Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics For non ranging sub 300 yard shooting FFP or SFP?

Never owned a FFP riflescope so I don't know what I am missing. The bushnell LRHS seems pretty cool what does FFP bring to the party when almost all of your shooting is 300 yards or less? Living in the southeast 300 + yard shots can be a rarity.

SFP will be fine. The main benefit for FFP is not to be able to range, its to be able to use the reticle at all magnifications for wind and elevation holds. Really only beneficial in scopes with powers higher than 12x-15X.

After I ordered my new Tract, I played a bit with their online calculator. Plugged in the figures for Hornady factory 123gr SST 6.5 Grendel ammo. Using the SFP Tplex, I found some good combinations of zero and scope power that will allow me to use the bottom post as a holdover at longish range (for me). I'll have to verify it on the range, but it's a nice feature.

I know guys have been doing the same thing for years on their own, but the mathematically-challenged like me will appreciate this, I believe. It doesn't limit you to 100 yard increments either, but rather 10, IIRC.

We can't all be mathman.

That's a load of a scope for 300 and closer.

You can't win. we have gone over the edge.

Whatever comes in a 6x42 scope.

Officially.

Aren't those Meoptas still serving you well?

Yes, I like them very much.

For a long time I have been using FFP 1.5-6x42 scopes for deer and I have no use for ranging and probably never will shoot a deer past 300 yards.

But... I will never be without one as my main hunting glass. If you can get you hands on a Meopta Artemis 2000 it compares quite well with anything from Zeiss, S&B and Swarovski. It will be much, much less expensive. You get the super low light capability, the reticle is just as important as the glass.

What power of scope do you want. Imo scope power should be the biggest factor sfp or ffp. Unless you would dial below max power for some reason to make a long range shot sfp. Above about 16x consider ffp below that stick with sfp............generally. To me a long range hunting scope doesn't need more than 15x max. So I choose sfp

I thought so as well, but now everyone has to have a tactical scope! I think for the money I beginning to think I will roll the dice on a tract toric and see how long it lasts. I have a range I can visit to shoot out to 800, but I have not been there yet....

FFP scopes have two fundamental benefits:

a) They are inherently more reliable indicators of point of aim. In zoom scopes, the erector lenses (those after objective and before eyepiece) move forward and backward. This movement causes some wobble in their lateral position so they will not produce the same exact image center at the SFP. If your reticle is before these lenses (i.e FFP), you don't need to worry about this flaw. In most high-end scopes with SFP reticle, this wobble error is generally kept to less than 1 MOA but it is still there. I know that only ultra high-end Hensoldt scopes designed for military applications have this issue positively mitigated (their engineers told me that it costs approximately $200 per scope to check and eliminate this error).

b) The reticle remain the same size compared to target at all magnifications. So, they can be used for range finding, bullet drop estimation etc. at all magnifications.

None of these are critical for deer or general big game hunting at reasonable ethical ranges. So, feel free to choose a good SFP scope from brands that you trust.

Sincerely,
-Omid

Where does "reasonable ethical range" begin and end?

Distance/conditions that you can't put the bullet where it belongs with 100% certainty

Sucks the LRHS G2 reticle is not illuminated. Funny the NF SFP scopes have such a problem, 1 MOA or 5 inches off at 500 yards? I had not heard of that, surprising

That is because it's not happening. Don't believe everything you read

I was being sarcastic, I have an NXS 2.5-10 x 42.

As I mentioned in my original post, in good SFP scopes, the point-of-impact shift due to zoom is controlled to about 1 MOA or less. This would be barely detectable in a normal-power hunting scope such as your 2.5-10X (It is hard to aim accurately at 2.5X and we can't tell if a shift in point of impact or group size is caused by us or by the scope or by other factors). If you have a bore sighter, you might be able to see if your scope has a shift during zoom. But even with a bore sighter the grid shown by the device is not easy to see at 2.5X. The shift in point of aim of an SFP scope -if it exist- becomes detectable only when the scope's minimum power is high, say 6X or 8X.

That said, I only have one SFP scope and I have not detected any shift in its point of aim under zoom. It is a Hensoldt 6-24X56 (pictured below). My other scopes are all FFP or fixed-power. But I also remember looking through a Schmidt and Bender scope at Shot Show of the type that has a reticle in FFP and a red dot at SFP. I could clearly see a shift in the relative position of the dot over the reticle during zoom. I was surprised as I was not expecting to be able to see that..

In summary, an SFP scope is susceptible to a shift in point of aim during zoom. This, however, is not a serious concern in good hunting scopes of nominal power.

Regards,
-Omid

You'd be way over scoped.