You can make these reticles work with any load if you are willing to put in the time at the bench. Basically you need to play with the power of the scope, until you "line up" your trajectory. I have owned two BDC's, 2 Leupold Varmint Hunter Reticles, one Leupold Boone and Crocket reticle, and two of the Burris Ballistic Plex reticles. The Leupold's are by far the best. It took me about 150 rounds to really get the feel of the reticle. I shot 93 ground hog's with this rifle this year.

I rate theBurrissecond-and a distant second. I got rid of the BDC's, I found them to be awkward to use, and no help at all with windage. I recommend the Leupold reticle, but would not recommend the Nikon BDC.

Below is a picture of my Rock River Varminter with a Leupold 6.5X20with the Varmint Hunter reticle. At 15X the top crosshair is dead on, first crosshair down is 2 inches high at 300. The second crosshair down is 2 inches high at 400 yards. This is exactly how I want it. I can hold dead on out to 430 yards with no problem. I did not check the 500 yard crosshair. IMO the 223 Remington is at best a 300 yard groundhog cartridge. IMO it runs out of steam, and you have a lot of "crawl offs".

The problem is that with the reticle 400+ yard shots are a piece of cake. Whenever I shoot over 250 yards I always deliver a double tap. Shooting a double tap on ground hog's is a hoot, and it plants the ground hog. Tom.