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In hunting/shooting, you will often see the term MOA (which stands for minute of angle).

What exactly is an (MOA) minute of angle when it comes to shooting?

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A minute of angle is a measure of an angle. It is 1/60th of a degree, 1/21600th of a circle.

Often times you will see this in

  • Scope increments, 1/8 of an MOA is more precise than 1/4.
  • Scope vertical adjustment range
  • The ticks on a mil-dot reticle scope are usually given in MOA.
  • The size of the dot on a reflex or red dot sight.
  • The accuracy of a firearm, smaller or even sub-moa is better.

In regards to distance, one MOA corresponds to 1.047 inches per 100 yards, so 1 inch at 100 yards and 3 inches at 300 yards.

This can be useful to know when sighting in if you are 2 inches low at 100 yards, you need to move the scope up 2 MOA for 8 increments on a 1/4 MOA increment scope.

MOA can also be used for ranging targets with the right scope, a 12-inch prairie dog will be 12 MOA tall at 100 yards and 6 MOA at 200 yards.

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  • You somehow missed the joke answer "60 seconds of angle, of course" :) Back to being serious; it would be helpful to link to the geometrical concept arcsecond, which is here en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minute_and_second_of_arc
    – Stian
    Commented Jun 18, 2018 at 17:08

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