You might be wondering what I am playing at with the title. Is there even a wrong way of looking through a scope? Well, there is. Otherwise, guides like these wouldn’t exist, would they?
Let me clarify what I mean and help you not make the same mistake newbies tend to make.
Eliminate The Parallax
Use your eyes as the rear sight. You have to place them in the same place as the rest of the gun and then you’ll need to do that every time to avoid a parallax error. You might be wondering what’s parallax. Let me explain.
Parallax is an apparent displacement against a background. You can also say it’s a difference in the orientation of an object. If you are viewing an object at two different lines of sight, a parallax will happen. To eliminate that, you will need to keep your eyes level as I mentioned above.
Respect The Eye Relief
Every scope will have something called eye relief in its description. It’s the safe distance between your eye and the eyepiece of the scope. The eye relief indicates that you can use the scope from this distance without causing parallax or improper vision.
Place the stock of the gun at your shoulder and tilt your head forward or backward till you get the desired vision. Take some time to find out the distance that’s working for you and also is at a safe distance from the eyepiece damaging your face from the recoil.
Find The Best Vision
The best view is when you see the picture through the eyepiece lens and it fills out the entire lens. As you move your head forward from the best viewpoint the picture starts to collapse. When you tilt your head back to the right place and check again if that’s the best viewpoint for you or not.
If it is, then it’s better to take a mental note and always try to attain that angle and distance. If you are not finding a suitable angle and feel like the rings aren’t straight, then you should try to change the rings or level them. Leveling a pair of rings will eliminate a lot of vision-related issues.
Conclusion
That was rather short but I hope it was informative. If you are not getting the best possible view from your scope, then it’s a waste of money and time. You won’t be able to hit your targets or hunt down enemies from far away. I know a lot of you guys think that scope is similar to reflex sight and you can just use the stock eye relief information. But that’s not the truth.
I hope you now know a bit better about how vision works through sight and how you can see better without changing anything. Thanks for reading and I will see you on the next one.
Hi, I’m Brent Hansford. A writer turned hunter & now sharing my love for the sport through writing. As I practically breathe weapons, I firmly believe I’m capable of providing you with new knowledge about firearms and hunting. My mission is to help more people get better at hunting & master the weapons. Let me help with unleashing the beast within you!
