Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Eye relief Leupold, Zeiss, Swarovski

I am shopping for another quality scope. Leupold has been my choice in the past because of the generous eye relief. Is there anyone out there that took a pass on Zeiss or Swarovski because of the eye relief?

Although many of the Zeiss and Swaro scopes have short eye relief, I use them on soft recoiling rifles, like I have a Swaro PF 6x42 that's mounted on a 250 Savage, with no problems using it with it's 3.5 inches of eye relief.
The Zeiss Conquest in 4x has 4 inches of eye relief, and that's about as good as it gets. IIRC, the Conquest in 3-9x also has lots of eye relief.
Have never used a high priced Zeiss, so no experience with any of them.
I have a S&B 4x36 in a 257 Roberts and it works fine on that rifle, from the eye relief perspective.

250,

Most of the newer European range of Zeiss come with 90mm (3.54") while the newer Swarovski' s like the Z6 tend to have an even longer eye relief at between 3.75" and 4" depending on the model.

The older Swarovski's such as the PH mentioned by DMB are actually listed as having between 85mm and 90mm, (3.3" to 3.5mm)again, depending on the model.

Meopta have about the shortest listed eye relief I've seen at 80mm (approx 3")and on paper I would say that is "too short"..But heres the rub...I have a 4x32mm Meopta on a CZ550 9.3x62mm, I've also used a 7x50mm Meopta on it for load development, and I never had a hint of trouble with eye relief with either scope, and I wear glasses too...

After pondering why, I came to the conclusion that stock design is at least as important as the eye relief figures of the scope....

Another thing you will notice is that on the European scopes, the eye relief will remain more or less constant through the zoom range, where as with Leupolds I've tried it changes dramatically...A friend had a Leupold in something like 3-14x50mm and I found the change in eye relief very off putting.

This may be because the Leupold had the reticule in the second focal plane, where as the European scopes I am used to are all first focal plane, but I am not really sure..But its something else to check before you buy..

Regards,

Peter

Peter,

Good info!!!
Thanks,

Don

Eye relief is one of those tricky things. Sometimes it's not what the specs say it is. If you read Barsness's post over at Optics Talk.com, "A comparison of two scopes," the Z-6 he tested checked out at something like 3.3 inches, not the 3.7 inches it's specs call for. This isn't unique to Swarovski, BTW.
I've got a new 4X, FXII Leupold that, when the image is focused for my eyes, the ER is 3.5 inches, not 4 inches. That's because I need to back out the ocular almost to the stop to properly focus the scope's image. In otherwords, due to my far sighted vision, I need to back it out considerably. In this particular scope, not the other Leupolds I own, it changes the ER.
There are a couple of other things that go along with some of the eye relief of various scopes.
Some do change ER when the magnification is changed. The Burris FFII I had for a while was like that. At 3X, it was 4.1 inches. But at 6X, it was down to 3.3 inches.
This may be annoying to those that do their shooting from one shooting position, but it can work for you. If you shoot off hand, sitting and prone, you'll find that your face hits the stock in different locations. Adjusting the magnification of such a variable ER scope can match these changes for a comfortable, flexible eye position when shooting.
It, this variable ER, also adds to the scope's eye box, the fore and aft leeway that the shooter has in positioning his head. Very nice to have if you hunt in wide temperature ranges and wear different levels of clothing, or you sometimes shoot uphill or downhill in a hurry.
Some variable scopes with a fixed eye relief do have pretty good eye boxes. The 3-9X40 Conquest I checked out has about half of the eye box at either 4X or 6X as my old 3.5-10X40 VariX III Leupold. But it still has a good half an inch's worth, which I could live with. Their 3.5-10X44 Conquest however, with 3.5 inches or less of ER has about half of the eye box of their 3-9X40. Not acceptable to me. E

Fantastic feedback from all.

Eremicus, you mentioned the eye box. Assuming you mean that sweet spot were there is no blackout side to side, forward and aft. In other words the ability to shoulder your rifle and there is the world. Some brands of scopes are like threading a needle. Drives me crazy when I pickup an expensive scope and you have to position it just right or blackout. When I was looking at the Ziess they were not bad.

