What Is MOA (Minute of Angle) and Why It Matters for Your Groups
What it is
MOA (minute of angle) is a unit of angular measurement — 1/60th of a degree. Because it's an angle, not a fixed distance, the physical size it represents grows the farther away you measure it: roughly 2.9cm at 100m, roughly 1.5cm at 50m, and so on. That scaling is the entire point — it's what lets you compare a group shot at 10m to one shot at 30m on equal terms.
How we calculate it
We convert a group's size in centimeters to MOA using its shot distance: MOA = size in cm ÷ (distance in meters × 0.02909). A 3cm group at 15m and a 6cm group at 30m convert to the same MOA figure — meaning they represent the same underlying precision, even though one raw number is twice the other.
Why it matters
A 2cm group at 10m sounds better than a 6cm group at 30m, but in MOA terms they can be identical — the second group is actually just as tight, shot three times farther away. If you're practicing at varying distances (which most people do), comparing raw centimeter numbers across sessions will mislead you about whether you're actually improving. MOA is what makes "my group is getting smaller" a claim you can actually trust across different range days.
See this measured on your own groups
Range Tracer calculates what is moa? automatically for every session you log.