What is the difference?

I'm sure someone who is more of an expert than me will chime in with a more technical response, but the terminology is referring to where the reticle is located within the scope. A scope that has a reticle in the second focal plane is the common style for most north american made hunting scopes. The size of the crosshairs stay the exact same while you increase the magnification of the scope. First focal plane is the opposite, the reticle system is affected by the zoom of the scope, so as you increase the magnification the reticle is enlarged as well.

Both have their benefits and everyone has their own opinion. The upside to a FFP (first focal plane) is that your ballistic drop increments for any type of BDC or mil/moa reticle don't change as you change your zoom. This is not the case for SFP (second focal plane), with these scopes you have to memorize your yardage at each zoom setting if you plan on using ballistic reticles.

The advantage that some people find for SFP is that on high magnification the reticle doesn't get bigger so it doesn't obscure the target. This is usually only a concern with varmint hunters who have very small targets, for most big game hunting a well designed FFP reticle will not affect accuracy at high zoom.

I personally have only used SFP scopes, mainly because that is what is most readily available, but FFP is becoming more common
 
StevieK said:
Both have their benefits and everyone has their own opinion. The upside to a FFP (first focal plane) is that your ballistic drop increments for any type of BDC or mil/moa reticle don't change as you change your zoom. This is not the case for SFP (second focal plane), with these scopes you have to memorize your yardage at each zoom setting if you plan on using ballistic reticles.
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This is the most critical part In my opinion. If you buy a scope with mildots or a ballistic drop reticle it only makes sense to have it in the first focal plane, because then it is accurate regardless of zoom. On a second focal plane mildot scope, the dots are only a mil apart at one specific zoom, so If you use them for ranging or hold over, you can only do it at one specific zoom instead of all zooms (unless you wanna do a bunch of math, of course.)

Never really thought about the fact the reticle grows on FFP, but I could see that being the preferred option for target shooting and varmints.
 
The easiest way to understand the difference is to draw the reticle on the piece of glass. Than put magnifying glass or binoculars in front of the glass - FFP. If you put your reticle in front, that is SFP. Basically, reticle is magnified with your target in FFP (look at it as reticle in front of magnification - FFP).

Advantage of one over the other depends on what reticle your scope has and if you actually use it to calculate offset, distance and size of the target. FFP is harder to get used to as your reticle changes, but, IMO, it gives you better perspective on how far you are shooting.

I did use both and have scopes with both FFP and SFP. Prefer FFP in higher magnification.
 

imho, there is no advantage of 2fp beyond being cheaper on the wallet. The fallacy that the reticule stays thinner compared to the exact same reticule in FFP is 100% backward. the FFP will always be thinner unless the 2fp scope is at MAX magnification. At which point it is the exact same. period end stop.

I know ill catch flak over this, but I am correct.

 
I'm waiting for someone to say second focal plane are imperial and first focal plane are metric. LOL.(or have we finally cleared all of that up?)
 
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