Why Buy S1?
Gun hobbyists and hunters are excited about the Sightron S1, especially in tandem with the Hunter Holdover Reticle (HHR). Gun-enthusiasts are choosing this scope because it compares favorably to more expensive scopes but can be purchased at a fraction of the cost and the company offers free shipping.
Neat Innovation
The main attribute generating so much talk is the ballistic holdover reticle. This neat little innovation allows the user to determine where one holds the Point of Aim (POA) for various ranges. While the scales are set according to the particular ballistics of the type of ammunition as manufactured by a given factory, you can tinker with the settings so as to set the best ranges for each hash mark on your personal gun.
The ballistic reticle has another great feature in its ability to determine range for those objects that have a known size. The system used by the military, the mil-dot system, involves the use of equidistant dots of a specific size that are spaced over the vertical and horizontal axes to help determine windage, distance to target, and elevation. The drawback with this system is that one requires a spotter to do the math for the shooter, or the shooter must carry ballistics cards on him to manage the equations in an expedient manner.
More Forgiving
Most shooters want something easier than that. Hunting is a great deal more forgiving than target practice. That means that with a bit of adaptation, the HHR reticle can give a decent approximation of range to target, such as a large animal like an elk or a deer. The Sightron website gives users the dimensions for the reticle in both 3x and 9x power at 100 yards.
One hunter found that using simple algebra formulae with the program Excel, along with some graphic illustrations in PowerPoint, he was able to develop a chart that gives him the approximate range to the deer he's hunting. He can set the scope at either power (3x or 9x) and using a ballpark figure estimate for the size of the animal, get his approximate range to the animal. This hunter added in the POA relative to the scope's reticle as an aid to remembering how much holdover he has in that range.
With some practice and a bit of memorization, the hunter can get some good working figures for range and holdover fast, while out in the field.