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Step-By-Step Instructions
This instruction manual is presented for information purposes only.
Neither the author nor the website host will be held accountable for
the use or misuse of the information on this page.
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Step 1:
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Preparation. Buy a non-magnum bolt-action deer rifle and install a scope with a mil-dot reticle and finger-adjustable dials. On non-German scopes the mil-dots are only accurate at the highest power,
so you may want to tape the power dial (duct tape use #857) so it cannot be turned down. Sight the weapon in to hit dead-on at 300 yards. |
| Step 2: |
Measuring Angles. Just as mechanics must be familiar with both English wrenches calibrated in fractions of an inch and metric wrenches calibrated in millimeters, snipers must be familiar with both the English measure of angles, minutes of angle (MOA), which are one sixtieth of a degree, and the metric measure of angles, milliradians (mills), which are one thousandth the distance out to the target. However, unlike automobiles which require either an English or a metric set of wrenches, but not both, the dials on your scope are calibrated in MOA while the reticle measures mills. A mill is about three times bigger than an MOA. |
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Holdover. If you know the size of some item like a garage door (they are all 84" in both rich and poor neighborhoods), then its apparent size in your scope, measured in mills, is inversely proportional to its distance. For example, a garage door that measures four mills is twice as far away as one that measures eight mills. If you have memorized the information on the card labeled "The Aguilar System for Medium Range Sniping," then you know that the former requires three mills of holdover (hold the third mil-dot down from the crosshairs on the soon-to-be-departed man's belt buckle) while the latter requires holding dead-on. The items we are using are garage doors, storefront doors, cars and vans. This does not mean you will be shooting at doors and vehicles; you will be shooting at soldiers standing nearby. No such men are pictured in the photos because I couldn't find any volunteers when I told them that the job title was "target." You'll just have to imagine that they're there. |
| Step 4: |
Windage. Once you've determined the proper holdover, you also know the windage needed for a 10 mph crosswind. Holdover and windage are printed in adjacent columns on the "The Aguilar System for Medium Range Sniping," chart. Note that holdover is measured in mills while windage is measured in MOA. You will not touch your elevation dial in the field - you just hold on the mil-dots. But you do use your windage dial, which is why it must be finger-adjustable and why the windage column is in MOA. If there is only a five mph wind, halve the adjustment listed for a ten mph wind. |
| Step 5: |
K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple, Stupid. In combat, you have only one important question to ask yourself: What the hell am I doing here? Just kidding. That's a good question, but I was actually refering to the one important technical question: How do I convert the input data (apparent size of the target, in mills) into the output data (holdover, in mills)? The Aguilar System for Medium Range Sniping converts the input data directly into the output data, with no unnecessary detours. Such "fun facts" as the number of yards out to the target or the number of inches below the aiming point you would have hit had you held dead-on are irrelevant and should be ignored.
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The fact that ammunition manufacturers print their data sheets in what is certainly the most useless format conceivable (yards to the target and inches below the bullseye) has contributed to a tremendous amount of confusion in the general public. It's not that the data is wrong, it is just that nothing on your scope measures, or is calibrated in, yards or inches. Scopes measure angles (the apparent size of a target) and have dials calibrated in angles (elevation and windage). Most people who claim to "know all about" mil-dot scopes will demonstrate this knowledge by first figuring out the yardage to the target, then figuring out how many inches below it they would hit if they held dead-on and then how many MOA to hold over the target. Then they have to figure out how many inches to the side they would have missed due to wind at that yardage and, finally, how many MOA to hold into the wind. By the time they've done all those calculations, it's too dark to shoot.
By using the Aguilar System for Medium Range Sniping, which considers only angles, you should be able to fire within five seconds of locating the enemy and without taking your eyes off him. This is important because you probably only detected the tiniest hint of movement in the rubble. If you have to look away to operate a laser rangefinder and/or a slide rule, you may not be able to find him again. Also, if you are firing from darkness into light, illuminating your slide rule with a flashlight is a big boo boo. |
Frequently Asked Questions
| Question: |
Do I tack the cards to the wall and look at them through my rifle scope? How far back do I have to stand?
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Answer:
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You hold the cards in your hand and look at them through a transparent plastic card with a mil-dot reticle printed on it. After measuring an object (like a car or door) of known height, you say how much holdover and windage you would give a target at that location. Then you turn the card over in your hand to see if your answer matches what is printed on the back. It is just like the animation on the home page.
