# Howa Axiom .308 w/ Nikon BDC question



## ckamanao (Mar 20, 2010)

A friend of mine got a Howa Axiom in .308 with a Nikon BDC reticle. I've been looking online and I can't figure out if this scope is made for this particular round or not. Normally, I thought, most longer ranged rifles are sighted in at 200 yards. 
Has anyone used this set up? Is this scope designed with the .308 in mind? Should he sight this rifle in at 200 yrds? And if so, what will the little circles be ranged at? Or is it a sight in where you want it, kind of thing and just keeping shooting until you know where your lower circles are ranged at?
Any help would be great because I've also seen this scope on a .223 and a 7mm mag.


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

http://spoton.nikonsportoptics.com/spoton/


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## Frisco Pete (Sep 22, 2007)

If you have a Nikon scope with a BDC reticle then you should get Nikon's SpotOn ballistic app for your smartphone or pad etc.

It is especially good if you know the particular ballistics of your load in your gun- but it comes with default factory ammo data for most all calibers.
You just input the load data into the app and it tells you the drop value of each line or circle. On my M223 Nikon it is generally consider wise for the .223 caliber to zero at 100 yards with the main horizontal crosshair. While set up for the .223 specifically using 55-gr plastic-tipped bullets at 3240 fps, because loads and velocity will usually vary, the BDC circles will have a different yardage value than the 200/300/400/500/600 yards of the default value circles under the main horizontal reticle.
An example of this is with my .223 load/velocity/barrel length which differs from the default - the 200 yard first circle under the main crosshair actually has a 236 yard value, and the 300 yard circle 339 yards (assuming a 100 yard zero).

Therefore because of this, despite the "M223" name and assigned value of this particular model, it can be used with any caliber and load via the SpotOn app's data. This of course is true with any Nikon BDC model scope.

It is not absolutely necessary to zero at 100 yards. If you zero higher than 100 yards, then I believe you can just input that data in and it will adjust the values accordingly.

Environmental data like altitude, temperature etc. can also be imputed into the app to further fine tune the data.

SpotOn also gives the values of each power setting as this changes things as well (because like the vast majority of scopes, the Nikon's reticle is in the second focal plane).
All of this data can be emailed and printed out.


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## ckamanao (Mar 20, 2010)

SWEET! Thanks fellas. I'll see if we can find that app. I have an android, he has an iPhone. Between the two of us we should find it. 
Thanks again!


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## waspocrew (Nov 26, 2011)

It'll work plenty fine for the .308. I had a buckmaster with BDC on a .308 a while back and had no issues shooting steel targets out to 400 with it. 

The spot on app is pretty cool. A great resource to have for those scopes. Just play around with it a bit- you may find that a 210 yard zero gives you better corresponding drops at 300, 400 etc. Also, it gives an expanded bdc that gives the distances at the top center and bottoms of each circle in the reticle. That would be nice to print and slap it on the stock for easy reference.


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