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A special scope designed for USA shooters

5/21/2015

10 Comments

 
Among the civilized nations of the earth, the USA is an exception in that it still uses the "Standard Units".
The world, as a whole, has adopted the Metric system; the UK still holds on to some "Imperial" units (slightly larger than the "Standard"), but the US is the remarkable exception that still uses mostly inches for objects' sizing; feet for indoor, and yards for most outdoor dimensions.

Metric angles are usually expressed in "rads" or sub-multiples of them, but Standard angles in shooting are measured in MOA's (Minute of Angle).

Now, the MOA is ALMOST the same as the "IPHY" (Inch Per Hundred Yards), being that 1 MOA is 1.047" @ 100 yards distance; the difference is 4.7%, or 1/20", or, using the smallest commercial pellet caliber as a "sizer", about ¼ of the pellet hole. SO, for airgunners at the usual airgun distances (10 to 100 yards), they can be taken to be the same.

Civilian US shooters resisted for many years the multiple point aiming reticles, and even more the "Christmas Tree" or "Metering" reticle. Shooters claimed the reticles were "too busy".

Well, busy in reality meant that all those extra points had no real meaning in the shooter's mind and were regarded as "useless".


As time has gone by, and more and more ex-servicemen/women return home, the shooting games have evolved, we now have very long range matches. Civilian shooters enjoy the challenge of "mil-dot ranging" and software in portable devices has become sophisticated enough that "Joe Average" can now have firing solutions at his finger tips that up until a few of years ago were the exclusive domain of the professional military sniper.

BUT there was still one important obstacle to be removed. ALL the software, and all the literature makes a big hassle of the maths involved because shooters STILL THINK in terms of inches and yards. Complex formulae are embodied in special purpose slide-rules and apps.

Enter ADE Advanced Optics. A company that MAKES some of the most successful scopes for high end "manufacturers". They have a long standing tradition of scientific instruments making from microscopes to refractometers, astronomical scopes, and a whole host of camera parts.
And they decided to enter the American market with something that spoke the shooter's language. They setup a US office in the NorthWest and are actively looking to serve the US Shooters.

If you go to their EBay store, you can find 485 products, among them 23 Rifle scopes, of which there is one that is the point of this article: the 6-25X56 FFP MOA reticle scope.

Picture
It is not a small scope, but it is not huge either.
Here you can see it mounted in a Diana ZR mount that had to be machined to fit.
Picture
Picture
Why would we machine a ZR mount to fit a scope?
Because the optics are worthwhile and the reticle is an interesting reticle that really needed some precision/FT testing. And we were not going to risk the test by mounting it rigidly to a Diana 54.

Now, a valid question might be: ¿Why would a maker make a scope with a saddle that is almost too big?
For starters, because this maker really knows his stuff. He knows that the bigger saddle allows for beefier parts. Beefier parts mean better survive-ability in the field. In the long run, the shooters are better served.
Yes they may need to buy higher rings (or adapt what they have), but in the long run, it is in the shooter's best interest to have something that will take the bumps of life in the field.

And so, we come to the reticle. Here is a picture at 5X:
Picture
And here one at 25X:
Picture
Interesting, ¿no?

One of the "ailments" of some modern offerings is that the "manufacturer" does not really know what they are making for him in China.

You ask what are the subtensions between hashmarks and they cannot answer properly; some will say they do not know (bad), some will say that "the information is proprietary" (WORSE); ¡What a load of hogwash! 

This annoys me no end. Because, if someone wants to copy that "proprietary" reticle, they only need to get a scope and MEASURE the subtensions. Hiding information from your users is totally useless from the industrial/intellectual property standpoint, and is detrimental to the development of the sports you are supposed to be serving.

