quote:

Originally posted by NikonUser:

Not sure why the mirage is preventing you from using higher magnification. I regularly shoot in mirage and never lessen the power. You learn to use the mirage and depend on it.

No doubt mirage is our friend for wind calls. I too have learn to use it, depend on it.

Steel matches I'm shooting only feedback we get is hit or miss, need to see my impacts. High magnification, thick mirage...very difficult to see impacts. Not uncommon in thick mirage for me to be at 12-15X at 1000yds. A local match fritz and I previously shot had a "Long Ball" stage 1150-1350. Match director would set up his mega buck Hendsolt 40X? spotter for us. In heavy mirage that spotter was worthless, couldn't see impacts. In those conditions we would take turns getting behind our rifles at lower magnification and call hits/misses for each other.

Let me add to the earlier posting. I hit "Post now" before I was done.

I blame too much partying as my namesake is celebrating its 100 birthday today. They announced an absolutely phenomenal camera to celebrate; now an object of desire, the Nikon D850.

Anyway, back to the mirage and why it doesn't bother me.

When I was shooting with my Weaver T-36, mirage was the absolute bane of my shooting existence. The 44 inch aiming black viewed through that inexpensive scope looked like a crazed amoeba on crack. It would pulsate and shimmer and change shape right in front of my disbelieving eye. No way to shoot in that, but since it was a fixed power scope, I had no choice. Scores would suffer.

When I started using my NXS 12-42X56, I noticed that the amoeba didn't appear to be on as much crack as before but it would still pulsate and change shape, however, now I could crank the power down into the mid 20s or so and the pulsation would level off though the shimmering continued unabated.

When I got my March-X, I noticed that the mirage wasn't bothering me at all now. I shoot it at 40X so that I can get a sight picture that shows me the target on either side of mine (to see if they encounter something I don't see,) and also, I see the target number to prevent crossfires. That last bit doesn't always work. I crossfired 3 weeks ago at the last 1000yard match. Shot a beautiful 10 on my neighbor's target and collected a big fat 0 on my score card.

The target is in no way misshapen and the aiming black does not pulsate of change shape. Instead, what I do see appears like a fast moving river going across one way or the other, when I can even detect it in my riflescope. On the other hand, my non-ED glass spotting scope shows me the mirage in living color, just as I want it.

I've talked to several other F-classers and some never wind down the magnification on their scopes.

And it's not like me never get mirage in south Texas, 10 months out of the year.

Little drift here. Back to the Long Ball stage. It was always interesting to me how some, mostly new shooters would focus on doing well on that stage, tag that furthest target. Much tougher targets then those to hit. One target I had a tough time with. Shooting position on top of ridge, shooting down hill 10 degrees or so, body same angle, 4" diamond at 450yds, wind ripping/funneling through a large valley... Often after the match we would shoot a stage for fun waiting on other to finish. I would go right to that 4" diamond, most others would go for the long ball targets.

I've been on the 1000yd F-Class range countless times at the Colorado Rifle Club practicing, confirming dope. The club allows us to put up steel at 1050yds while BR, F-Class shooters are practicing. Many times I watched their targets go up and down, someone in the pits putting up a markers on their targets... I can see those markers very easily at 25X through my scopes in heavy mirage. Can not see impacts on the steel or in the dirt bank at that same magnification in those conditions. Different game. OP stated he's shooting at steel as well.

quote:

Originally posted by offgrid:
I've been on the 1000yd F-Class range countless times at the Colorado Rifle Club practicing, confirming dope. The club allows us to put up steel at 1050yds while BR, F-Class shooters are practicing. Many times I watched their targets go up and down, someone in the pits putting up a markers on their targets... I can see those markers very easily at 25X through my scopes in heavy mirage. Can not see impacts on the steel or in the dirt bank at that same magnification in those conditions. Different game. OP stated he's shooting at steel as well.

I'm confused here. The 3 inch white spotters require very little magnification to see. I can use 7X field glasses to monitor the line and see the hits on the targets. They are designed to be seen without too much magnification. The shot spotter is not what we aim for, it's the rings that are important and for that they need to be seen clearly.

At any rate, I hear what you are saying, but will also point out that we can see the impact of a shot in the dirt bank even in mirage with the riflescope or my 27X spotting scope. We sometimes do that when people are lost and do not know where they are hitting. We'll call the target line and have them lower the target and then we have the person shoot into the berm. I only do that as a last resort as I can usually see the trace for a lost shooter. But then again, I might be on the ground shooting when the issue occurs.

But it's all about what the conditions are where you're shooting. Some days, you can't see the trace to save your life, other times it's as plain as day. The OP did say he was shooting steel plates, so I defer to your experience on that.

quote:

Originally posted by henryrifle:.

Recapping the latest responses, I still do not feel dissuaded from the 7-35 as I will be using the scope in the top third of 21-35X power as this is a target rifle that will be used almost exclusively for 400-1200 yard target shooting. low8option makes some good points but I don't expect to be using this rifle at close range and all of our targets are stationary. Also, I feel like I have taken sigfreund's good advice by having and using less expensive FFP scopes to determine if that works for my current purpose.

