parallax question from the newbie

[jaja]

Recently I was reading that shooters will mark or scratch their focus ring when shooting different long-range distances like out to 1500 meters. Is this all that important when shooting smallbore silhouette; that is when shooting between 40 and 100 meters. I have a Leupold 6x18x40 xiic scope and the distance between the 50 yard and 100 yard marks on the scope is not very far. Can I just for parallax at a 100 meters and shoot 40 , 60, and 77 meters without turning the focus ring or is it critical to adjust the focus ring for all four distances to get the best accuracy. Also, I'm not that thrilled about scratching my scope if I have to turn the focus ring for each distance.

[bigmike6970]

Hello Jaja,

On my scope (Leupold 6.5-20 X 40) there is a nice gap between 40 and 100 meters smaller gaps between each of the animals of course. If I have it focused for 100 and then look at the chickens they are pretty blurry. I use a piece of gaffers tape (you could use blue painters tape) wrapped part way around my objective and it is marked to indicate where to set the focus for each animal, but you could just look through the scope at the animal and turn the focus until the animal is sharp.

BigMike

[jaja]

Hi Bigmike,
Which tape would work the best: gaffer's tape or painter's tape?

[edgehit]

I can't believe people wold scratch their scopes on purpose. Just use gift wrapping tape and mark the spots with a fine point Sharpe. Or turn the focus ring until it's sharp. That's what I've done for years.

[Boyd L.]

I can't believe people wold scratch their scopes on purpose. Just use.....

Neither can I.
FWIW, I use masking tape and use the highly technical technique of turning the AO til its focused (at each range) and mark the tape with whatever pen I have nearby.

[bigmike6970]

Yeah when I read the scratch thing I thought WHAT!! who would do that.

like others have said, almost any type of tape that you can write on and does not leave a residue would work. I would stay away from Duct/Duck tape because it leaves a lot of nasty residue.

[OldRanger]

I just cut some tape into little triangles and put them on the scope for each animal.

Yes it is important to adjust for each animal.

[Bob259]

You can also get the little stick on dots in any office supply store and use them for each animal.

[yankee]

It looks like your question is does parallax make a difference to rimfire rifle silhouette shooters. Here is an experiment you should try to answer your question. Take 4 pieces of paper and make 4 targets with a 1 inch square on each, just the outline. A sharpie works good for a marker. Place these targets at 40, 60, 77 and 100 meters. Place your rifle on a solid rest or sand bags so you can look through the scope and see the target at 40 m without touching the rifle. Note: When adjusting the parallax ring you will have to touch the rifle but do not touch or move it when looking through the scope and moving your head. Now adjust the parallax ring so the target image is sharp and clear. Now look through the scope at the target and move your head up and down a little. If the crosshair moves up and down adjust the parallax ring until the crosshair stops moving when you move your head. Note: the clear image and the non movement of the crosshairs should be close to the same position on the parallax ring but sometimes a bit of fine tuning is needed. Your scope is now parallax free at 40m mark this position on the tape you have put on the parallax ring. Now move your rifle so you can see the 100m target. Look through the scope. The target should be a little fuzzy and if you move your head up and down the crosshairs should move up and down. Turn the parallax ring to get a sharp and clear image. Next move your head up and down while looking at the target and set the parallax ring so the crosshair does not move when you move your head. Your scope is now parallax free at 100m. Mark your tape. You should now be starting to see why having your scope parallax free at the specific distance is important for accurate shots. In other words if you shot rams with a chicken parallax setting your crosshair could be either high or low on the target depending on how you held your head. If your head was high your crosshair would look low on the target and you would raise the rifle to get the crosshair on the target center and pull the trigger and your shot would go high maybe even over the back and miss. If your scope is parallax free at 100m no matter if your head is high or low the crosshair will not move due to parallax being correct. Thus your shot will go where the crosshair is. Now set your parallax and make your marks for pigs and turkeys and you are set to go. Note I went from 40 to 100 m to get the most distance and parallax so it would be easier to see the difference. As you can see being parallax free is important in shooting the match but also in testing ammo. During this I only mentioned up and down movement of the crosshairs but this movement is also left and right.
Good shooting Happy New Year and have fun Yankee

[scotton]

I use the white first aid tape you use to attach dressing to a wound. It's not as wide as masking tape and it holds pencil marks well, plus it's white.

[jaja]

Gentlemen, thanks for all the information. I see I have some work to do as soon as I can dig my way out of all the snow we had last night in Penn's woods. I think I'll wait for the temperature to warm up a bit, too.

[OldRanger]

Does your yard look like this?