Anyway, a BIG advantage of having direct communication with the MAKERS is that at least ONE person in the factory will know what he is doing, and he usually provides pretty good information.
So, for those that are geometrically minded, this is the diagram provided by ADE Advanced Optics:
Picture
Maybe not the clearest of diagrams, but at least some SOLID info here. Let's talk about the diagram first, specifically, the horizontal crosshair of the diagram:
EACH small hashmark is worth 2 MOA
There are 10 MOA's between larger hashmarks that contain 5 X 2 MOA units.
Yes they are the same at any magnification, it is a FFP scope.
If you take the WHOLE horizontal crosshair (you need to be at 15X to see it all), then the whole thing spans 70 MOA's.
The "50 MOA @ 22X" note in the small diagram on the bottom left is not a typo, it actually refers to the scope we are testing but there is no clarification in the diagram, more on that later.

On the vertical crosshair you have finer divisions:
Each small hashmark is worth 1 MOA
Each intermediate hashmark is worth 2 MOA
Each larger hashmark is worth 10 MOA

Now, applying that to our test scope (small diagram in the lower left corner), here is what I would annotate on this particular model:
Picture
I hope that now our test reticle is clear on the subtensions that are marked in the reticle.
Taken outside, the scope is quite clear in its optics, I would say that on par with the better scopes in the price bracket ($200-$300 scopes) and definitely superior to the economy scopes.
On a cloudy and dark/rainy day this is what you see at 35 yards:
Picture
Each board is roughly 2 mrads wide, so if we look at two boards, we see that the reticle tells us they are about 14.4 MOA's. ¿What do we get if we multiply 3.6 X 4? well . . . 14.4. Not bad. Not bad AT ALL! LOL!

The scope itself, has clearly marked knobs. The sidefocus knob indicates the scope capacity to focus down to 10 yards:
Picture
Sidefocus knob turns from 10 to 55 yards in a little less than 180º of rotation, so it is not ideal for FT, but on the other hand for long range hunting, it does have space to rotate out to 300 yards.
Elevation and windage reticles are short and the erector tube is affixed to a bushing, so when you click in either elevation or windage the turrets themselves do NOT move. I would not fear taking this scope out into the rain.
Picture
Remember this scope is NOT for "clickers". This scope is designed to be set to zero and from there on, just use the reticle to make any and all adjustments.
A valid question at this point is ¿how does the scope perform in the field?

Well, I took the scope mounted on my WFTF D54 to the EFTCC shoot of a few weeks ago. Given the small rotation needed to go from 10 to 55 yards, I was under no illusion that it was an ideal FT scope, but at the same time, the fact that some shooters are limited to 12X and at that magnification, pretty much all scopes perform equally bad beyond 35 yards, I thought it was worth a try.
On one peculiar target, it proved invaluable because the focus knob told me the target was much nearer than 10 yards, and being able to dial down the magnification with NO TRAJECTORY AND NO POI CHANGE was calming, soothing, and relaxing. I nailed those two shots, LOL!
The OTHER shots where it was interesting was in the offhand shots. You can take the offhand shots at a lower magnification with less stress and still know that your dope and your POI has not changed. I missed 3 of the 8 offhand shots, but that was not the equipment's fault.

As you have read elsewhere, the shoot ended up being more challenging than expected, and ending up in 3rd place behind excellent shooters like Paul Bishop and Matt Brackett was very satisfying when I had arrived at the range with ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA NOR DOPE.

The PP Calc app, did its job and once I found that the initial sighting in had moved my windage by a full MOA in the wrong direction, I ended up connecting on 7 of the last 8 targets.

"Bracketing" of long targets proved interesting, to say the least from the seated FT position. But knowing some typical dimensions helped a lot.

For those that MAY want to try something like this, here is a chart of apparent object size to distance:
Picture
To use the chart you select the dimension you want to use as a base, USUALLY, the larger the base dimension, the better chance you have at getting a good range. 
Let's say we pick the base of the target at around 7 inches (purple line). And let's say that you measure 14 MOA's for that base. That means that the target in question is, roughly, at 50 yards.
Using another example: let's say that you have a large KZ target in which the MD has been "kind" enough to hide everything but the KZ. And you can measure the KZ at about 4 MOA's; that means that the target can be between 36 and 39 yards. If you know that your pellet's flight changes by about ½" between those two distances, you can still take the shot with reasonable confidence.

