whatever. Just because it can zoom up and down the power scale does not mean that you have to twirl it for every shot at game. I have had too many personal experience where I or someone I am with, is twirling, when they should be shooting.
 
Buck1950 said:
dand883 & 'Miner - I have the 4-12x40 Trophy DOA on my 308-722. I used the Bushnell Ballistics Calc program - http s://appsplayground.com/bushnell-ballistics-pc/ - and plugged in the factory ammo I use. In that case, the FGM-SMK 165g, and it's within 1-2 MOA @ 200yds (all my range has). It may not have your ammo if you're reloading. The program worked fine for my .223 w/64gSP (better than 1MOA) when the scope was on that, too.
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That's a handy app, but didn't end up finding the bullet i already had listed (hornady american whitetail with the 130gr interlock). I couldn't find one with the same BC, but oh well, gets me in the ballpark to start.

How do you find the 4-12? It has the adjustable parallax on the front? I've always stayed away from them thinking like potashminer said, it's something else to fiddle with when i don't want to be fiddling with things. Does it actually make much of a difference or do you just set it kind of half way in the middle and forget it?
 
From scopes here, that Parallax thing seems much bigger issue up close - like 25 yard targets or less. I notice on several scopes here - big adjustment from 10 meters to 25 meters - adjustment gets smaller with range - half to 100 yards, then half or more to 300 yards - to virtually nothing for 500 yards to infinity. Is an easy thing to verify for yourself - set rifle on sandbags - solid, not moving. Now move your head / eye side to side or up/down - if the cross hair moves on the target, then you have parallax sighting error - a set of lenses in a scope can only be set to be error free at one range - so centre fire rifle scopes often set 100, 125 or 150 yards - rimfire scope often 50 or 60 yards. Will see considerable error up close. I set a Leupold 4X rimfire on sandbags - book says is made to be parallax free at 60 yards - aimed at a knot in tree about 15 yards away - by moving eye extreme right to extreme left - far enough to start to see black - cross hairs would move completely off the knot - so at that range, could look "crooked" through the scope and miss a squirrel head, to either side. Can be pretty much totally overcome by having scope view perfectly centered - is worst when looking through "crooked". So goes to repeatability of shooter's stance and hold - check weld, etc. Many shooters will not even be able to detect it at a 200 yard target.

I never participated, but I am told that parallax error is very critical to scopes on 10 meter air rifles - can not have much for sighting error in that competition.
 
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dand - I bought that scope 3-4 years ago to mount on a Marlin-60 but found it not that good for MOA accuracy on the 22. It was 'hiding' on a shelf when I got my Rem722 and I figured it was good enough for that. The 722 isn't a 'target rifle' anyway. The 600-BDC 'dots' are close enough using the Bushnell Calc thing. If I wanted more accuracy from the 722, I'd get a more powerful scope. I found that the Adj-Parallax gives me a bit more clarity (end-focus) at all ranges, but I'd go for ca 25x or more. I wouldn't have a scope w/o adj unless I was shooting 'only' a fixed distance that the scope was 'set' for. Even my 22s go from 25 to 200 yds and have AO or SF. My B22 has a $500 scope, only a 6-24x50 Covenant-4, but I'm not shooting competition so it's good enough for now.
 
My ziess hade the rapid z BDC reticule. I went to there web site. I checked the app.
you will need to know alot about your load.
put in all your data and the app will tell what power to set your scope at.
Then the reticule dots should work a all distances.
The rapid z was mostly designed for the 308.But was told it should work on all calbers.
The reticule would not work for a 7mm rem mag.
I think they said it was one of a couple of calibers it wouldn't work on.
I don't know if they are all like that or just the ziess.
Had to be 15years ago.Never bought a bdc again.
 
If I had a scope that didn't tell me what the mil/moa spacing was between the hash marks I'd turf that POS immediately and not waste my time trying to make it work.

Why would I try to find a bullet that is tailored to my scope? I would rather find a bullet that my rifle loves and then use a ballistic calculator loaded with my data to find the distances at the moa/mil drop that correspond to my reticle moa/mil spacing.
 
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gslinger said:
My ziess hade the rapid z BDC reticule. I went to there web site. I checked the app.
you will need to know alot about your load.
put in all your data and the app will tell what power to set your scope at.
Then the reticule dots should work a all distances.
The rapid z was mostly designed for the 308.But was told it should work on all calbers.
The reticule would not work for a 7mm rem mag.
I think they said it was one of a couple of calibers it wouldn't work on.
I don't know if they are all like that or just the ziess.
Had to be 15years ago.Never bought a bdc again.
Click to expand...

I have one on a 270 and it matches the bullet drop perfectly. 7mm isn't that different. The flatter shooting guns you zero at 200. Stuff like the 308 you zero at 100. This works for pretty much all ballistic reticle.
 
zero at 200 take a couple shots at 100 then take a couple shots at 300 (make sure barrel has cooled down. Go and take your targets home - get a ruler and measure the difference between your 100 and 300 yard point of impact. This works for any scope and why two shots and not three, four and five because it's a hunting rifle and in real world hunting you take one perhaps two shots only.
 
My Bro-in-Law has a DOA scope on a heavy barrel 308. It works reasonably well with his rifle and 150 grain loads. He spent a fair bit of time and money on ammo figuring that out. He would have saved a pile of money had he just bought a good scope.
 
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