The Nightforce Mil-XT Reticle is a modern MRAD-based reticle found on current catalog Nightforce riflescopes. These range from the entry-level SHV scope line all the way to the Australian-turned-Idahoan company’s top-of-the-line flagship ATACR “professional grade” tactical optics.
A few months ago, I reviewed the Nightforce SHV 4-14×50 F1 C694 in one of my other publications. This 30 mm first-focal plane rifle scope also continues to be one of the supporting characters in my ongoing review of the Taurus Expedition bolt-action hunting rifle. (I promise I’ll get caught up on it soon!).
For the Christmas holiday, I traveled back to the American West to spend time with the family, and I yanked the Nightforce SHV4-14×50 F1 off the Taurus and brought it with me.
Nightforce SHV Musical Chairs, From Brazil To Spain
Within 48 hours of landing back West, the SHV C694 and the 30 mm Nightforce X-Treme Ultralite rings that cradled it, all found themselves torqued down atop a 6.5 mm Creedmoor Bergara BMP bolt-action target rifle. Up until this point, the Nightforce SHV had been exclusively mounted to the Taurus Expedition and zeroed at 100 yards for Federal’s timeless 168-grain Gold Medal Match factory loads. Though Sierra Matchking bullets aren’t for hunting, they showed lots of potential in that rifle a few weeks ago.
Back West, one finds not only cooler and crisper air at higher elevations but also more interesting topography. More importantly, the land seems to stretch farther in empty vastness. It’s paradise for long-distance rifle shooters.
The local county rifle range has a setup of numerous extended-distance steel targets and gongs from 300 to 1776 yards. Not only is this facility open to the public, it’s less than a 30-minute drive from where I stayed. At home back in Texas, having access to such a target array is a luxury requiring both longer drives and/or special access or exclusivity to private long-distance shooting facilities.
When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. If you have convenient access to longer distance steel (and the local outdoor big-box department store happens to have 6.5 mm Creedmoor cartridges on sale that weekend), this is also a form of making lemonade!
Zeroing Is Easy With A Built-In Ruler
After mounting the scope to the Bergara, re-zeroing the point of impact from a 168-grain Sierra Matchking flying at 2500 fps to a soft point (they were on sale!) 6.5 mm bullet at 2760 fps was extremely easy thanks to the Mil-XT reticle itself. At 100 yards, a basic 5-shot group of 6.5 mm Creedmoor shots printed high.
Without even needing to take the gun off target, the main vertical stadia line of the Mil-XT reticle allowed me to easily determine the correction. I simply anchored the central aimpoint point on my actual point of aim and counted how many whole and partial mils the center of the new 5-shot group was. It was 1.8 mils high, which meant I needed to correct it by dialing 1.8 mils down on the SHV C694’s turret.
After dialing, confirming, and re-adjusting the SHV’s zero-locking mechanism to the new 6.5 Creedmoor zero, this scope and rifle combo were ready to ring steel. After dealing with so many other optics of a less precise nature, I felt spoiled by simply being able to correct my new zero on the fly. This is because I had enough magnification to see the center of the group and because I could use the reticle like a literal ruler.
Nightforce Mil-XT Reticle Overview
The Mil-XT is a modern MRAD (milliradian) based target and precision shooting reticle. The Mil-XT’s principal horizontal and vertical stadia are arranged in a perpendicular cross pattern. The upper hemisphere is basically left empty, save for the short 5-mil upper limit of the vertical stadia line that sits above the 0.05-mil floating central aiming point.
On rifle scopes with illumination, this same perpendicular-cross reticle section is what lights up red. Even though Nightforce uses this reticle across three different product families, the corresponding sight picture will depend on the physical attributes of a specific scope. In the case of the Nightforce SHV 4-14×50 F1 C694, which tops out at 14x magnification, there are only 12 mils of visible horizontal or vertical stadia line.
At 10x, 15 mils on either axis will become visible. Below 10x, the extreme bounds of the horizontal stadia line give way to thick black lines on either side of the 30 mil “usable” span. The thick black line is easier to see when the scope is adjusted to lower magnification, given the shrinkage that’s part of first-focal plane optics.
With regards to the primary vertical stadia line, at the lowest setting, which is 4x magnification, I can count it spanning 40 mils starting from the aiming point down to the bottom of the reticle.
To Be Continued In Part 2
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