Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Six random scopes - a comparison of reticles and eyebox

GrimJim...I guarantee that Viper HS would have more than enough eye relief. Next time you see one, take a look. Its a fantastic scope.

I was happy to do it Ringman...since the wife started working nights, I have a lot of time at home with our 10 month old....

Nuguy, thanks for the info on Conquest reticles. The only other Conquest i've owned was another 4x32....I will have to take a peek through a 3-9x40 as im not as fond of this reticle as I thought I was....

Josh

Yeah the 3-9x40 conquest has a standard spacing between heavy outer post but the inner lines are very thin.

Has anyone actually measured the Bushnell Elite 3x9 eye relief? 3.3" seems a bit short IMHO. Bushnell scope have long tubes on them so mounting on long actions should be easy. If a scope doesn't have at least 3.5" of eye relief I pass on them. The closer your eye is to the ocular lens the brighter the scope seems to be. That's all well and good but I can only hunt the standard hours for game here. Getting whacked by a scope is not pleasant.

Several people have reported, me included, that the stated eye relief on the 3-9x40 Elite 4200 is very conservative.
I don't have one in the stable at the moment but IIRC when I measured my last one it was closer to 4" than 3".

I would have been all over the Elite 4200 1.75x6 with the Firefly reicle if the eye relief was at least 3.5" I had no way of checking it other than ordering one. Around here it's mostly Leupold and cheap scopes. Gander Mountain in Charleston does have a decent selection. There's a Cabelas going in this year in Charleston.

The actual users of the 4200's report more than adequate eye relief. Longer eye relief than Bushnell advertises.
Folks who don't actually have a 4200 most often are the people who claim the eye relief is inadequate.
That has been my observation anyway.

I guess Bushnell should post eye relief numbers based on the best case numbers rather than the worst case numbers.

I had a Burris Signature and a Pentax Lightseeker that didn't have the stated eye relief. They've both gone down the road.

Dave, you should've ordered that scope.
The Bushnell Elite warranty includes a one year, no questions asked, 100% refund provision. This is in addition to the regular, anyone, anytime, no receipt required lifetime warranty.
You would've been out shipping costs at most if you didn't like the scope.

If I'd have known then what I've learned now I would have been all over it. I'm pleased with the scopes I have now. I've gone through a few to get to where I am now. I'm not a diehard Leupold fan but they have one plus most other's don't and that's choice. I can order what I want from their custom shop and I've done so 3 times. I don't believe Leupold scopes are the best. I've found the Burris Signature, Pentax Lightseeker, and Nikon Monarch scopes to have better resolution and seem brighter to my eye but for me thicker reticles work best for my hunting. I can live with what may I lose in a bit of clarity or brightness for the capability. Function over form. After all, a scope is a gun sight first and foremost.

What a wake up call. I thought scopes were a status symbol. What do I know?

A 4200 4-16X40 graces my .375-.416 Rem Mag and my Savage .257 Weatherby. I have not had any problem with the scope hitting anyone who has fired them.

Ringman, I think you may have missed my point. The ability to see true colors or see the fleas on an animal at long range may be nice but are not as useful as being able to use the scope for your hunting needs IMO. My needs are for hunting here where I live. The ability to pick off Aborigine midgets on the dark side of the moon is not one I need. I'm sure there are "better" scopes than I own but most likely at a higher cost to me or have features I don't like.

The bolded portion of your post really was a wake-up call for me. "Better" is totally subjective, being determined by the user of the scope. More expensive doesn't necessarily mean "better" to all hunters, or even a large portion of them.

I have owned and used, nikons, burris, sightron, zeiss, weaver, redfield, pentax of course leupold and probably some more that I can't think of right now and out of all those scopes the elite 3200 or 4200 in 3x9 is the easiest of all of them to get behind aquire a target and fire. the rifles fit well and comes up right with an elite on it. ermicus says eye box is only back and forth not side to side, I call BS on that eye box to me is when I throw the gun up am I getting a good picture all the way around, regardless if I am standing, shooting from a bench, prone off a bipod, shooting from a bipod sitting, or who knows what position. the elite is going to do it way better than a leupold or zeiss. these scopes have traded eyerelief for eyebox.

I use leupold because they have the features I want with target turrets, and a reticle like the TMR. I can also make a zero stop with leupold. if I could do this with a bushnell all my leupolds would be for sale tomorrow. oh and when I go to focus the reticle on an elite, it actually focuses, not leave my eye strained and leaving me wondering if the reticle was better 2 turns ago on a leupold.

E, a box is 3-D object and therefore not the back and forth only leeway...Left and right is also a legit test.

If you are taking snap shots in a hurry, you want to find the sight as fast as you can in all 3 dimensions and not only in the �back and forth dimension�, unless you always nail the left-right / up-down spot nomatter of the back-forth spot of your cheek weld.

Aic

If one is thinking about better being able to distinguish deer antlers in the woods then you guys may be a little surprised at the following. The deer antlers are 131 yards away from the viewing point. My son-in-law can see in the dark without a flashlight so I will use his experience with four of my scopes. The scopes were laying on sandbags. He adjusted the scopes to as clear as he could get the "picture". The magnification was the lowest setting he could see the fork on the antlers.

Bushnell 6500 4 1/2-30X50 - 7X
Swarovski z5 5-25X52 - 6X
Weaver 6-24X40 - 6 1/8X
Tssco Worldclass - 5 7/8X