Agreed that the 3.5"-4.5" is adequate up to a point.

But as I watch my nose heal from my .358 Norma's caressing last weekend I have to ask why can't someone make a medium power scope with about 5"-7" of eye relief?

They make scout scopes of low power with that kind of eye relief, and handgun scopes in high power variables, but no medium fixed (like 4x) or low range variable (such as 1.5-6 or 2x-7x) with enhanced eye relief.

Given all the magnums out there and the current lightweight craze going on, you'd think there would be a few fixed 4x models or 2x7s with about 5.5" to 6" of eye relief. I know field of view suffers but field of view is of limited value except on DGRs. And FOV would still be as good as scout scopes and better than handgun scopes.

I know it sounds like I'm whining but with all the high-power variables out there a guy that wants a sensible 2-7x on his elk rifle now has to go buy a M8 2.5x and extension rings to get a measly 4.9" of eye relief. Or rather 3.9" with my glasses.

When you wear glasses (and we ALL wear safety glasses, don't we?) you lose an inch of eye relief off the bat.

Is there some engineering obstacle I'm not seeing? (pardon the pun...)

Maybe they don't want a large diameter rear bell situated right over the loading/ejection port?

H. C.

The longer the eye relief the narrower the field of view.

Like Howard, I have always assumed that long eye relief means a restricted field of view. That was a trade off I found when I compared a Swarovski Nova 6x42 side by side with a Leupold M8 6x42...

Having said that does'nt the"top of the range" Simmons with the aspherical glass boast long eye relief?
If they can do it surely Leupold and the Euro scope makes can too?

Peter

Thanks for the input, guys.

As I mentioned, field of view would suffer, but each shot to the nose changes my "perspective" on its relative value. I think the reason we can get by with less eye relief on most rifles, even the heavy-recoiling "laser-mags", is we generally crawl the stock to get maximum edge-to-edge view so all the slack is taken out of the neck and shoulder. That's fine off the bags but offhand in the field one tends to mount with the head furthur back on the stock, like a shotgun. In order to get max picture for offhand shooting the scope generally needs to be mounted slightly furthur back to get the maximun picture on a quick offhand mount, at least in my case. This leaves more slack in the shoulders and neck. And thus more chance of getting smacked.

On a non-DGR, once you've located the target (and checked what is behind it) field of view is rather moot in most hunting situations. The scout- rifle fans seem to have accepted narrow FOV. Handgun hunters like myself have too.

Henry,

I did some measurements on the rifle.
Back of rear ring to front of eyeglass lens, right at 7". About 8" to actual eye. This with wearing only a tee shirt.

Ocular bells run 2"-2.5". That leaves about 4.5"-5" available for eye relief. Add about .5 with extension rings to get 5"-5.5" with glasses, about 6"-6.5" without glasses.

The ocular would not be in front of the rear receiver bridge so would not interfere with loading or ejection even with extension rings. (Extension rings might were it not for the base height)

The way mfgs present eye relief may be rather deceptive. I believe some are using measurements to the rear ocular lens surface rather than the rear of the bell, which is of the course the relevant measurement.

The way I think, if a large caliber non-DGR rifle is designed to take large animals, heavy recoil is a given. Nor is high magnification necessary to take the shot on a large animal but some magnification is useful at times.

They could give another inch of relief in a low range variable without a huge FOV loss.

Tool up, Leupold! I guarantee you four units sold!

BTW, Pete,

My Simmons Aetec 3.8-12x gives about 3" from rear of bell to front eyeglass lens surfaces. It seems essentially consistent right up through the range.

My best guess is this translates to about .5" more than other scopes of this power range. But it is a heavy scope.

I'll take all the eye-relief I can get, pure and simple.

AD

Swarovski's sprung eyepiece works - if you mess up and get the head position wrong it doesn't hurt.

Yeah buddy! Get those scopes out there, away from my beak!

I mounted a Burris pistol scope on an off-the-shelf 700 Rem way out on the barrel using the rear sight holes and the holes in the forward receiver ring. I LOVE it!

