My initial impression when I first got my hands on one was "why didn't we have these back in the day"? Our answer to the math involved in range estimation was to carry a waterproof calculator and failing that, do the math in our field notebook. Since Snipers work in all weather conditions trying to scibble out long division in the pouring rail was not an ideal situation.
The construction is substantial. The outer body of the Mildot Master is conctructed on heavy gauge transparent plastic. The printing is on the backside. This should prevent it from scratching off with use. The inner sliding card is of a lighter plastic sheet. The whole combination is held together by six rivets.
The Mildot Master in use is fairly simple. You measure a target of known heigh with the Mil scale in your rifle scope. You then match the target heigh on the sliding scale of the Mildot master to the milled height on the body. You then look at the arrow on the scale labeled "TARGET RANGE" and bingo! Check your ballistic table, dial in the correction and fire. No more need to remember the Mil Relation formula or worry about your calculator breaking in the field.
The Mildot master accomodates Meters instead of Yards by just turning the sliding scale over. There is even a place on the back to place your ballistic table.
One last cool feature that the Mildot Master has is a scale for reading the angle to target. If you have ever shot from high angles then you know that this will cause your bullet to impact higher than it would at the same range over a flat line of sight. There is some complicated trigenometry involved in working out the exact "corrected" range to the target. At short distances it really dosent make a difference, but at long range and high angles it does.
On the back of the Mildot Master there is an angle scale. You tie a piece of string and a small fishing weight (or rock, or whatever) to the rived labled "PIVOT". Simply sight down the side edge of the Mildot Master to your target and read the angle off of the scale. Then flip the Mildot Master over and match the angle to the scale under "TARGET RANGE". That angle will correspond to the "corrected" angle on the scale. Dial in the scope correction required for the corrected range and engage.
Alternately you can have your spotter measure the angle of the rifle barrel while you sight in on target.
The included instruction booklet goes into great detail on how to use the Mildot Master. It even includes practice problems.
While this may not be something that everyone needs, it is definitly worth the price. If you are a Military Sniper or a LE Sniper who may have to shoot over extended ranges this is a "must have" backup to your Laser Rangefinder.
(Click Here for Closeup of Front Side)
