MOA vs MIL: the only differences that matter

A scope adjusts angle, not distance. Turning a turret tilts the line of sight by a fixed angular amount, and how far that moves the impact depends entirely on how far away the target is. Both MOA and MIL exist to express that angle in a number you can dial.

The two definitions

MOA is a minute of angle: one sixtieth of a degree. There are 21,600 in a full circle. At 100 yards it subtends 1.047 inches, which is why people round it to an inch and then argue about the rounding.

MIL is a milliradian: one thousandth of a radian. There are 6,283 in a full circle. Its defining property is that it subtends exactly one thousandth of the distance — 1 MIL is 1 m at 1,000 m, 10 cm at 100 m, 1 cm at 10 m. No conversion constant, at any distance, in any unit.

Clicks are not units

A click is whatever fraction of an angular unit your turret was built to move. The common ones are ¼ MOA and 0.1 MIL, but ⅛ MOA and 0.05 MIL turrets exist, and so do scopes that mix a MIL reticle with MOA turrets.

This is why a rifle profile in the app stores a click value alongside the zero and the scope height. Tell it what one click is worth and it can hand you a correction in clicks — the number you actually turn — rather than an angle you then have to divide under time pressure.

The mistake that matters: mismatched reticle and turrets

Choosing MOA over MIL costs you nothing. Choosing a MIL reticle with MOA turrets costs you every shot where you spot a miss and try to correct from it.

The workflow that makes a scope useful at distance is: miss, measure the miss in the reticle, dial that exact amount. With matched units the measured number goes straight onto the turret. With mismatched units you must convert 1.4 MIL into 4.8 MOA in your head, while the wind is changing and your spotter is talking. People get this wrong under pressure, reliably.

If you already own a mismatched scope, the fix is to hold rather than dial: measure the correction in the reticle and hold it in the reticle. You never touch the turret and never convert.

Converting between them

One MIL is 3.4377 MOA. For field work, 3.44 is close enough, and 3.5 is close enough for a rough sanity check.

In the app the output unit is a setting, not a fixed choice. Switch it and the whole solution, the DOPE card and the reticle view redraw in the new unit — which makes it easy to see the same shot both ways while you are still learning one of them.

Which should you pick?

1. Match whatever your shooting partners useCorrections get called out loud. A squad that speaks MIL and one shooter who speaks MOA wastes time on every stage.
2. Prefer MIL if you range with the reticleReticle ranging is a division problem, and MIL's thousandth-of-distance property makes it arithmetic you can do in your head.
3. Prefer MOA if you think in inches at 100 yardsIf your entire mental library of group sizes and target dimensions is imperial, MOA fits it without translation.
4. Above all, match reticle to turretsThis decision outranks the unit choice. Mismatched is worse than either.

For the ranging arithmetic that makes MIL attractive, see the guide on ranging with your reticle.

Frequently asked