If you are a long range hunter, can use Laser Range Finders, or have a good piece of land with known distances, this scope is truly a good scope to have.
If you are a Hunter FT shooter, the scope has a 12X mark and using the bracketing method will give you a good technique to rangefind those targets beyond the 35 yard line.
If you are a UK HFT shooter, the depth of field and the FFP of this scope will undoubtedly put you into the run for the places.

All in all it is a good scope for the money.

Do not expect it to perform like a $1,200 scope because that was never the intent. But within the price bracket and for specific purposes, this might be one of the most unique scopes to enter recently the American market.


Keep well and shoot straight!










HM
10 Comments
Jeff Rakowski
5/22/2015 05:13:17

Hector, this is a great review of not only the scope but also the component variables we all think about. I am shooting HFT here in Georgia. I shoot with a Hammerli AR20ft topped with a UTG 8-32X56 SWAT scope. After seeing your comment on the 180 degree parallax rotation from 10 to 55 yds on the ADE I checked mine and find I'm only using about 110 degrees. Your wording leads me to infer that 180 is limiting for HFT shooters. Makes me think 110 is a real handicap With the FFP design would range change at 12X to something less or something more than 180 degrees?
Also, as my scope is not much help at ranging between 30 mand 55 yards I've been trying a different zeroing theory. I'm zeroing at 65-70 yards so that between 30 and 50 my pellet is still ascending vs line of site but at a declining rate. The total POI change is less than 1/2 inch which for me is less than my ability to aim. So now I just range to verify that I'm shooting at a target in this 30-50 window, then set the parallax at 40 and aim at the usually fuzzy target. I have not been doing this in competition for long enough to be sure it helps, but at known distance targets on my practice range I've gone from 70% inside a 1" target at 30 yards to 85% inside a 1" target at 40 yards so I'm feeling good about the technique so far. Do you think a FFP scope would provide me with more useable info for these HFT purposes? Thanks for your thoughts. Jeff

Reply
HECTOR J MEDINA GOMEZ
5/25/2015 14:57:50

Jeff;

Scopes are complex devices. It is not easy to simply change the position of the reticle from Second Focal Plane to First and forecast the behavior of the rest of the system.
Hunter FT shooters should learn by all means some form of "bracketing", or mi-ranging, or "stadia ranging" name it however you want, but the apparent dimensions of the target in the reticle CAN tell you a lot more than whether the target is between 30 and 50 yards. Look at the graph I posted, a similar one could be developed for mrad or IPHF (Inch per hundred feet) scopes. You would need to start by setting up your scope and UNDERSTANDING what are the subtensions. You can learn quite a lot about YOUR scope by reading and following the procedure outlined in my note

http://www.ctcustomairguns.com/hectors-airgun-blog/mil-as-in-milliradian

If you look into AEON scopes, they use about 270º for the distances between 10 and 65 yards. The Sightron FT scopes, even at 12X use about 300º for the 9 to 55 yards spans.

It does not matter if it is a SFP or a FFP scope, the design of the erector lenses, the main and the zoom lenses is what really makes a scope rangefind easily, or not.

Your technique is VERY interesting! Please keep us posted about the results.

Thanks for reading!





HM

Reply
Alejandro O Martinez
5/23/2015 03:38:39

About milling the ZR mount for scope body clearance. Why not a more flexible approach ... mill-off the scope rings and in their place install/fasten a picatinny/weaver rail to straddle the entire ZR base. Moreover, a longer picatinny/weaver rail could be fitted to extend beyond the former scope ring saddles giving the user much more flexibility in scope positioning and scope ring selection. Such an arrangement would allow a scope such as the Vector Optics Gladiator 2-12x32 FFP with 35mm tube (http://www.scvector.biz/Productshow/items/SCFF08.html) to be used with the ZR Mount. The Gladiator would be an FFP optic of my preference if ony the Diana/Bullseye ZR Mount (http://www.diana-airguns.de/index.php?id=123&L=1&width=1920&height=1200) could accommodate the optic.

