Reticle for Leupold Prismatic

[Brian Payne]

Which available reticle is the best choice for 3-gunning?

Any advice appreciated.

Oops! Disregard, a more thorough search found the answers I was looking for.

Edited December 9, 2011 by Brian Payne

[Nuke8401]

My link

From this post:

Hey Guys, Casanova here.

So here is a little bit of info that may be helpful as far as the Prismatic is concerned. I started out with the Circle Plex reticle. I was told by Leupold that the dot was 6.3 MOA diameter and that the lines were 3.1 MOA thick. I was able to verify this pretty closely at the range. The gap between the outside of the dot and the start of the cross lines appeared to be roughly equal to the diameter of the dot. I was never able to get any info on that from Leupold. I really don't think they ever envisioned anyone using that reticle for long range holds. Inside 200 yards that reticle kicked butt. I zeroed for 200 which gave me the bottom of the dot as my 300 hold. In theory that was good but in practice it was really tough because so much of the target was obscured.

I talked to Kelly a bit and he recommended the DCD (Double Circle Dot) reticle instead as the dot was a lot finer. He was right on with the recommendation too. Leupold says that the dot on this one is 3 MOA. I was able to verify that as well at the range pretty closely too, the numbers I was given for the two rings however seems a bit off and I have not had a chance to try to measure them just yet.

I played around with a 300 zero for a bit, but coming from scoped shooting, 200 just made more sense for me so that is what I have been running. For me, not having to think about holding low on targets inside 200 made more sense, since I have to think about holds at longer range anyway. I actually shoot 52gr Sierras at anything inside 200 and 69gr Sierras outside 200. Running the 69s at just under 2800 fps means that at 300 I hold top of plate, at 400 I have one dot diameter gap to top of plate and so on. I am lucky enough to have a range relatively close by where I can verify my holds and get a visual idea of what I am looking for, which helps.

I saw some comments earlier about some of the pros and cons to the Prismatic. From my experience, and I am not any kind of authority here just my observations, those earlier comments were pretty much right on. Parallax is definitely something that has to be watched. The Prismatic is still a piece of glass and the image will still shift if you don't have your head in the same place every time. That said, it is no different than any other scope in that respect so forewarned is forearmed. I have not spent a lot of time shooting reflex type red dots so I really can't comment on whether parallax is better or worse with the Prismatic, but I have been told that it is still an issue with those as well. I have found the eye relief to be extremely forgiving and have never had an issue with it, but I have also been shooting Leupold scopes for a while and I'm familiar with them. DyNo!, you are so right. If we could get some kind of drop reticle in it, the Prismatic would be just about perfect. I vote for a nice fine MIL ladder.

In the end I think that the Prismatic is one heck of nice optic and I plan to keep using it. If a better reticle becomes available, then I expect my wallet will get another round of abuse. I hope this is at least a little bit helpful.

Leupold has a military/law enforcement program through "Promotive" but only the Tactical version is avalable which is the Circle Plex for 398.75 shipped.

You might contact Leupold and ask if they could send you the DCD for the same price.

David E.