how far back your eye from a SCOPE (not red dot)...

[Barms 98]

Okay so the consensus with iron sights and a red dot (and for general AR good habit) is to have your head/eye very close to the receiver, like right up on the charging handle...   but what is the optimal distance for a real scope?   I started tinkering around with it (not mounted to my rifle yet) but I actually think I get a better, full lens) view when my head is farther away from the lens than from really close up to it.

 

Does this sound right?  I haven't googled around enough to learn about the parallax and stuff like that.   It just appeared like the view/image was getting compressed as my eye got closer to the lens vs farther away..  (and when I mean farther away I mean like 10 inches).  

 

The reason I'm asking is right now my stock is in the shortest position so I'm trying to figure out if I want the scope mounted closer or farther down the rail..

 

thanks!

 

[checko 180]

Depends what scope you have. They have different eye relief.  What scope do you have?

[Blake 50]

Depends what scope you have. They have different eye relief.  What scope do you have?

 

This.  Eye relief completely depends on what scope you are using.  I briefly had a TA31 that I sold bc you had to be about 1" from the scope (nose to charging handle).  Went with the ta11 bc eye relief was much better at around 3".  Other scopes have as much as a 4" or better relief. 

[Malice4you 627]

As said above, it depends.

 

DO NOT LOOK INTO THE SCOPE WHEN DOING THE FOLLOWING.

A decent single-emitter/bulb flashlight can show you where the focus point (i.e. where you're gonna want your eye) of a scope is.  Shine the flashlight into the front objective of the scope, and take a piece of blank white paper and move it behind the scope's rear eyepiece, starting from say an inch from the eyepiece, and moving farther away.  At some point, the projected light on the piece of paper should be a pinpoint.  That is your optimum spot for a proper sight picture.  Adjust the position of the scope accordingly and there you go.  Just turn off the flashlight before you look through the scope to verify it's in the right position...

 

After that, simply make sure there is no "black crescent moon" shape in your sight picture through the scope, that indicates you are not centered behind the scope - you should get a full circular sight picture from the scope.  If you shoot without getting a proper sight picture through the scope, your shots will be off.

[Barms 98]

It's a Simmons 4x12 40. It's not high end at all. Yes I was getting the half moon thing and it was driving me crazy and I wasn't getting that before I mounted it because i was able to change tje distance so that's what lead to this post

 

I will try the paper thing above. Thanks for the replies !

[pjd832 146]

As said above, it depends.

 

DO NOT LOOK INTO THE SCOPE WHEN DOING THE FOLLOWING.

A decent single-emitter/bulb flashlight can show you where the focus point (i.e. where you're gonna want your eye) of a scope is.  Shine the flashlight into the front objective of the scope, and take a piece of blank white paper and move it behind the scope's rear eyepiece, starting from say an inch from the eyepiece, and moving farther away.  At some point, the projected light on the piece of paper should be a pinpoint.  That is your optimum spot for a proper sight picture.  Adjust the position of the scope accordingly and there you go.  Just turn off the flashlight before you look through the scope to verify it's in the right position...

 

After that, simply make sure there is no "black crescent moon" shape in your sight picture through the scope, that indicates you are not centered behind the scope - you should get a full circular sight picture from the scope.  If you shoot without getting a proper sight picture through the scope, your shots will be off.

I understand the principle here ...but my question is how do you know the actual position of you eye during shouldering/cheek weld?....I personally loosen the mount fully on the magnified optic shoulder and weld in my natural position on that particular weapon,and rest on something take the optic and place on rail and while still in a natural firing position slide optic fore and aft until correct eye relief is achieved...mount/zero ..done ....this has always worked for me.....I've shot other peoples rifles and when shouldering had to slide my head back and forth for proper eye relief

[vladtepes 1,060]

I understand the principle here ...but my question is how do you know the actual position of you eye during shouldering/cheek weld?....I personally loosen the mount fully on the magnified optic shoulder and weld in my natural position on that particular weapon,and rest on something take the optic and place on rail and while still in a natural firing position slide optic fore and aft until correct eye relief is achieved...mount/zero ..done ....this has always worked for me.....I've shot other peoples rifles and when shouldering had to slide my head back and forth for proper eye relief

I pretty much do the same thing...

[Malice4you 627]

My suggestion above is to quickly find the optimum eye relief of the scope, for one where you don't have the information available in front of you.  For me, it allows me to quickly gauge where I think the scope should be positioned based on my cheek weld with the gun, and then I fine tune from there, more or less using your method.

 

If I am introducing a new shooter to the rifle/scope, I will use my flashlight method to show them where they should put their eye...I've seen people searching for a long time to try to find where they should place their head and look through the scope, this has been a very quick way to show them and they find that sweet spot in a few seconds now.

[Barms 98]

I'm gonna use both methods. !!

[raz-0 1,259]

Nose to charging handle. 

 

If that is not the proper eye relief for the scope, move the scope until it is. 

 

It's why the larue SPR-e mount and AD recon-x mount as well as others exist.