Thread: Scope musings

In the bush at close ranges on dark, is where a FFP scope shows it’s disadvantages. Certainly the case with my ffp higher power swaros.


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Which Swarovski models are FFP??


A badly designed or unsuitable reticle is badly designed or unsuitable whether FFP or SFP


FFP reticles like the S&B P4/P4F, Leupold TMR or March FML1 are all good to go for general purpose hunting. It is a shame that there aren't more good FFP scopes available in sizes and weights suitable for hunting.

Gimp, all the 30 mm habicht models are ffp, Pre z6. With the std European heavy duplex.


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Ah they've gone backwards

Originally Posted by gimp

Which Swarovski models are FFP??


A badly designed or unsuitable reticle is badly designed or unsuitable whether FFP or SFP


FFP reticles like the S&B P4/P4F, Leupold TMR or March FML1 are all good to go for general purpose hunting. It is a shame that there aren't more good FFP scopes available in sizes and weights suitable for hunting.

I think you hit the nail on the head there. SFP win for size and weight, and price for comparable quality.

Originally Posted by zeropak

@Ross Nolan I'm always open to listening to ideas which are counter to my own. I am genuinely interested in why you say that the FFP style scope is significantly better at long range. Assuming that you are using the correct ballistic data and using a decent quality scope which will dial accurately then surely the end result will be the same FFP vs SFP?

The advantages for me of a well designed reticle - that is, one with side bars big enough to be useful at minimum magnification (possible tapered), a easy to read mill scale on both vertical and horizontal axes, side bars no more than 10 mills apart and preferably an illuminated aiming point in the centre include:
Accurate wind holds without shifting from position to move the windage turret
Accurate on the fly adjustments if, for example, a deer is feeding across a face and not holding a consistent distance
Zeroing is easy at any distance, using the reticle to measure the offset from aiming point and make adjustments accordingly
If you are using the reticle then you aren't making elevation adjustments that can be forgotten about - I've seen a shot taken, and then on the way to the animal a quick close shot miss over the top because the elevation wasn't wound back to zero

I'd ask what advantage sfp has over ffp other than a seemingly finer aiming point at distance? I've hit magpies out to 440m using a ffp scope, so I'm not sure the small target argument holds all that much water.

There is a bit of learning and undoing of stuff you have picked up over the years from using sfp, but for me the advantages are such that other than a fixed 4x on a 10-22 used exclusively for spotlighting possums and a red dot on a single shot 308, all of my rifles use ffp scopes.

The great thing about this sport is that everybody is free to look at things and work out what is best for them, and it doesn't impact on anyone else's enjoyment. Go for it.

Edit. It is probably worth mentioning that a lot of the shooting I do is at ranges where elevation adjustments are essential. If I was just bush hunting or limiting my shots to 300m, then ffp/sfp wouldn't matter.

Extra edit. Specifically to @Zeropac regarding distance, if your wind hold is (for example) 500mm at 500m, how do you do that? Guess at that based on the animals body size? What if it is a 80kg hind, not the 55kg or so you mistakenly estimated it at? With FFP, you just hold .1 mill on the scale and let it go. The maths is easy - we come (mostly) pre configured to count in 10, and that is what mills are all about.

haha, what a clown. I tidied up the above post, and managed to put another mistake in. Never post on the phone about technical stuff where fullstops can become decimal places when fat fingering.

500mm@ 500m is 1 mil, not .1

I'll wear my glasses next time.

Originally Posted by Ross Nolan

The advantages for me of a well designed reticle - that is, one with side bars big enough to be useful at minimum magnification (possible tapered), a easy to read mill scale on both vertical and horizontal axes, side bars no more than 10 mills apart and preferably an illuminated aiming point in the centre include:
Accurate wind holds without shifting from position to move the windage turret
Accurate on the fly adjustments if, for example, a deer is feeding across a face and not holding a consistent distance
Zeroing is easy at any distance, using the reticle to measure the offset from aiming point and make adjustments accordingly
If you are using the reticle then you aren't making elevation adjustments that can be forgotten about - I've seen a shot taken, and then on the way to the animal a quick close shot miss over the top because the elevation wasn't wound back to zero

I'd ask what advantage sfp has over ffp other than a seemingly finer aiming point at distance? I've hit magpies out to 440m using a ffp scope, so I'm not sure the small target argument holds all that much water.

There is a bit of learning and undoing of stuff you have picked up over the years from using sfp, but for me the advantages are such that other than a fixed 4x on a 10-22 used exclusively for spotlighting possums and a red dot on a single shot 308, all of my rifles use ffp scopes.

The great thing about this sport is that everybody is free to look at things and work out what is best for them, and it doesn't impact on anyone else's enjoyment. Go for it.

Edit. It is probably worth mentioning that a lot of the shooting I do is at ranges where elevation adjustments are essential. If I was just bush hunting or limiting my shots to 300m, then ffp/sfp wouldn't matter.

Extra edit. Specifically to @Zeropac regarding distance, if your wind hold is (for example) 500mm at 500m, how do you do that? Guess at that based on the animals body size? What if it is a 80kg hind, not the 55kg or so you mistakenly estimated it at? With FFP, you just hold .1 mill on the scale and let it go. The maths is easy - we come (mostly) pre configured to count in 10, and that is what mills are all about.

