MOA vs MIL: which turret should you run?
Two rulers for the same angle. Here's what each one means, and the rule that matters more than the choice.
It's the oldest argument at any range: MOA or MIL? The honest answer is that both measure the same thing, an angle, and both will put you on target. They're just two different rulers. What trips people up isn't the choice. It's mixing the two by accident.
What MOA means
MOA is "minute of angle," one sixtieth of a degree. At 100 yards, 1 MOA spreads to about 1.047 inches (most people round it to a clean inch). Because it's an angle, it scales with distance: roughly 1 inch at 100 yards, 2 inches at 200, 5 inches at 500, and so on.
Most MOA hunting and target scopes adjust in 1/4 MOA clicks. That's four clicks per MOA, each one moving your impact about a quarter inch at 100 yards. If you need to come up 6 MOA, that's 24 clicks.
What MIL means
MIL (milliradian) is an angle too, one thousandth of a radian. At 100 yards, 1 MIL works out to 3.6 inches. At 100 meters it's a tidy 10 centimeters, which is why MIL feels natural to metric thinkers.
Most MIL scopes adjust in 0.1 MIL clicks. That's ten clicks per MIL, each one moving impact about 0.36 inches at 100 yards. Come up 1.7 MIL and that's 17 clicks.
The real difference (it's smaller than people think)
Per click, MOA is slightly finer. A 1/4-MOA click moves about 0.26 inches at 100 yards versus 0.36 inches for a 0.1-MIL click. In practice that gap is meaningless for field shooting. Both are far more precise than the wobble in your position or the spread of your ammo. MIL turrets tend to need fewer total clicks to a given distance, and MIL is the common language of competition and military shooting, so spotting corrections get called in MIL.
How to tell what you already have
Look at the top of your elevation turret, or check the manual. If it says "1 click = 1/4 in. at 100 yds" or shows numbers like 5, 10, 15, you're on MOA. If it shows .1 and counts 1, 2, 3 MIL per revolution, you're on MIL. Note both your click value and how many units one full turn of the turret covers. You'll need both to build a tape.
The one rule that actually matters
Your reticle and your turret must use the same unit. A MIL reticle with an MOA turret (or the other way around) forces you to do conversion math on every shot, which is exactly the mistake that costs hits. Match them, and your hold and your dial speak the same language.
Beyond that, it comes down to preference. If you think in inches and shoot mostly in yards, MOA is intuitive. If you shoot metric, run with a squad, or want to talk dope with the broader long-range world, MIL is the safer default. Either one, run consistently, is the right answer.
How a turret tape sidesteps the whole debate
With a custom turret tape, you stop dialing in MOA or MIL at all. You dial to the yardage. DialWRX takes your unit, your clicks per unit, and your rotation, and prints the marks so 400 lines up where 400 belongs on your dial. You still pick MOA or MIL (it's built in your scope's language under the hood), but at the range you just spin to the number. No conversion, no counting clicks.
Related guides
How the DialWRX ballistics engine works