You've given a pretty nice description of it.

You mentioned the Zeiss weren't bad. Which one(s)? Even for a given brand this quality varies from model to model. For example I find the 3.5-10x50 Zeiss Conquest to be nicer in this respect than the 44mm model.

Yes, that's what I'm refering to. Side to side doesn't vary much. Mostly it depends of the exit pupil size. Back and forth leeway means alot more to me.
You really have to mount a scope and hunt it to realize wether this means much to you with what you have. The trade off is a slight loss of image detail wih a large eye box. E

E, when YOU are shooting from a prone position, is your eye closer or further from the scope than say standing or sitting.

Listing To Old E He Shoot alot Of B.S. About anything Other Than Leupold{He Must Get Them For Free}..I've Hunted With All 3 Of Them and Never Had a Bit Of trouble With Any Of the Three{All The way Up to a 5 1/4 Pound Custom Model 7 In 350 Mag}. How Many Swarvoski Do You Own E ? How Much Time in The Feild Have you Had with A Zeiss Or swaroski.

How about a S w a r o v s k i ?

Classic prone position puts my eye closest to the scope. Standing the furthest back. E

I have nothing to add on the Swarovski but it is a fact that VariX series of Leupolds changes eye relief with power adjustment. The new ones I don't know check their website. The main reason I don't use them as much anymore is that there are just as good "other" scopes out there for less money.

The new VX3's apparently don't change in their eye relief specs as much as they used to according to the two different 3.5-10's that Barsness reently tested (3.3 to 3.7 inches). That's better than they were in the past.

To answer the original question: No, I have not passed on a euro-scope due to the eye relief. Have never been bit by a scope either and i have run Tascos all the way up to Zeiss, S&B, Swaro, etc. If you mount your rifle properly, no need to worry about the scope popping you in the noggin.

I prefer fixed eye relief and generous FOV in the variables I choose to use. Leupold falls short in these two categories.

I have nothing against "fixed" eye relief scopes per se, I enjoy using Nikon Gold and Zeiss Conquest scopes that I either own or to which I have ready access. But I just don't get the big deal being made all the time about Leupold's variable eye relief.

I just finished mounting a new 1.75-6x32 VX-III on my main hunting rifle. I placed it so when I shoulder the rifle the eye relief and sight picture are perfect with the scope set at the maximum 6x. Guess what? When I shoulder the rifle with the scope on 1.75x the sight picture is just fine. No blackout or other problems.

This method has also worked perfectly for a 3-9x40 Vari-X II, a 2.5-8x36 Vari-X III, a 3.5-10x40 Vari-X III, and a 4.5-14x40LR VX-III all on this same rifle.

I have one Leupold where I could see the varible eye relief causing trouble for some, a 6.5-20x40LR VX-III. But the way I've got it mounted it's working fine for me, particularly since I primarily use it at 12x and up.

The new Leica riflescopes have 4" of eye relief through the power range... something to think about if you are shooting a hard kicker... 2.5-10x42 or 3.5-14x42 cover the bases for most hunting. Ovis_Chaser

As a matter of fact I had not realized or the change in eye relief had been improved! I wish I had known this prior to my most recent purchase. I got a good deal on a 2.5 x 8 Conquest from Doug and its truly 2.5 power vs the Leupold 2.7 so the FOV is 40ft I think at 2.5X, but the bolt just barely clears the rear objective and I think the VX3 Leupold objective is smaller diameter.

Where did you see those test figures by Barsness for Leupold Roy ? I've noted that the new Z6 he tested had an ER of 3.3 inches, not 3.7 as they claim.
I think he did suggest to Koshkin that the Leupolds he tested only varied an inch in their respective ER's as the magnification was changed. E

He was talking about how the new VX3's he tested didn't vary as much as the older models did. It was mentioned in a Nikon thread where the topic got a little derailed about eye relief and such. The main jist was that he pointed out that the ER only varied 4/10 th's of an inch from top to bottom. For me, that's a good thing.

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