Most forgiving scope?

On every scope that I own, you have to have the eye relief just right for you specifically; for example, my brother, my dad or my nephew would need to loosen the rings and adjust the scope and tighten it back down again before they could use the rifle. It’s like it has to be exactly X.Y inches from your eye for the picture to appear correctly. But with different body shapes, head positions, etc. between hunters, you may have to reset the whole thing up again. Is there any scope out there that has an enormous eye box that makes it so you can “set it and forget it” for just about anyone?

I think you would have better luck finding hens teeth! :smile: But perhaps I’m mistaken. Cant wait to see what the grand poobah has to say.

Hmm… I’ve definitely tested a lot and found some more picky than others, but I don’t know of one that is broadly compatible overall. Perhaps the thing that would help the most with this is an adjustable cheek piece on your rifle so your eye lines up the same every time.

You want at least 3.5 inches of eye relief. Most scopes will have this and the better scopes will have this and more. The leuplod vx6 has 3.8 Seems weird that you have to move it between people that much. I have borrowed and loaned guns with scopes all my life and I don’t recall ever having to move one. Unless the scope is just mounted so far to one extreme or another (front or back ) the average person will automatically adjust to be able to use it. With 3.5 inches of wiggle room I just can’t see the need to move it if it was mounted properly to begin with. Unless the scope is so bad you have much less then 3.5 inches. Or you are going from a full grown adult to a 10 year old kid. Even then it would be more of the gun doesn’t fit more then the scope isn’t mounted properly. Just my thoughts.

Hm, I have not found that you can be anywhere within 3.5 inches and it looks the same on any scope. I have seen where I have to be just exactly AT 3.5 inches or it doesn’t work even if I get to 3.3 or 3.7 inches away. Even when adjusting scopes for myself, if it is just a tiny bit too far forward or back I lose the sight picture. What I really want is one where you can be anywhere within a 4-6 inch range behind the scope, from almost any angle where you can look into the glass, and still see a clear picture. Not sure if it exists. Wondered about trying some so-called “scout style” scopes with extended eye relief, but then I have to mount it really far forward like you see on scout rifles (I don’t own any of the scout style rifles and I’m not sure about how to achieve this on “normal” rifles–plus I don’t know if it will even work).

But yeah, I can relate to adjusting to another person’s scope, for example I can pick up a different person’s rifle, and move my head around until I find the right range (sometimes sitting further back on the stock, sometimes jutting my head forward awkwardly). Which is what others have to do when I hand them mine too. Anyway… Maybe it’s not the scopes, could just be my eyes, lol.

Pistol scopes have that kind of eye relief but mounting scout style on a regular rifle would be hard.

I looked thru Vortex, Nightforce, Zeiss, Burris, and Leupold at the counter at the store. My bro swears by his NF. I chose Leupold for this reason. VX5 or 6 was so so much better that the others in same price range. These are $2K scopes we are talking about. Well the Burris was not but the image on a Leupold filled so quickly without having to hunt for it. So that was my choice.

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Sounds like you’re looking for a scope with a more forgiving “eye box.”

This seems to be an issue more on scopes that offer a higher focal multiplier in a shorter package. The issue is really more of an optical limitation in that in order to put the scope in a smaller package the ocular piece used is generally less forgiving. It’s not necessarily a problem as this requires the user to be more perfectly aligned with the optical center.

What you could do to improve this is:

  1. Use an adjustable cheek piece

  2. When mounting the scope ensure that you’re on the highest power setting

  3. Choose a physically longer scope if the scope is using a 5x+ magnifier prism

The rest will pretty much come down to shooting discipline in using a scope with more forgiving eye boxes. Of scopes I own with really forgiving eye boxes and higher magnification are the Leica Amplus 3-18 or the Swarovski Z5 3.5-18. They’re both SFP scopes.

I don’t own other scopes that have wide zoom ranges but I looked through a few. The Vortex 4.5-22 has some optical compromises when it comes to forgiving eye boxes. Same can be same for the Nightforce NX8 scopes. I’m also eyeing a couple of models ZCO and S&B scopes. None except the S&B are super forgiving when it comes to having the most forgiving eye box all are optically excellent. Optical quality and durability are my number one determining factors. Weight is third in a hunting scope. I can’t deal with color fringing as well personally but to each their own.