Rifle Ranging

I read this post by Rifleslinger, and was inspired to write this article.

Being able to hold steady to make a long distance shot is important, but the skill is useless if you do not first:
A) Identify your target.
and
B) Gauge the proper range to your target.

There are techniques and tactics for identifying your target, but they all revolve around being aware of one's surroundings and spotting.

Ranging is a skill unto itself. A common beginner's technique is to gauge distance based on an estimate of how many football fields it would take to cover the area between you and the target. Fortunately, for those of us with a military style rifle, there are built-in ranging tools.

For this article, we will assume a target of approximately 20" in width - about the average size of a human male torso.  



Front sight post.
On the M16 rifle, the front sight post is generally 10-11 MOA in thickness. Use the formula at this link to calculate for yourself for verification.

Since 10 MOA would be about 10" at 100 yards, it is easy to figure that 10 MOA is 20" at 200 yards. Many military manuals will confirm this, as they say on the M16, the front sight post is as wide as a man at 175 meters.

For those who think that meters are equal to yards, realize that a meter is approximately 10% longer than a yard. 175 meters is about the same as 192 yards. Close enough.

That means a target that is half the size of the front sight post would be about 400 yards away.
Similarly, a target that is 1/3 of the size of the front sight post would be approximately 600 yards away (a distance which is approaching the upper limit of effectiveness with the M16 platform).

Gauging distances in between would take a bit of practice.


ACOG
For those of us that use an ACOG, it is built to help gauge range. I use the TA31F - which has the famous chevron sight. The width of the base of the chevron is about the same as a target at 300 yards. The corresponding widths of the crosshairs below represent the width of a target at the distance accounted for.

Kinda neat it works out like that.


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