PSO-1 Reticle Explained: Complete Guide to Soviet Dragunov Optics
- Vlad Besedovskyy
- Dec 16
- 4 min read
Working on the upcoming book "Red Lenses", it came to my attention that not everyone is familiar with the quite basic PSO-1 scope. Especially when it comes to understanding the reticle of one.
PSO-1 is one of the most recognisable military scopes, thanks to wide appearance in video games. It is very much a product of its time, representing Soviet military doctrine at its finest - robust, easy to use and technological piece of military equipment.
What is PSO-1?
This pragraph is likely to be skipped by most people who are reading this article, but for the sake of full picture it is added here. PSO-1 is a standard scope for SVD sniper rifle. It was designed specifically for 7.62 x 54 mmR cartridge and specifically for SVD rifle.
At the time it was a revolutionary piece of equipment, both the scope and the rifle. For the first time in military history, it was a designated complex built for precision shooting. The scope featured a number of technological advancements, such as reticle elimination and ability to spot IR sources.
PSO-1 reticle explained
The reticle of the PSO-1 was way more complicated than the usual cross, stick or T-style which were common in optical devices of the time. But the idea behind this complexity was to ease the life of sniper (or, rather, designated marksman).
The reticle can be split into three parts. And to use PSO-1 effectively, we should start with studying one of the most distinctive features of the PSO-1 reticle: the stadiametric rangefinder, located in the lower left quadrant.
The curved scale is calibrated for the 1.7 m tall target - an average male height at the time of the PSO-1 development. To estimate the range, one would need to place the target's feet at the baseline, allign the top of the head with the curved scale and read the number above the scale. The numbers reflect the distance to the target, where 2 equals to 200 meters, 4 equals to 400 meters and so on, until 1000 meters.
Turning top knob on the scope will adjust the reticle so that the central reticle can stay true point for up to 1000 m.
To shoot at further targets, there is a built-in bullet drop compensator at y-axis. It consists of three extra chevrons (apart from the central one) and can be used to shoot at targets located further than 1000 meters away. Each chevron below the central one represents the bullet drop adjusted to another 100 m, going as far as 1300 meters. Experienced shooters can use the vertical chevrons to shoot at targets under 1000 m without adjusting the scope manually.
On the x-axis you can see horizontal windage reference marks. They significantly simplify and speed up aiming, without the need to adjust the sights based on the wind direction and speed. Each reference mark is equal to one click on the windage know, to again, simplify the adjustment of the scope. There is a table of correction required at moderate crosswind. If the wind speed changes, the corrections can be easily calculted, e.g. at 8 m/s wind the correction on the windage scale will be 4.
Moderate Crosswind (4 m/s) corrections
Firing Distance (m) | Correction (m) | Correction (human figures) | Correction (reticle windage scale divisions) |
200 | 0.10 | — | 0.5 |
300 | 0.26 | 0.5 | 1 |
400 | 0.43 | 1 | 1 |
500 | 0.72 | 1.5 | 1.5 |
600 | 1.10 | 2 | 2 |
700 | 1.60 | 3 | 2.5 |
800 | 2.20 | 4.5 | 3 |
900 | 2.90 | 6 | 3 |
1000 | 3.70 | 7.5 | 4 |
1100 | 4.60 | 9 | 4 |
1200 | 5.50 | 11 | 4.5 |
1300 | 6.60 | 13 | 5 |
With the similar logic, horisontal windage scale can be used to hit moving targets, based on their distance and speed. Separate tables exist for that, but they will not be published in this article.
Other PSO variants
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union a lot of PSO type scopes were produced and exported by Belarus, usually designated as POSP. They vary in characteristics, but majority of them follow the same reticle logic as the original PSO-1, as they are still designed for the same cartridge.
PSO-type scopes designed for weapons other than SVD (for example PSO-1M2-1) follow similar basic logic but the math behind the scales is very different. Note this if you have one of untypical scopes.
Using PSO-1 on other weapons
Dragunov sniper rifles are not exactly common or cheap weapons nowdays and many people try to use PSO-1 scopes on other weapons from the Warsaw Pact. It is technically possible, thanks to standardisation of the dovetail mounts, the PSO can be even installed on RPG-7 grenade launcher.
Yet, as it is probably clear by now, the reticle will become almost useless at distances further than 200 m, where bullet drop become significant. Experinced shooters will be able to work out and memorise aiming points for themselves, but this usually requires a lot ammunition for experimentation. We advise using scopes that are designed for specific weapons.