Hi Ross, Good answer, It did get me to thinking about FFP vs SFP. I also do most of my hunting at longer ranges so I have my set way on how I do this with SFP scopes. I always dial the elevation past about 250 metres (scopes are zeroed for 200m) If an animal is moving I will monitor this with the range finder, I am using a Leica 2800.com which gives me a ballistic solution. I have this set to give me either MOA or Mils depending on the scope I am using. I have never used Hash marks for holdover. The thing about windage is that it is never a precise calculation in my opinion, Across a gully you can have varying wind speeds at different distances, varying angles and gusting wind. All of this comes down to the wind hold being an educated guess, I prefer to simply hold for the wind and modify that hold "on the fly" if that wind hold starts to become around 40/50cm or more I would reconsider my decision to take the shot. I get what you say about using the hash marks for that windage hold but don't you then have to do the calculation as to what the hash mark represents at the distance the shot is being taken? Say your hash marks are 0.5 mil and your taking a shot at 545m and you have a 10 mph 90 degree cross wind which requires a 55cm compensation do not then need to calculate the value of those hash marks at that distance? I am curious as to how you would deal with this.

Sorry if this discussion has gone sideways from the original post but it is a pretty interesting conversation,
.

I hold in mills, not a linear measurement. That is the whole point of having an angular scale on the reticle.
When I get to where I'll be shooting from I open strelok on my phone and input the atmospheric conditions - temp, barometric pressure and altitude. Then I look for deer - while keeping an eye on the wind. Measuring it where I am, and looking at what is happening between me and where I expect the deer to be.
When a deer pops up I'll range it, input that into strelok, check the wind, have a think about it and then input that. The elevation is dialed (usually) and I'll hold for wind, check the wind hasn't died off or increased and shoot.
Usually the deer falls in sight, so before I wander over I'll often shoot a couple of rocks at different distances and angles to sharpen the wind reading skills and then off to work.

Wind is the thing. It all started to come together for me when I began to think about it like waves moving across a rock pool. The main movement is in a direction, but where it contacts the rocks there are reflections, swirls and all sorts of things going on. The more you think about it, and shoot to test your assumptions the better you'll get.
Firing solution below- I'll just hold at .7 mil once I've dialed for elevation, but it would be an easy shot to take holding elevation on the reticle also.

Ok Interesting. I also use strelok, although I use it less now I have the Leica range finder. So I guess it would be fair to say that in order to use the hash marks on a FFP scope that strelok (or something similar) is essential tool in order to convert a wind reading into Mils.
For wind reading I try to keep it simple. I have the 10 knots @ 90 degrees wind values taped to my stock for various ranges in 50m Increments, I can then make quick mental adjustment to the wind hold based on these values. For example 10 knots at 45 degrees is 50% of a given value, 15 knots is 1.5 times the given value. This is quite effective and very fast to apply, maybe not as precise as your system but reading the wind is an imperfect science.
Also, I am curious as to what scope are you using? I found it difficult with a quick search to find anything online which fitted into what I would consider a FFP hunting scope. My criteria would be as follows.

Under 700 gram in weight
magnification range of 4/5 to 20/24. So something with a 5x zoom range
30mm main tube
50mm objective lens ( could maybe live with a 44mm)
decent quality glass ( Japanese or Euro)

@zeropak I've got a March 3-24 x 40 with the FM-L reticle, and an Athlon 2-12 x 42 with their mil reticle on my deer rifles. I used the Athlon for my longest shot, and on deer I almost never shoot on higher than 14-16 x, to keep a nice wide field of view. Glass quality is less important than repeatability of adjustments, which of course have to match the reticle graduations. I have a Bushnell that has 1/7 moa adjustments rather than the 1/8 the dial claim.... and I've never had a Leupold that was correct either. A 50m tape and a steel rule to check against are hard to argue with.

Zeropac, you are asking about hunting scopes, my Burris Veracity 2-10 is 22 oz or around 620 gram. Its is a 30mm tube FFP and non iluminated. I see a 10x as typically good to 400 mtr for typical large game hunting but obviously you can streach it well past that if you want.
What sort of ranges are you looking to hunt out to with the scope you are looking for?
Z

Originally Posted by ZQLewis

Zeropac, you are asking about hunting scopes, my Burris Veracity 2-10 is 22 oz or around 620 gram. Its is a 30mm tube FFP and non iluminated. I see a 10x as typically good to 400 mtr for typical large game hunting but obviously you can streach it well past that if you want.
What sort of ranges are you looking to hunt out to with the scope you are looking for?
Z

To date I haven't shot game past 500m. My thoughts are that with the 6.5CM I could stretch this out to around 600m but then only in calm conditions. I tend to always zoom the scope up to the max magnification setting. The lowest max mag I have on any of my scopes is 16x on a zeiss V4. I reckon scope choice is a personal thing, for me I would not go for something with only 10x max mag even though it will do the job in the right hands. I looked at the 4-20x50 veracity but at 770 grams its a no go.
I do already have plenty of scopes that fit my criteria but I'm a bit of a tinkerer so it tend to ignore the old mantra ( if it ain't broken don't fix it) part of the enjoyment I get out of my sport is playing with new gear, I'm the prefect consumer, always buying and trying new stuff. I like to think I have pretty open mind on choices, as opposed to some who would rather be seen running naked down Queen street than be seen with a SFP scope on their rifle. Already I'm considering giving a FFP scope a try. The Arken EPL 6-24x50 looks interesting, I am not sure how Arken manage to put these scopes on the market at these prices so I am I little suspicious but the reviews look good.

Alright well I've done it now! Settled on a Leupold VX5-HD 3-15x44 Firedot. Took it for it's first walk yesterday evening and it seems very nicely balanced on the rifle. Glad I didn't go any heavier, despite the fact it would have saved some money. I've also managed to do ok at the range. Was getting some nice groups when zeroing at 100 and am able to hit 600 without too much trouble, even with no reticle markers for wind hold.