With the two-piece picatinny bases that the A7's come with, you will have less flexibility with respect to setting the scope at the optimal eye relief for your hold and cheek-weld. This is a result of having to use picatinny style rings with a limited number of picatinny slots to position them in. For example, if you need the ocular positioned closer to your eye, the front or rear mount might run into the center assembly or objective as it tapers out from the tube. If this ends up being the case, there are two ways to alleviate this.
First, you could install a full length picatinny rail (such as a Talley) which would give you much more freedom to reposition the rings, as needed; if you need the ocular closer or further away, you can simply move the scope and both rings forward or backward to the next picatinny slots.
Second, you could use an offset mount, such as Talley light weight mounts, which allow you to flip either/both the front and rear mounts to move the ring placement and allow you to move the scope forward or backwards, as desired.
Talley Manufacturing
Most modern scopes now have constant eye relief, thereby avoiding the unfortunate carnage that can occur when you set eye relief at the minimum zoom power, only to subsequently zoom in to max power (where the eye relief shortens) which then takes the shooter out of their firm cheek-weld, and results in getting scoped, and stitches. That being said, it is always wise to set optimal ocular placement with the scope on maximum power, because even though the actual eye relief may be constant throughout the magnification range, the eyebox often tightens up significantly, which can lead to unanticipated changes in cheek-weld.
With respect to scope choices under the $2k mark, here are some excellent choices, with the corresponding eye relief:
Zeiss Conquest HD5 3-15x42 Lock-Plex, $1299, eye relief: 3.54"
Zeiss Conquest V4 4-16x44, $1449, eye relief: 3.54"
Zeiss Conquest V4, 6-24x50, $1599, eye relief: 3.54"
Swarovski Z5 3.5-18x44 BT, $1599, eye relief: 3.74"
Swarovski Z5 5-25x52 BT, $1699, eye relief: 3.74"
Leupold VX5-HD 3-15x44 CDS, $1278, eye relief: 3.8"
Leupold VX6-HD 3-18x44, CDS, $2414, eye relief: 3.8"
Leica ERi 3-12x56, 4A-BDC, $1799, eye relief: 4.0"
All of the above have ample, constant eye relief.
Cheers,
Omer
