Rifle Scope

Rifle Scope Power
• Like binoculars, the power of a rifle scope is described by two numbers that indicate its magnifying ability and the size of the lens
• A standard 4 x 32 rifle scope will magnify an object up to 4 times larger than you could see with the naked eye. The 32 indicates that the lens diameter is 32 millimetres.
• The larger the second number, the lens diameter, the more it will help brighten the view
• There are two basic kinds of scopes, fixed power and variable power
• Fixed power
- This version has the magnification set by the manufacturer
- Fixed power rifle scope are adequate for hunters who need a good view of 50 to 100 yards
- The most popular fixed scopes are 4 x 32
• Variable power
- More applicable to a wider range of uses
- Variable power rifle scope can be adjusted according to the field of view needed as well as the available light
- Variable rifle scope range from 1.5 magnification up to 25 times for long-range viewing and shooting

Rifle Scope Field of view
- This is the measure of how much you can see through your scope at 1,000 yards
- Generally, the higher the magnification, the less the field of view
- This information is always printed either on the instruction sheet or directly on the scope

Rifle Scope Eye relief
- This indicates the distance between your eye and the scope, which allows you to achieve the entire field of view
- This distance can be adjusted once you have your scope and have it mounted

Originally, rifles were sharpshooter weapons, while the regular infantry made use of the greater firepower of massed muskets , which fired round balls of calibers up to 0.75 inch (19 mm). Benjamin Robins , an English mathematician, realized that an extruded bullet would retain the mass and kinetic force of a musket ball , but would slice through the air with much greater ease. The innovative work of Robins and others would take until the end of the 18th century to gain acceptance.

By the mid- 19th century , however, manufacturing had advanced sufficiently that the Brown Bess was replaced by a range of rifles-generally single-shot, breech-loading-designed for aimed, discretionary fire by individual soldiers. Then as now, rifles have a stock, either fixed or folding, which is braced against the shoulder. Until the early 20thcentury rifles tended to be very long-a Martini-Henry of 1890 was almost six feet (1.8 m) in length, with a fixed bayonet . The demand for more compact weapons for cavalrymen led to the carbine , or shortened rifle.

Telescopic sights have both advantages and disadvantages relative to iron sights. Standard doctrine with iron sights is to focus the eye on the front sight and align it with the resulting blur of the target and the rear sight; most shooters have difficulty doing this, as the eye tends to be drawn to the target, blurring both sights. Telescopic sights allow the user to focus on both the crosshair and the target at the same time, as the lenses project the crosshair into the distance (50 to 100 yards or meters for rimfire scopes, 150 or more for centerfire calibers). This, combined with telescopic magnification, clarifies the target and makes the target stand out against the background. The main disadvantage of magnification is that the area to either side of the target is obscured by the tube of the sight. The higher the magnification, the narrower the field of view in the sight, and the more area that is hidden. Rapid fire target shooters use red dot sights , which have no magnification; this gives them the best field of view while maintaining the single focal plane of a telescopic sight. Telescopic sights are expensive, and require additional training to align. Sight alignment with telescopic sights is a matter of making the field of vision circular to minimize parallax error.

Telescopic sights provide some tactical disadvantages. Snipers rely on stealth and concealment to get close to their target, and a telescopic sight can hinder this. Sunlight may reflect from the lens and a sniper raising his head to use a telescopic sight might reveal his position. The famous Finnish sniper Simo Häyhä preferred to use iron sights rather than telescopic sights to present less of a target.

Telescopic sights are classified in terms of the optical magnification and the objective lens diameter , e.g. 10×50. This would denote 10 times magnification with a 50 mm objective lens. In general terms, larger objective lens diameters are better (collect more light and give a wider field of view), the magnification power should be chosen on the basis of the intended use. There are also Adjustable Objectives sights where the magnification can be changed by manually turning one part, the syntax is the following: minimal magnification - maximum magnification × objective lens, for example, 3-9×40.

Rifle Scope