Why are you trying to realign the parallax knob and what are you trying to accomplish?

in fact it says nothing about re-aligning the knob at all.

No kidding.....

Do you "think" you are going to get a LRF reading and dump dope in the erector and then same in the side focus,prior to the view?

PLEASE say "yes".

Laughing!.................

HOW TO SET UP A SCOPE!
This is the only way to do it...

First, screw the eyepiece out (CCW) all the way, until it stops.
If you wear glasses, put them on.
Hold the scope up and look OVER the scope at the sky, and relax your eyes. Then move the scope in front of your eye.
The reticle should look fuzzy
Turn the eyepiece in 1/2 turn, and do the same thing again. You will have to do for a while before the reticle starts to look better. When you start getting close, then turn the eyepiece 1/4 turn each time.
Do this until the reticle is fully sharp and fully BLACK immediately when you look through the scope.
Than back off one turn and do it again to make sure you are in the same place.
Then LOCK the ring on the eyepiece, and leave it alone forever!

Second.
Set the scope down on something solid, where it can see something at a long distance... half a mile of longer is good.
It can be on the rifle, and rested in sand bags at the range... but pick something at least 1000 yds away... even further if possible.
If the scope has an "AO" Adjustable objective, then set it for infinity, and look at the distant object, and move your head from one side to the other, or up and down if you prefer.
If the reticle seems to move, there is parallax.
Change the distance setting and try again... if you are very careful, you can move your eye, and adjust the distance at the same time, seeing which direction gets better.
With front objective adjustments, you can turn them either way without worry... BUT with side adjustment scopes, like the MK4-M3, the M3-LR, or the other LR family of scopes, the adjustment must ALWAYS be made from the infinity end of the dial. Turn the adjustment all the way until it stops (past infinity), and then start turning it in a little at a time, until there is no parallax. If you "overshoot" the proper setting, you can't just turn back a little, you must go back to stop at the end of the dial, and start over again.

While "AO"s dials are locked in place, and if the indicated distance doesn't match the real distance, there's nothing you can do about it... the side focus dials are not locked in place.
Once you have found the setting for infinity on the side focus models, then (CAREFULLY) loosen the screws, and set the dial so that little sideways infinity symbol is lined up with the hash mark, so it is calibrated. You can also make little marks or put on a paper tape for other ranges instead of using the round dots that don't match any range.

Now you can set it to infinity, but remember that you MUST turn the dial all the way past infinity to the stop, EVERY TIME before going from a close range to a longer range.
If you are set for 500 yds, you can go directly to 100 yds, but if you are set for 100 and want to set it to 500, you MUST go all the way back to the stop, and then go to 500.

This is because there is a fair amount of backlash (aka SLOP) in this wheel linkage to the focusing cell, so you can set it only from one direction to make sure the slop is always on one side. The other problem with it is, even if you decided that you wanted to calibrate from the other end... the recoil will push the cell back. SO you must ALWAYS set these dials from the infinity end of their scales.

To make it easy to not have to remember... I always start from the end stop, when I change range, no matter which direction I'm going in... it adds about 0.023 seconds!
---
Now... you gots a friend that says to set up a scope a different way???... he don't know doodly-squat about scopes.

The guy at the range said to do it a different way... he don't know either.

You know some guy who's in the Marines says to use your eyepiece to correct parallax... he doesn't know about optics either.

You got a friend that shoots benchrest and says something different... he don't know crapola!

This is the way, the only way, there is no other way.

You wanna "debate it", then go play golf, cuz you're wasting my time!

'lito (gettin' grumpy in my old age!)"

I may own a scope. Laughing!

Again...WTF glass is whipping your ass and what are the particulars of the rifle and what is it's application.

Then frost that humor,with a Treatise on your "one mile viewing"...if only for starters.

Funnier than hell,that Clueless Dumbphuqqs asking questions,soon "think" they can give "answers".

That Magic Pixie Dust is funny schit!.............

You don't see it, but he's trying help you.



Parallax adjustment has backlash. Lets say that you get parallax removed at 400 yards and then slip the ring so it aligns to 400 yards. You will not be able to adjust it to 400 yards later and it be parallax free at 400.

Yes, well, some guys seem to let confidence become arrogance. If he knew the answer he could have said it. Instead he did what he did.

My knowledge is exactly what the write-up I posted above says. It also says there is backlash in the mechanism, so you have to start at the travel stop past the infinity mark, and dial back to remove parallax. The settings won't always be the same for various shots, but it will get you close. So my understanding is that the best way to remove parallax is always to dial back while moving your eye around a bit to make sure.

The knob realignment is really just an OCD thing to make a person feel better. But, there you have it, and my original question on this particular scope.

Couldn't you just turn the knob to the end of its travel?

You are on the right track. The reason there are set screws on the side focus is allow an individual to realign the scale after he focuses the reticule to his eye.

Just loosen the screws and the side focus dial will spin free and allow you to set the scale. Your issue is trying to pull the dial out, there is a flange on the focus shaft that requires you to back the set screws out further to completely remove the focus dial.

I always set my focus dial so the infinity mark is properly aligned. It is not an OCD thing. I don't want to be fiddling with the focus when it is time to shoot and simply dial to infinity for any shot on game past 400yds.

Finally. Thanks for the response. Your post is exactly what I had intended. Last night I went so far as to completely remove the set screw from the knob. For some reason it would not disengage from the shaft and free wheel independently. Hence this thread.

Well wouldn't you know I pulled it out of the safe earlier this morning and tried again. Set screw partially out and the knob easily came free. So I took it out and matched it up with infinite distance = no parallax. Problem solved. Must have had an odd bind yesterday.

Two pages of know it all nonsense but finally someone gets it. Why anyone would not realign the knob is beyond me but if they can read they'd eventually catch up.

Good grief.

Then "infinity" isn't infinity.

The whole thing sounds like a "but these knobs go to eleven" situation.

No problem.

You are also no the right track with the backlash. Always focus from far to near. The focus mechanism is pushing the lens elements forward that way and will hold them in position against the recoil.

The knob on my 4.5-14x40LR doesn't have a scale with various yardages marked, just some lines with an infinity symbol on one of them.

Since with this type of knob we're interested in dumping backlash, and we always want to come down to whatever setting we arrive at, why not just turn it to the stop, dial down until everything is copacetic and quit there, scale be damned?

Focus adjustments go beyond infinity in all optics.

Buzz?

I've been thinking it too - having to fight the temptation to lob a cartoon all day....

David

The knob on my 4.5-14x40LR doesn't have a scale with various yardages marked, just some lines with an infinity symbol on one of them.

Since with this type of knob we're interested in dumping backlash, and we always want to come down to whatever setting we arrive at, why not just turn it to the stop, dial down until everything is copacetic and quit there, scale be damned?

I always set my focus dial so the infinity mark is properly aligned. It is not an OCD thing. I don't want to be fiddling with the focus when it is time to shoot and simply dial to infinity for any shot on game past 400yds.

It helps if you read the thread. I will quote what I wrote above to save the time of writing the exact same thing twice.

You are free to do whatever floats your boat but Leupold designed the side focus dial to be set for an individual's vision. Some of us use that feature.

Good Luck

I guess it bugs me that some finite distance is used to "calibrate infinity" on the knob.

Lol, academic vs reality a bit. I can understand your struggle.

Cheers.

Aim and focus on something 1000 yards away, and label it a thousand dangit!