Understanding Milliradians

[TattooedGun]

I like that someone named a radian after me... steradian

[Polchraine]

And what about adding Gradians to the mix? 1 gradian = pi/200 radian

I hope you're being facetious...

*Looks up Gradians*

/Mind blown

Luckily, there's no significant usage to a gradian when referring to Rifle Sights... at least not to my knowledge....

Actually at times they can be easier than degrees.

400 in a circle and 100 in a right angle.

[TattooedGun]

And what about adding Gradians to the mix? 1 gradian = pi/200 radian

I hope you're being facetious...

*Looks up Gradians*

/Mind blown

Luckily, there's no significant usage to a gradian when referring to Rifle Sights... at least not to my knowledge....

Actually at times they can be easier than degrees.

400 in a circle and 100 in a right angle.

How many in 30 degrees?

[Polchraine]

400/12
or
100/3
or
33.33333333333333333333333333333333

[TattooedGun]

Seems complicated...

[Chuck]

It is from where I'm sitting......

Mil Dots, milliradians...somehow a wee bit left/right / up /down seems easier ...

Good work though , must save this.

[ovenpaa]

Good article Ste, I have worked with mils for as long as I can remember and once you get your head around it nothing could be easier, right up to the point people start discussing MOA and you are curious. It helps to be able to do the conversion on the fly however approximations are good enough so assume 1 mil is 3.4MOA and you are not far wrong. or put it another way, when someone says they needed 7 minutes of wind they are at around 2mils and they were shooting a different rifle to you so there is little point in slavishly duplicating them to the minutest detail.

[AlieN]

Hi TG,

Nice article...

Just one paragraph that I think needs a better explanation. The one that starts "If we were to draw a triangle...". I think you need to make it clearer than the small angle in your triangle is one milliradian. It took me a couple of reads of that part to figure out what you meant. A diagram at that point might also help.

Other than that, a very good explanation.

AlieN

[TattooedGun]

Hi TG,

Nice article...

Just one paragraph that I think needs a better explanation. The one that starts "If we were to draw a triangle...". I think you need to make it clearer than the small angle in your triangle is one milliradian. It took me a couple of reads of that part to figure out what you meant.

Other than that, a very good explanation.

AlieN

Ah, I see what you mean, I'll edit it slightly now.

Thanks for pointing it out :)

And thanks for the kind words :)

[George G]

I think that an important step has been left out, and once that step is understood then much confusion goes away. As shown, mathematically a radian is just under 57.3 degrees, and so if you divide that by 1000 to make it into milliradians you get about 6,283 in a full circle.

6,283 is not a convenient number, and so instead an approximation has been invented, called rads and millirads, (note the rads bit, not radians) where it has been decreed there are 6,400 rads in a circle, which makes for easier use. (Thus 3,200 in half a circle. 1,600 in a right angle.)