Reply
HECTOR J MEDINA GOMEZ
5/25/2015 15:32:23

Alejandro;
The Gladiator is an interesting scope, but in many ways, the ADE reviewed here is better.
If I obtain permission, I will test this ADE scope in a full power D54 to check how strong the mechanism is and how precise is the tracking.

Altering the ZR mount to the extent proposed would affect the balance of the mechanism, and I am not so sure that it would keep on working as well as it does right now. Balance of the scope in the mounts plays a BIG role in how well the ZR mounts work for you, or don't.

After dismounting the ADE scope I went back to my AEON scope and in last Saturday's shoot, I did not do badly. But, more on that in other blog entries.

Reply
Alejandro O Martinez
5/26/2015 14:41:41

"Altering the ZR mount to the extent proposed would affect the balance of the mechanism ..." how about milling-off each scope ring and in its place ... a single, very-short, picatinny/weaver pad to allow a 35mm scope ring to be mounted. This might be workable solution to enable the mounting Vector Optics Gladiator 2-12x32 FFP with 35mm tube. (http://www.scvector.biz/Productshow/items/SCFF08.html)

Alejandro O Martinez
5/23/2015 08:29:48

Concerning " "IPHY" (Inch Per Hundred Yards)" ... this relationship applies to a scope set at 12 power magnification. As such, there would seem to be a logical relationship between IPHY and any magnification multiple/fraction of 12-power. This being the case, what would be the IPHY for a scope set at 6X, 18X, 24X and 36X. Or for that matter, some of the more common scope magnifications settings such as 10X, 14X, 16X, 20X and etc.

Reply
HECTOR J MEDINA GOMEZ
5/25/2015 15:38:22

Alejandro;

I have a feeling that you are confusing the IPHF (Inch per hundred feet) with the IPHY (Inch per Hundred Yards).
The former refers to what you end up if you use a SFP scope with a mrad reticle that is "true" at 10X and you crank it up to 12X. The milrads become IPHF's.
The second is completely different. You would have to crank a mrad scope that is "true" at 10 X all the way to 36X to make it IPHY

Comparatively speaking, the IPHY/MOA is a much smaller unit. BUT the reality is that most good scopes with mrad reticles with hashes now have sub-multiples of mrad already incorporated.

I do not know of ANY scope with IPHY reticle on the second focal plane, and so there is no reason to worry about magnification when the reticle is placed in the FFP.

Thanks for reading!





HM

Reply
Alejandro O Martinez
5/26/2015 14:36:05

"IPHF (Inch per hundred feet) vs IPHY (Inch per Hundred Yards)" ... well, I thought I wasn't confused - LOL. Actually, I simply mistyped and didn't proofread my question. Thanks for the clarification. By the way "crank a mrad scope that is "true" at 10 X all the way to 36X to make it IPHY" ... very interesting info.

Big Boobs in New South Wales link
1/13/2023 00:04:33

Interesting thoughtts

Reply
Hector Medina
1/18/2023 15:52:49

Thanks for reading!


HM

Reply



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    Hector Medina

    2012 US National WFTF Spring Piston Champion
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    2013 World's WFTF Spring Piston 7th place
    2014 Texas State WFTF Piston Champion
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    2015 Maine State Champion WFTF Piston
    2015 Massachusetts State Champion WFTF Piston
    2015 New York State Champion WFTF Piston
    2015 US National WFTF Piston 2nd Place
    2016 Canadian WFTF Piston Champion
    2016 Pyramyd Air Cup WFTF Piston 1st Place
    2017 US Nationals Open Piston 3rd Place
    2018 WFTC's Member of Team USA Champion Springers
    2018 WFTC's 4th place Veteran Springer
    2020 Puerto Rico GP Piston First Place
    2020 NC State Championships 1st Place Piston
    2022 Maryland State Champion WFTF 
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