Long eye relief scope
- Thread starter bandit86
- Start date
Look for a "scout" scope. The eye relief for these is usually less than a handgun scope, but intended for mounting forward of a rifle action. Burris and Leupold make scout models with fixed magnification at 2.5x or 2.75x, and Leupold has a variable which I think is up to 4x, but it's a Custom model that isn't normally distributed in Canada so you'll have to do the paperwork to get it here yourself (and the Canadian agent won't do the warranty work.) Weaver has a K4 Scout (4x28mm), Cabela's carries it in Canada.
Variable power handgun scopes seem to go up to 6x or 7x most of the time, but the eye relief can be too long for a rifle.
Variable power handgun scopes seem to go up to 6x or 7x most of the time, but the eye relief can be too long for a rifle.
- Location
- Somewhere on the Hudson Bay Coast
X2
Your pal is looking for an intermediate eye relief scope if he intends to mount it on a rifle. The concept does not work particularly well with high magnification due to the disparity between the images that each eye sends to the brain. A scout scope is normally used with both eyes open, and the image the shooter has is a blend of images between what he sees through the scope and what he sees with his non aiming eye, thus effectively increasing his field of view. Thus not only is the scout scope a precise aiming tool, it is also a very fast one. Shooting with just the aiming eye open, through a high powered scout scope results in a very much diminished field of view which compares poorly to a conventional scope. For this reason 3X is about all that can be managed.
Just a word about magnification though. Magnification is not the advantage of the scope, if it were, we'd all be using 40X glass. The advantage the scope is that it provides a rifleman with an aiming point which appears on the same focal plane as his target. Thus there is no difference in focus between the aiming point and the target as there is when you align a front sight, rear sight, and target as the human eye cannot focus on objects at different distances at the same time. The purpose of magnification is to make it possible to see your target, and big magnification is appropriately considered when the range is long and the target small. The scout scope concept is designed for practical field shooting where the size of the target does not need to be enhanced by magnification, a moose standing in the open for example is not difficult to see at 300 yards without magnification. A deer running broadside at 50 yards is easy with a scout scope, but a challenge with a 10X conventional scope, and impossible with a 20X.