Thank you again,
Henryrifle

Sounds like your reason for the 7x35 NF have some similarities to mine and since you are leaning towards NF because of prior experience with them I will tell you based on my so far limited use of the 7x35 ffp you are going to love it at those longer distances and the new glass puts the older NFs definitely in the backseat. I don't think you will be sorry. By the way I see you are in the Atlanta area which is only about three hours away if you want to take a day trip I would be more than happy to let you try out mine. I might even be persuaded to meet you somewhere in the middle. If interested send me an email it's in my profile.

Earlier fritz discussed how the NF reticles appear in these FFP scopes. He stated the following:

quote:

NF FFP reticles are designed to be "X" thickness in MOA or mils at full power. From what I've seen, across a given model line the appearance of the reticle thickness is similar at full power. This means the 5-25x reticle at 25x will appear to be about the same thickness as the 7-35x reticle at 35x. Now the 7-35x reticle at 25x will be noticeably thinner at 25x than the 5-25x reticle will be at 25x.

I thought that was interesting and wanted to know more, so I went to the NF website. There I clicked on the Reticles information page and pulled up the info for the MIL-R reticle. This reticle is available in several NF scopes, including the ATACR 16X F1, 25X F1 and the 25X SFP. My guess is that these are the ATACR 4-16X56 F1, the 5-25X56 F1 and the 5-25X56 SFP.

I draw your attention to page 2 of the MIL-R reticle specifications where there are tables showing the various Reticle subtensions. You can see the subtensions specs for every segment of the detailed reticle as presented on that page. There are two objects that have their own subtension chart; B and C, which are actually the lines themselves. B is the thickness of the line used throughout the reticle and C is the thickness of the line used in the three pointers; at 3 o'clock, 6 o'clock and 9 o'clock. The subtensions vary depending on the riflescope. The ATACR 16X's B line is .05 Mil. The ATACR 25x B-line is .036 thick. That last one is about 1/8 MOA (0.124MOA). (Hey, I'm an MOA guy.)

The increase from 16X to 25X is 56%. If you take the subtension of the B-line for the 25X F1, 0.036 and apply the 56% increase you get an apparent size of the reticle at 25X as .056, close enough to the 16X F1's B-line. This seems to lend credence to fritz's statement, it's always nice to be able to prove it mathematically.

They do not list the 35X F1 subtensions, the bastards, but we can probably calculate it close enough. If we think that .05 at 16X is the apparent size, let's see what the subtension has to be at 35X to appear to be the .05 Mil of the 16X.

The increase from 16X to 25X is 119%. This means the subtension of the 35X has to be .022 to appear the same size at full power. If we have the same appearance at full power, we definitely will not have the same appearance at minimum power, especially since the 5-25X and the 7-35X are 5X zooms and the 4-16X is a 4X zoom. The minimum power for the 16X is 4X. The minimum power for the 25X is 5X and that's an increase of only 25% whereas the top end was 56%. The reticle of the 25X at 5X will be 75% the size of the one in the 4-16X. For the 7-35%, the increase from 5X to 7X is 40%, but the reticle subtention of the 35X's B-line is 61% the size of the B-line of the 25X, so at the lowest setting on the 7-35X56 the lines will appear at about 80% the thickness of the lines in the 5-25X56 at its lowest setting or, if you prefer, 60% the size of the lines at the lowest setting on the 4-16X56. Close to half the size.

Thank you for the kind offer low8option. I'm just going to order one for myself. Might be more scope than I need but probably not a mistake.

Thank you all for the interesting and informed responses.

Henryrifle

I will be looking forward to your report on it. It should be a great scope with some really nice glass.

Which reticle?

For better or worse, I am an MOA guy, and, as such, it will be the MOAR reticle.

Henryrifle

I'm an MOA guy also, therefore I applaud your selection.

Mounted, zeroed and played with the scope today. it is a nice piece of hardware. I did not back to back compare it to any other scopes but it did register that the image was bright and clear. I was on the 200 yard range and have a better understanding of the tremendous magnification the scope offers--way too much for 200 yards. Turning it down to 18-22 power works fine though.

Lots more use needed and at much longer ranges. I think it will be great for spotting for other shooters when we all shoot together. Given how little of the reticle subtensions you see at 37X--down to about 20 MOA, I will probably back it off some to be able to use holds, At 20X you see 34 MOA of subtensions which is easily enough for 1000 yards.

So far so go.

Henryrifle

quote:

Originally posted by henryrifle:
Given how little of the reticle subtensions you see at 37X--down to about 20 MOA, I will probably back it off some to be able to use holds,

That’s an interesting tidbit of information to consider about high magnification that I hadn’t ever considered. My most powerful scope is max 25× and I haven’t used it very much, but it’s definitely something to think about when choosing maximum power. Thanks for your comments.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:

quote:

Originally posted by henryrifle:
Given how little of the reticle subtensions you see at 37X--down to about 20 MOA, I will probably back it off some to be able to use holds,

That’s an interesting tidbit of information to consider about high magnification that I hadn’t ever considered. My most powerful scope is max 25× and I haven’t used it very much, but it’s definitely something to think about when choosing maximum power.

Offgrid and I discussed this issue just prior to attending the Extended Long Range match in Wyoming. My 5-25 NF has 20 MOA marked in the reticle. On full power, the reticle almost fills the field of view -- maybe only 5 MOA off to the sides and down from the marked subtentions.

I practiced one day at 1300 yards, with effective cross winds up to 24 mph. That's a 15-16 MOA wind hold -- because I rarely dial wind in a match. It was odd aiming at a target using windage subtentions so close to the edge of my field of vision.