Rifle Scopes Front Focal Plane and parallax

[Eric B.]

Does a FFP reticle give less observable parallax than 2nd FP? Or does that violate the laws of optical physics?


There is enough to do when hunting (or competing at UKD) that changing the "left turret" setting may get overlooked.

Probably in the near future scopes like the Burris Eliminator (but of higher quality) will automatically change the parallax setting when a lased target is chosen.

 

[bh-ltr]

Lower magnification helps. Thats why you usually don't see the knob on scopes with lower top end magnification.

 

[bh-ltr]

But no matter what rig you're running FFP is the way to go in my opinion. The only reason I'd consider SFP would be if the reticle had no ranging subtensions what so ever. Granted they are useful at times but I'm of the opinion that rulers should ALWAYS be drawn to scale.

 

[Eric B.]

OK, I understand the "magnification change = parallax adjustment" concept. I have an old school Burris Black Diamond 3.5x - 12x, 2nd FP scope W/ parallax adjustment (on the objective bell).

I just wondered if 1st FP scopes changed that situation at all.

 

[CSTactical]

Lower the power the less parallax issue.

Mike @ CSTACTICAL

 

[MZ5]

I have also read somewhere... the notion that FFP scopes are less-afflicted with/by parallax issues. I believe I can understand where the idea would come from, but I do not believe it is the case. Regrettably, I think I can not offer the mathematical proof of it at present. IF there is a difference in the degree of error, experience shows it to be small relative to the total error, so one would still want or need to make parallax adjustments when changing between targets at significantly different ranges.

The alternative, of course, is to ALWAYS stay DEAD-CENTER behind the scope. If you can/could do that, parallax adjustment is completely useless to you.