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Thread: Sighting, how far from a scope should your eye be?

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  1. #1
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    Sighting, how far from a scope should your eye be?

    This might be a silly question, but I'm still getting used to shooting with a scope.

    Is there an accepted 'normal' distance for your eye to be from the scope? I ask because I find quite a difference when I'm say kneeling and aiming to when I'm prone on the ground.

    I move my eye around until I have the clearest full view through, but find moving left/right/up/down even a small amount will blur out that side of the scope. I found that moving back a bit gives a clearer view but with a bit less tolerance of lateral movement.

    Be grateful for any advice.

    J.

  2. #2
    Parabuteo is offline My Chrony has bought it a couple of times...
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    Quote Originally Posted by mr_magicfingers View Post
    This might be a silly question, but I'm still getting used to shooting with a scope.

    Is there an accepted 'normal' distance for your eye to be from the scope? I ask because I find quite a difference when I'm say kneeling and aiming to when I'm prone on the ground.

    I move my eye around until I have the clearest full view through, but find moving left/right/up/down even a small amount will blur out that side of the scope. I found that moving back a bit gives a clearer view but with a bit less tolerance of lateral movement.

    Be grateful for any advice.

    J.
    Basically, eye relief will change from scope to scope.

    You should be able to see a full image edge to edge. If you cannot, or if you have a dark blurred surround to the image, eye relief is not correct.

    You should find a point where you can move back and forth a little and the image remains correct, this is to allow for the fact that your head position will move slightly between positions.
    I'm a maggot in another life you know

  3. #3
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    That's great, thanks very much.

  4. #4
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    The correct way to position a scope is so that you have a full sight picture (no black round your picture) at your most natural or most favoured shooting position.

    The way to determin this is to close your eyes and mount your rifle, then open your eyes your scope should then be positioned at a distance from your eye so that you get a full sight picture.

    I think its safe to say generally the better scopes have greater eye relief.

  5. #5
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    Obviously when you change shooting positions you may have to make slight head alignment changes.

    Ive found some scopes to be quite fussy on eye relief my falcon 4-14x44ffp is a little fussy although the bonus is that a consistent head position gives less chance of parralax error.

  6. #6
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    I think it also depends on the magnification factor.
    The more magnified the image the more critical it is on certain scopes to get the correct eye relief, the wider the angle of view the easier it should be to maintain the correct eye relief.....

  7. #7
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    It sounds a bit long winded but before you fit the scope to the rifle, if you hold it freehand with a ruler touching your eyebrow & resting alongside the scope , you can very quickly find the correct eye relief. Because you consentrate on the sight picture alone, rather than how the rifle feels which can happen when its mounted, 75/85mm works for me.

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