This is the same way that people learn vocabulary when studying a foreign language. Since speed is important, you should shuffle the cards and then time yourself on a stopwatch to see if you can go through the entire pack at an average pace of five seconds per card.
The cards are labeled "marksman," "sharpshooter," "expert" or "master." I recommend that you omit the expert- and master-level cards from the pack until you have gotten the hang of the Aguilar System for Medium-Range Sniping. Then add the expert-level cards to your pack. Do not add the master-level cards unless you actually are a master shot, as determined by the military or the NRA. There is no point memorizing holdover and windage for targets that you do not have the skill to hit.
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| Q: |
I own a sniper rifle and use 173- or 175-grain BTHP bullets, which have a higher ballistic coefficient than the hunting bullets that the Aguilar System is calibrated for. Does the Aguilar System work for me?
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A:
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The Aguilar System is calibrated for the average trajectory of non-magnum hunting ammunition and the .308 Winchester is the worst of the bunch. But 173- or 175-grain BTHP bullets flatten out its trajectory so the Aguilar System is almost exactly right for military sniper rifles. |
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| Q: |
I own a rifle with a long barrel, which gives it a higher muzzle velocity even when using factory ammo. Does the Aguilar System work for me?
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| A: |
I chronographed 175-grain Federal Match ammunition fired through a 34” barrel and it was 2700 f.p.s., a hundred f.p.s. faster than it is through a 24” barrel. I dial in 6.5 MOA when using this rifle in 500 yard matches. Holding on the second mil-dot as the Aguilar System advises would be 6.88 MOA. A difference of two inches at 500 yards is negligible. |
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| Q: |
I own a Palma rifle and stuff the cases with slow-burning powder to take advantage of the long barrel, which gives the additional powder more time to burn. Does the Aguilar System work for me? |
| A: |
Palma shooters must keep their bullets supersonic out to 1000 yards because bullets destabilize when they break the sound barrier. This is not a problem with the 155-grain bullets originally specified in the rules. But 155-grain bullets are hard to shoot in the wind and many competitors are launching 168- or even 175-grain bullets at case-splitting pressure levels. However, hot ammo is inherently less accurate because it causes the barrel to vibrate. Thus, if one is going to put a scope on a Palma rifle and use it for combat, one would be better off matching the factory’s ballistics than using such hot handloads. If you insist on using your 1000-yard ammo at 500 yards, follow the advice given below for 220 Swift shooters.
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| Q: |
I own a varmint rifle, which shoots flatter than a deer rifle but is more affected by the wind. Also, I cannot practice holding over on a mil-dot as I would in combat because the dot completely covers the gopher. Does the Aguilar System work for me? |
| A: |
Varmint shooters sometimes use their rifles during deer season and the ammunition manufactures accomodate them by offering heavier, less-fragile bullets in their caliber. If such ammunition is available for your rifle, you can use the Aguilar System without modification. Such bullets are fairly blunt but, starting out at higher muzzle velocities, they will have dropped about as much as more typical bullets at the 500- or 600-yard line.
If you insist on going to war with a dedicated varmint rifle like the 220 Swift, dial in three MOA elevation for each mil-dot of holdover recommended by the Aguilar System. A milliradian is 3.44 MOA so, by rounding down, you take into account the flatter trajectory of your rifle and you can hold on the crosshairs as you have become used to doing. You will have to use your own knowledge of wind drift, however, as a 52-grain bullet just doesn’t buck the wind the way a 168-grain bullet does.
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| Q: |
I own a magnum rifle, which shoots flatter than a deer rifle and is less affected by the wind. Does the Aguilar System work for me? |
| A: |
Probably not. The Aguilar System is designed for non-magnum deer rifles. A magnum rifle can be used with heavy, solid bullets at close range against large carnivores like bear or lion, or it can be used to propel sniper ammunition several hundred feet per second faster than from a typical sniper rifle. With some thought, however, it is possible to find a bullet with ballistics similar to a deer rifle’s but which hits a bit harder.
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| Q: |
Professional snipers and well-heeled civilians have a laser range-finder and a Leupold Mark IV scope with yardage, not MOA, printed on the elevation dial. Doesn’t that make the mil-dot reticle obsolete? |
| A: |
Without the laser range-finder, the Mark IV scope is useless because it requires measuring the target, putting the rifle down, turning on your flashlight to use your Mildot Master and then picking up the rifle again to try to find the target. An Aguilar System shooter could have gotten that shot off in five seconds without ever having to put his rifle down.
