As a military man, I like to reduce things to the simplest form-then resolve it.
When it comes to MOA v. MRAD, I kinda figure in the linear measurements to targets as well. I used to think in meters, and mils would make sense (one mill is one meter at 100o m), but now I think in yards, feet and inches, so when I need to range or adjust, I find that MOA is the best fit for me. I shoot regularly to 800 yards, so not really long range I suppose.
Knowing that every 100 yards increases the subtension of both my MOA reticle hashes and the movement of a bullet, it becomes a simple equation to either range or adjust. For example- a known sized target at an unknown range- 24 inch plate appears to be 4 MOA tall- how far is it? 600 yards. If it appeared to be 24 MOA, it would be 100 yds, if 2 MOA, then 1200 yds. Now, let’s say my optic has 1/4 MOA clicks- so every 100 yards it grows by that factor- 600- a factor of 6, so one click at 600 moves the bullet 1.5 inches, 800 yards? 8 times 1/4=2”. Okay, I do admit the concept of quick adjustments using much coarser click values makes a bit of sense- but then not really- if I have to shoot a mover, I am doing the ballistics math in my head, for range and wind, cranking knobs for a dead hold, then holding off for lateral/angular movement with the reticle hashes. I do not know of many if any precision shooters who would do otherwise- cranking the knob to adjust for movement? No way.
Wind- do you think of wind as moving in FPS, MPS or KmPH? Yeah, MPH, me too and the rest of us ‘Mericans. Wind doping may a non issue with any click format as we usually know the common drift per unit speed and distance and could memorize that in any format another. But again, I think in MPH wind speed and drift in inches,and inches at a given range easily convert to 1/X MOA clicks...
Caveat- of course I know that a true MOA is not one inch at 100 yds- rather it is 1.047xxxx inches, but unless I happened to be shooting sliver dollars at 400 plus yards, that error would not make me miss- my aging eyes and slowing reaction time coupled with deteriorating hand/eye coordination would have already made that issue moot. However, for standard PRS plates or critters other than p-dogs, I think I am okay with 1/4 MOA clicks and mental MOA computations.
Finally- did you know that there are least 5 variations of mil/MRAD? NATO mils are 6400 increment in circle, Russian are 6200 (or was 5800?), MRADs are as described ( what were they again?) and more....that I don’t even bother to recall these days. Be careful what you buy-not all optics are true MRADs as expressed in this article, and if you ask customer service, the couldn’t tell you either, most likely..