Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics FFP or SFP for DG rifle

I hear that all the time and don't buy it. I believe what my own eyes tell me. The more light my scopes bring in the better I can see.

An exit pupil larger than the pupil of the user will indeed not increase the brightness of the image if the pupil is 100% centered.
But a larger exit pupil will increase the comfort of use as the eye does not have to be spot on in line with the optical axis. I guess this the reason why jwp475 feels that it renders an advantage.

Hi Fuchs,

Yes, the concept is very simple indeed. But as you noted it is largely unknown to the manufacturers. They are all busy creating ever more complicated reticles and ever more zoon range.. The more hashes or dots or grids a reticle has, the better it sells. This topic is related to discussing FFP vs SFP for a dangerous game rifle. I feel that there is a lot more that you and I can discuss and explore about rifle scopes.. We might want to create a separate topic for a deeper and more general discussion.


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Regarding benefits of large exit pupil (even larger than 7mm and even for use during daylight), I agree with what Fuchs said. We are not talking about gathering light here. It is about providing a large "eye box" behind the eye piece. The eye box is the area that you can position your eye and see the full field of view. A large exit pupil (10mm or more) leads to a much larger eye box. This makes it very easy to position your eye behind the scope and, in a way, the scope becomes as "fast" as a red-dot sight. This is very good feature for fast, off-hand shots or for acquiring the target after the first shot.

Small Exit Pupil:



Large Exit Pupil:

Your eyes are not telling you anything ,its your brain that actually tells you what you see.

The eye provides nerve signals from the retina to the optic nerve, which sends it to the brains visual cortex,
which provides you with a visual interpretation.

I'm not a DG hunter but I sometimes hunt the black timber at dawn and dusk for elk, and have always favored SFP scopes to keep the reticle bold at lower power settings.
With these examples I see what you mean about new "intelligent" FFP reticles.
I find this very interesting. Thanks for posting this.

Consider a light, simple, fixed 2.5 or 3x scope for your rifle that is to be used within 100 yards.

Regards, Guy

Very interesting and enlightening comments, thank you.
Jess