HFT AAFTA: best scope depth of field minimal lag

[Pellet-Head]

Hi,

I hope all is good.

I was just checking in to see if you all could give me some advice.

I am about to receive a Daystate Revere. 177 tuned for 20 fpe give or take 2 percent 

I want to top it off with a scope for HFT, AAFTA.

Can you recommend a scope with an excellent depth of field and very minimal lag?

Of course I would like to save money but my budget would be up to $1200 if if need be or may be a little bit more.

Any ideas.



Thanks,

Adam

 

[JungleShooter]

PelletHead,

for a large depth of field you'd be looking for:

▪ low magnification

▪ small objective lens



I read an article where Optisan cooperated with a British field target shooter, and they came out with the Optisan CP 3-12x32P SFP, for around $330. Springer suitable. Lifetime warranty. SFP Reticle calibrated at 10x. MIL/MIL, with a gridded reticle. 17.2oz, 9.5" short. Capped turrets, but easy to dial. FoV 36-9ft.



The Hawke Airmax Touch 3-12x32 SFP might have been designed with the same idea in mind. $370. Springer rated. Lifetime warranty. SFP Reticle calibrated at 10x. MIL/MIL. 20.2oz. 10.5". Capped turrets, but large for dialing. Very short eye relief (1.2"), therefore a superwide FoV of 64ft-18ft @100y. 



Matthias

 

[Deleted member 38071]

In aafta hunter class you are stuck with 16x max mag and no clicking. The feature necessary is how well the parallax focus between yardage from 10-55. Either that or you will be bracketing so a large fov from 10-55 isn't necessary. 

If you're concerned with seeing the environment around the target to make wind calls there's options. You're allowed to have a windicator on your rifle, pull up strings to the target and have both eyes open when shooting.

If I'm missing something here or you have a different method of ranging that uses a smaller scope I'm all ears. Oh, many shooters use scopes 44-60mm objective lenses as the more light in makes for crisper parallax ranging

Also, the FT section is the best place for your question as you'll get a lot of answers here from folks who don't play.

 

[Aimright]

MRA is right, you will get some more traffic on this over in the FT forum as this is a very common discussion item over there, often categorized as the search for the holy grail! I use an Athlon Gen2 Helos 6-24x56 on my hunter FT rifle. I like it for its clarity and reticle, but I do struggle sometimes with focus rangefinding out past 40 or so. There are some guys on my airgun club that tell me they have the same problem with their much more expensive FT scopes. Anyway, a 1200+ budget gives you a lot of options, I don’t think you would go wrong with the Sightron S-3 FT model or the Falcon X-50 FT model.

 

[steve123]

Not that I have the answer for the best scope for HFT at 16x but...

You actually want a scope with a Narrow or Shallow DOF for this application of HFT. Whereas a scope with a Large or a Deep DOF is better for longer distances like long range with a centerfire. For example the Tangent Theta 5-25 has the deepest DOF I've ever seen. Images are in somewhat acceptable focus from 150Y on out but of course the IQ can be fine tuned as desired. BUT IIRC the minimum parallax focus is 75Y. If one wanted to be in focus at less than 75Y they'd need to lower the magnification, substantially so, and the closer they get until at some point the image won't be in focus at all.

My March 5-42 has the narrowest DOF I think I've ever seen. Focus in it is very critical at closer to medium distances because otherwise the image is unacceptably out of focus. This might be good at 16x for HFT but I won't find out until I try later this spring. It might be because its so compact and focuses to less than 10Y IIRC I can focus at 8Y. Its a very expensive scope so not a candidate so just sharing the different DOP's.

 

[qball]

I just finished my first HFT match past Sunday and like steve123 said you want NARROW field of view so you can range with parallax. 


I’m ordering a Element Helix 6-24x50 FFP for FT use, I think it works really well for HFT. I used the 4-16x44 but didn’t realize minimum focus is 15 yard which killed my close shots. The 6.24 can focus down to 10 yards. Plus the parallax is pretty darn accurate so best bang for the buck in the 400-500 range IMHO.