A close friend and business partner[Stuart Elliott] of Australia is going to introduce a new March scope at the shot show. Stuart worked with March on this one. He is a Hall of Fame shooter and competes in FClass and long range BR.



It is called the 5X-40X FFP. Stuart does have a website. www.benchrest.com.au Click on the BRT shop when you get to the website.

Info from Stuart.

Hi Butch,
Well this scope is first focal plane. Where the design allows the reticle to increase in magnification. Has many advantages for Tactical, Military and Hunters. Not a lot of use for target shooters. Because the spacings between each of the graduations on the reticle remain the same distance apart regardless of what magnification you choose it is useful for two reasons. You can use it for ranging if the height of the man or the animal is known. For example the average man is just under 2 metres so if his height fits between 2 Mil Rad on the reticle he is 1,000 metres away. Etc, etc. But the most useful part is the trajectory drop points. So if I calculate my trajectory to say 1,000 yards, zero the rifle at say 200 and I work out exactly each distance downrange that my bullet will coincide with the graduated reticle I can draw a simple long range trajectory or drop chart which relates to that reticle. So, 100 yards might be just above the centre dot, 300 yards at 2.3, 400 yards at 3.8, 500 yards at 5.3 etc.
Now when I go shoot at something it does not matter what magnification I choose to use. That drop chart remains identical for any magnification. Which is very handy for long range hunting etc.

The 5x-40x is by far the biggest magnification FFP scope in the world. Schmidt & Bender have a 5x-25x for example. In fact this scope is our competition.
There will be many people who are FFP fans that will complain that 40x is too much. Until they use it. Even if they never shoot at 40x they will use it as a spotting scope.

There are some people who will use this scope for targets. Many the people who are just big fans of FFP will want it. 40x is enough for F class or most long range shooting. There is one other slight advantage of FFP. That is the the point of aim does not change over the entire zoom range. Whereas 2nd focal plane scopes which are variable magnification do change POA when you zoom. It is minimal but the industry standard is 1/2 MOA. In practice this does not matter. If an F class shooter chooses to shoot one target on his Nightforce at 42x and the next at 30x there will be a slight POA difference. As long as he he does not change the magnification during the course of shooting one target it will not be a problem for him.

Attached are some photos I took on the weekend of the prototype scope I am testing. This is the model which I suggested should be built. Kelbly originally did not want it as they though it was way too big. But I pushed and I got Turk Tukano to support me and DEON said they would build it and send a prototype to me and Turk. Now it will be officially released at the Shot Show in Vegas.

BTW, I am going to the shot show. Will be a quick short trip. 5 days. Are you going?

Stuart





Butch,
I just added some text to these reticle pictures. I still cannot post on that forum so if you want to post them go right ahead. Just explain that the picture are indicative only, not perfect as they were just snapped with a phone camera. The blurr on the edges is not the scope. I have other photos that are not blurred at the edges but are overall worse photos. The object of these photos is to illustrate how the FFP reticle works. The spacings between each graduation remains the same at any magnification.

Many thanks,
Stuart.