FT scopes - why so high?

[Shootfish]

I was watching some airgun related item on YouTube, which ended, and before I could select something else, coverage of a World FT Shoot came on. Now I don't shoot FT (or HFT for that matter) but I was amazed by the distances that existed between barrels and scopes; some looked as if I could get the palm of my hand in there, upright, and then some! Consequently I noticed that cheek pieces are wound right up on what appear to be huge posts, to enable the eye to address the scope. Now I was always told that the scope should be as close to the centre line of the barrel as possible, so why these huge gaps on FT rigs, and is it the same in HFT? It seems to have nothing to do with the size of the objective lens, as high mounts seem to be mounted on high platforms mounted on the guns' scope rails. Forgive me if this is a stupid question, as I have no experience of either discipline.

[Steyr]

FT especially allows side wheel.scopes to rrange find.
This means high mag scopes are used to get a very narrow depth of field.
The business end of the scope will usually be 56mm diameter so it need highe4 mounts to clear a barrel.
There are other reasons but essentially high mag la4ge objective scopes need clearance.

[Rich]

Many FT courses have most of their targets set at 30 yards or more, and national competitions might have very little under 40 yards. At these distances the pellet is usually falling away from the high point of its flight.

Having the scope set high means that your line of sight is closer to the flightpath of the pellet than would be the case with low mounts. Closer means there is a bit more tolerance on rangefinding, if you get it somewhat wrong then you still might get a hit.

[RobF]

It’s the most comfortable head position when sitting. When setting up a rifle from scratch the scope is the last thing I put in place, the cheekpiece is set first and then I match the scope to that.

[NeilMac]

^^^ Wot Rob sed ^^^

[PhatMan]

Shootfish,

It allows having a more symetrical far & near trajectory either side of the zero point.

With the scope close to the bore, the near trajectory is quite flat, whereas the far trajectory will show a lot of drop.

With the scope mounted higher, the near & far trajectories start to have similar profiles. Ultimately, this will mean that you have to dial in less correction at the longer ranges.

With a suitable zero range (highest point in trajectory), both near & far trajectory corrections will all be postive, and reasonably symetrical.

The below shows scope height of 1" (red) and 4" (green) - you can clearly see the difference in trajectory.



Have fun

Best regards

Russ