You are quite right in that the manuels I've seen mention only focusing the reticle. That's fine. Many are satisfied with only that.
What none of you seem to understand is that the typical euro focusing system is far faster than the designs used by Leupold and that can lead to the idea that their "glass and coatings are better". Never mind that they all test very, very close to each other. That little bit of inconvenient data is routinely dismissed. If they have "better glass and coating," they must better in all other ways too. Another assumption that simply isn't true.
To give some conmparisions, the Leupold "fast" design has a range of about 3/4 of a turn where the reticle is at it's sharpest. But the typical euro system has only 1/4 to perhaps 1/3 of a turn. With the older Leupold system, the ocular can be rotated any where from 3-4 full turns while keeping the reticle in sharp focus.
What all of this means is that when you turn the ocular to focus the the reticle with a euro system you are already very close to focusing the image. In fact, both appear come into focus together.
That doesn't happen with a Leupold. You must go further for the best image focus. It isn't all that hard to do. I like to simply focus the reticle going in one direction, then counting the turns, keep going until I go all the way to the other end of the focus range. Then I simply backup half way. That puts you very close to the best image focus. From there, it is simple and quick. Has the virtue of not being easy pushed out of focus accidently to off set this additional adjustemnt effort.
You guys are really funny. Too bad. You are denying yourselves of the full performance of your Leupolds.
This is something I learned from Barsness. It made a big difference in the performance of my Leupolds. Using this method, I refocused lots of Leupolds belonging to others. Everyone of them really like the improvement. No exceptions.
Now, if it doesn't matter to you, that's fine. It's your scope. But if you don't do this, you get problems with reticles fading in bad light, not being able to see the target as well in bad light, losing image clarity as you increase the magnification of your scope, all sorts of things.
Just about the only thing poster Roe Deer, who is known far and wide as a huge fan of the "superior" euros, and I agree on is that the scope's ocular, any scope's ocular, can be used to focus both the reticle and the image. E