Real world advantages of scope features?

[Canuck Bob]

Hoping to get a real world advice about scope features and upgraded product lines. My experience with scopes is very limited, a forty year old M8 2.5X. I know the eyepiece usually focuses the reticle. Lens coatings help to transmit light, and cheap scopes are very suspect.

My question is for hunting style scopes low power fixed and small 2-7 and 3-9, variables. The scopes would be used at 4X or less usually. Target work would be for group testing and sighting in only. Lots of plinking and fun 22 and cast shooting.

Folks talk about parallax as an issue. How does this really effect poi in usual hunting scopes. Would a parallax of 50 yards have a real effect at 125 yards, how much for say a 4X scope. This is to understand if AO is worth a heavy price tag?

In the Leupold lines it seems one pays a premium for light gathering coatings. A FX-I is noticeably less than a FX-II that is identical in specs. Is it really that big an issue. Twilight hunting is not a factor for me. My old M8 was good enough for legal light so the modern versions should be adequate.

What are the differences with eye relief outside the obvious for heavy kickers. My M8 has a relief of 5", nice for a 444! Does 3" make much difference to 4"? Is it easier to get a sight picture with more relief? Again the M8 seemed to have a fair range of relief as one could snap it to the shoulder and a bright sight picture was always there.

Why would 9x be better than 4X even for a 22? Variable power is expensive and makes a scope heavier.

With 4X to 50 yards is that enough magnification for gopher or squirrel shooting?

[vancelw]

Where AO is worth the money to me is on my varmint rifles.
Shooting from 50 to 500 yards at a p-dog, every inch counts.
But what makes it so important is that I may be shooting in all sorts of contorted positions since I'm shooting 360 degrees, often out of a pickup or off of a San Angelo shooting bench.
If you are always shooting from a comfortable stance where your eye is centered, AO is not as important.

My opinion...if you can afford it, buy it. The Leupold scope will last your lifetime and more features make it more versatile.

[Treeman72]

With few exceptions, I use optics on most of my rifles. I don't fully understand the effects of parallax, but it seems to be an issue at extremely far or close ranges. In light of this, I use adjustable parallax scopes for rifles capable of fine accuracy beyound 250 yards. Most scopes for close range calibers have a lower parallax built in. For example, rimfire and shotgun scopes. If you try to put a 4-12x scope made for deer hunting onto a 22lr, noticeable distortion will occur at close range. Most deer scopes have a 100 yard parallax built in. The nikon 22 scope I bought has a 50 yard built in parallax.

Hope this rambling helps you out. Buy a decent scope for a decent rifle within the limits of the caliber or your shooting purposes.

[North Country Gal]

My question is for hunting style scopes low power fixed and small 2-7 and 3-9, variables. The scopes would be used at 4X or less usually. Target work would be for group testing and sighting in only. Lots of plinking and fun 22 and cast shooting.

I do like a 2-7x on lever guns and also some bolt rifles, compared to a 3-9x or a fixed 4x. I like keeping scope size and weight down, for one and, for another, I very much like being able to drop down to 2x, if needed, for woods hunting and/or offhand work. For load testing, though or when the targets get smaller or ranges, greater, that 7x does come in handy. Me, I'd rather sacrifice the 9x on the high end to get the 2x on the low end.

I love an AO for range work and for varmint or other long range work on small targets. On the other hand, I think an AO is just extra weight I don't need on a big game rifle. Remember, too, if that AO moves on you or you left it on the wrong setting, you can end up with one heck of a lot more parallax than you bargained for. You sure don't need that kind of complication when you get that once in a lifetime shot at a trophy. For any kind of big game hunting, I'm a big believer in keeping it simple.

For the same reason, I don't like ballistic reticles on big game scopes, but some folks do like them, so decide for yourself. Me, when it comes time to shoot, I don't want to be making decisions on which part of the reticle I should be using. I want to be concentrating, fully, on making the shot. Period. I'm very old school, that way, I guess.

On a big kicker, I am not comfortable with anything less than 3.5" of eye relief and, oh, yes, that extra half an inch can be a very big deal. I much prefer 4" eye relief when I can get it. The good news is that most scopes, these days, get you in this ball park. Too much eye relief, though, can cause mounting problems on some guns - you don't want to sacrifice your natural cheek position on the stock for the sake of seeing a full field of view.

4x on a rimfire is enough for squirrel hunting out to 50 yards, but past that I'd prefer a bit more magnification, myself. As to size and weight, there is a huge variation in rimfire scopes, so do some comparison shopping. A variable is not always heavier than fixed power. For instance, the Leupold 2-7x Rimfire won't weighs quite a bit less than the 4x Nikon Prostaff Rimfire and much less than the Nikon 3-9x Rimfire. Don't get me wrong, I love the Nikon Rimfires and have them on a number of 22s, but, as rimfire scopes go, they are on the bigger and heavier side. In other words, check the specs when shopping for a rimfire scope.