Laser range-finders have become de rigueur among professional snipers, but that is only because Iraqi tanks were all destroyed in the first few days of both Gulf Wars. I remind them that Saddam Hussein was a military moron. There is no evidence that the Chinese or the Iranians are led by idiots, however, and U.S. snipers must assume that, in the event of war with either country, there will be FLIR-equipped enemy tanks on the battlefield throughout at least the first half of the war. (Hezbollah fought the Israelis for a month and never lost the ability to launch anti-tank missiles in the dark.) If a sniper turns on his laser range-finder in the presense of such weapons, he isn’t going to get to see the second half of the war.
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| Q: |
I lead a peasant army in an impoverished third-world country. I cannot afford laser rangefinders or even new rifles. (I buy mismatched secondhand deer rifles at American gun shows.) My troops cannot speak English or evaluate even simple mathematical formulas. None of them know how long a yard is. For that matter, most of them are a bit hazy on how long a meter is. Can the Aguilar System help me train them?
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| A: |
Absolutely! The Aguilar System works for any non-magnum deer rifle, so it is not necessary to have matched rifles. BSA scopes with mil-dot reticles are inexpensive and can be purchased on the internet. All Western scopes have dials calibrated in fractions of minutes of angle. If you use Eastern scopes with dials calibrated in tenths of a mill, my system will work for holdover but not windage.
No familiarity with yards or meters is required, as the snipers will directly convert the apparent size of an object (in mills) into holdover (in mills) without ever learning the distance to the target, in any measuring system. The officer who zeroes the rifles must be able to measure 300 yards, however, though pacing off 324 strides (350 strides if he’s under 1.6m tall) on level ground is close enough.
Each card ranks the difficulty of its shot as marksman-, sharpshooter-, expert- or master-level. These are American (specifically, NRA) terms which mean, basically, easy, medium, hard and masterful. You must also translate “holdover,” “windage,” “mills,” and “M.O.A.” There is additional material on topics like shooting at moving targets, but its translation is not necessary to use the cards.
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| Q: |
I read in Snipershide's website that you said the Leupold Mark IV is "useless" and recommend those el cheapo BSA scopes instead. Is that true? Incidentally, I don't think they meant the term "Ass Hat" in a complimentary way.
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| A: |
Criticizing their beloved Mark IV is not the way to endear oneself to the guys at Sniper’s Hide. However, I never said the Mark IV was useless. I said a $180 BSA with an illuminated mil-dot reticle is better than a non-illuminated $450 Leupold VX-II “tactical” scope and I stand by that assessment. The $1800 Mark IV is better than both, as is to be expected from optics costing ten times as much. But my typical customer, leading his peasant army in that impoverished third-world country, cannot afford the Mark IV.
A $520 off-the-shelf deer rifle with a $180 BSA is effective out to about 650 yards. A $2500 "tactical" rifle with an $1800 Mark IV is effective out to about 1000 yards, but only if the sniper is accompanied by a spotter equipped with a $1000 spotting scope and a $300 laser rangefinder.
Suppose a third-world "strongman" gets a wild hair up his ass and decides to invade his neighbor. Both countries have a $560,000 budget for equipping their snipers. Emulating the rich Americans, the strongman fields 100
two-man sniper teams, each capable of occasionally making a 1000-yard shot. Knowing that they need elevated positions to even be able to see 1000 yards away and that they do not have the support of the people and cannot hide in private homes anyway, they must take only static positions on the rooftops of tall buildings.
The defender fields 800 snipers (actually, designated marksmen) capable of quickly and accurately engaging targets from 200 to 650 yards away before jumping on their motorcycles and moving to a new location. Since they have the support of the people, they can hide their bikes inside people’s houses, fire their rifles out the windows when a target presents itself and then scram. (The motorcycles are privately owned, so their cost is not included in the $560,000 budget.)
You tell me: In fast-paced urban combat, which side is going to win? The 800 highly mobile defenders using the system I advocate? Or the 100 stationary attackers using the system Sniper’s Hide advocates? I think the answer is obvious. "Quantity," as Stalin said, "has a quality of its own." |
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