I'm a bad stock crawler and have been a position shooter for decades, so going prone is second nature to me. Krinking my neck trying to back away from my scope really irritates me. So does getting bonked by it.

My agitated two cents.

Redial

I've seen several people get nailed by scopes and the cause was always one of two things.
1. They were shooting in a strange position
2. Their stock didn't fit them well to begin with.

The only time I ever personally got hit was on a fast shot where I threw the rifle up to my shoulder poorly and the butt plate just simply slipped across my shoulder until my head stopped things.

My point being the normal eye relief seems to work about 98% of the time for about 98% of the shooters and the poor fellows who do get bit by their scopes probably should look at cause 1 or 2 above as the real culprit.

If we extend the eye relief several more inches, assuming it were optically possible, then we would run into the problem of where and how do we mount the thing?

Anyone consistantly getting hit may simply need a thicker recoil pad on their stock to scoot them back a little. JMHO

[ 06-12-2002, 21:52: Message edited by: Pecos45 ]

I can't say I have tried it, but apparently the way to go with long eye relief low mag scopes is to keep both eyes open while shooting. Not sure how high a magnification this will work with but it might be worth a try.

Steve,

I'm not doubt what you say about the "practical" eye relief of your Atec ( could not remember the model) but I am sure Simmons advertise it at around 4.5" or 5"...

Regards,

Peter

I'm 6'5" tall.

"NO" production rifle fits me.

I got tired of my eye being killed by my Weaver K6 everytime I shot my rather "warm" handloads of .444 Marlin. It was either back off on the loads (NOT what I had the gun built for), move the scope forward (I have a custom octagon barrel on it and I was NOT going to mount an AO system on it), or... get a longer buttstock.

My buddy, who is talented in such things, used plywood and putty to "build" me a longer buttstock. I sent this "pattern" to a stockmaker that's only about two hours away. The result? A "perfect" buttstock made for "ME," which now also has a Monte Carlo type comb (I had him build that part up, too, before sending off the pattern). Now, my eye lines up with the scope, the scope comes NOWHERE NEAR my eye, and I can alternately use the Marble tang sight on the gun as well.

Stop fighting things, guys. Make the gun fit you instead of the other way around.

Russ

[ 06-13-2002, 07:27: Message edited by: Russell E. Taylor ]

Steve Y,

I wasn't thinking that hard about it and didn't have a rifle in my hands when I replied before. Of course the rear bell wouldn't be over the loading/ejection port. The rear ring is behind the port, and the rear bell is behind the rear ring.

I went to a fixed 4X Leupold to get the scope further from my head. This scope has a shorter rear bell than any adjustable. The short eye relief of my old 3-9X was never a problem until the first time I tried firing from a sitting position. I had to loosen the sling and push the gun away to get the scope far enough forward that I could see a full bright picture with no black around the edges. Of course, when I fired, recoil brought the butt back into my shoulder where it belonged and the rear bell of the scope against my dense head. I adjusted my position a bit and shot again. Much lighter tap. Someone asked to go downrange and change targets, and I went with him. I was about halfway to my target when I felt something dripping off the end of my nose. I found I had a big cut over my eye and blood all over my face. I still wonder why that guy didn't say anything. Butterfly bandage took care of the damage. Now my 3-9X sits on my 10/22, and my 30-06 has the fixed 4X.

H. C.

I agree fully about stock fit. This one is pretty good after I built up the comb.

But I would point out that increasing length of pull does not allow you to increase distance from the scope unless the scope is too close already.

You must get to within a certain distance of the scope to get a full picture. At this point adding length of pull to increase eye relief (or mounting scope farther forward) will black out the edges.

Thanks for the advice, fellas. Guess I'll check out the Leupold M8s. I may not ever even miss the magnification. (I know my nose won't...)

The point is though, Steve, if the stock fits well the scope can't hit you unless the rifle kicks awfully hard. My Dad looks kind of like a retired boxer (and not a very good one at that!)from his repeated scope cuts. He is a lanky 6'4" and the stocks are too short. Shooting off the bench the rifle is too low and he ends up crawling up on it. I never get hit because I'm shorter at 6'2"and I've learned from watching him. Regards, Bill.