[86er]

The reason why scopes intended for short range use are often equipped with parallax compensation is that at short range (and at high magnification) parallax errors become more noticeable. A typical scope objective has a focal length of 100 mm. An optical ideal 10× scope in this example has been perfectly parallax corrected at 1000 m and functions flawlessly at that distance. If the same scope is used at 100 m the target-picture would be projected (1000 m / 100 m) / 100 mm = 0.1 mm behind the reticle plane. At 10× magnification the error would be 10 × 0.1 mm = 1 mm at the ocular. If the same scope was used at 10 m the target-picture would be (1000 m / 10 m) / 100 mm = 1 mm projected behind the reticle plane. When magnified ten times the error would be 10 mm at the ocular

The difference between various levels of Leupold products, among others is the size and # of erector and whatca call it springs. The higher price range products like VX-3 use dual erector springs that are 10% larger than the single erector spring in the lower priced Rifleman for example. One of Nightforce's advertising points is that their dual opposing erector springs are 20% larger than the competition. However, from my visit to Burris in Greeley, CO they spoke of the springs. Their take was the spring have to fully support the "notch" to which they stop. If it is larger than the notch the extra serves no purpose. Furthermore, if the spring tension and durability is equal between springs of difference sizes, there is little difference in their ability to hold fast so long as they are a match for the corresponding notch. This is a simplified explanation but hopefully paints the picture well enough to make sense. I am not an engineer or scope maker so I am passing on what I have been told, shown and saw.

Among the Leupolds, I have several VX-3's that have had no issues with or without AO (I have two without and one with). All have been fired beyond 300 yards with no detectable issues related to accuracy or point of impact movement. I have three VX-2 scopes with no AO and these too have been fired to over 300 yds with no issues. I have two rimfire scopes and they have no detectable POI movement due to parallex from 25-100 yards, just the calculated bullet drop and some increase in group size. I have other Leupolds like the Ultimate Slam that have not been fired past 150 yds so I cannot comment on every single one of them.

[madman4570]

For me its pretty simple.

If you are heck bent on having a gun that you want for Hunting with the exception of sitting at your back deck having gun planted on a quality rest and you want to shoot chipmunks eyes out at 30yds with a 9X scope, forget AO scopes.(I have them)honestly for my needs a waste.

In fact by you getting a AO it actually might screw you up. Say you by mistake set your AO to infinity or maybe after sighting in your gun at the range you leave it at that long range setting. Now you are in the woods deer hunting and at 40yds Mr. Big Buck appears ? Talk about parallax issues compared to the normal 3-9 scope. That deer is standing there. that isn't the time you want to think oh sh## I need to reach around the front of scope for adjustment. For the average guy a simple high quality non-AO scope is about perfect.

I know a lot of you guys want one gun to do it all.
Up here I do it a tad differently. I pick a gun for the day. The day I do my planning, strategy of the hunt. Besides I get to justify to wife having more needed guns.

Example: Up here when hunting in NYS in woods I choose open sights, I choose a high energy gun. I do not want to have to drag a deer that ran 70 yards down through woods and then have piled up in the bottom of a 300ft gorge and waterfalls even though shot well. My eyes are still 20/15 so prior to that hunting day I know where I will be and have the brush, twigs, stuff covered. I won't be sending a bullet through a bunch of brush praying and spraying.
I want this gun to be absolutely spot on to say 150yds being a possible an extended log road shot. Thus I choose a 7mm Rem Mag open sighted M70
When I hunt in Pa, I usually hunt the power line/woods edge sections. This is a different deal. I am setting up for long shots. I want a 400yd min tack driver. I shoot a M70 .300 Win Mag with a Redfield 6-18X Illuminator.works extremely well.
With small things I do the same, but decide is it shooting frogs in a pond or hunting chucks on a 300yd field.
For the frogs, its a Ruger 10/22 with a 4X Leupold or my Air Guns.
For the chucks and coyotes its a Remington 700BDL Varmint HB .22-250 with a 6X24 Burris Signature(that one does have side AO adjust though)
Turkey, rabbits, squirrels, birds,clay stuff all get the shotgun(loaded with shot)

Bottom line, Non-AO Scope as high Quality as the little women will let you spend $$$ on and as compact as possible without giving up anything.

[El Chivo]

Sounds like you don't need to worry about parallax if you're only shooting at 4x at moderate ranges. Basically the image is going to be sharpest at 100 yards (or 50, if it's set for that) and blurry at other distances. When the image focuses in front of, or behind the reticle, it means what you see on the reticle is blurry. You could still put the crosshairs on it and hit it, but you can't be as sure of placement if it's a blur.

[Tycer]

Joe! Thanks! That was great.

The AO on a 22 is helpful for shooting the same gun at 10 yards or 200. For me, that's where the setting matters. If I keep it at 75 I'm good from 25 to 125 without suffering much accuracy issues from a shifted cheek-weld. On either side of that, I can tighten up my groups dramatically by adjusting the parallax.

That's the real issue. Parallax has no effect on you if your cheek-weld has your eye directly centered in the exit pupil and you never shift or wiggle. As Joe clearly pointed out, the error at the ocular is magnified so any shift off dead center moves your POI. You can test this at the bench pretty easily. Back your eye away from the scope enough that the black ring appears around the exit pupil, shoot a group at 100 with the exit pupil at 3:00, another at 9:00 and then do it again at a longer distance, like 200. You'll see that your groups moved off POI at 200 and not so much at 100.

This is why a rimfire scope has a shorter setting on it's focal length for parallax than a centerfire.