Spotting scopes and mirage?

[Performance Shooting]

Hi, do spotting scopes help with mirage seen thru a riflescope or does it make it worst or better or about the same? Were shooting 300 yard F-class matches at a club without pits and on the days you cant see your bullet holes due to mirage I'm looking for a way to help

 

[DirtySteve]

The more magnification and the more humidity the worse the mirage will be. I don't think you would be able to see 223 holes even in good conditions in the black.

 

[expiper]

that is why "B"enchrest targets have no black on them,,,except the rings and an aiming square that you avoid like the plague,,,even at 100 yds it is tuff to see a bullet hole in black areas on a target ,,,,,,Roger

 

[284winner]

Hi, do spotting scopes help with mirage seen thru a riflescope or does it make it worst or better or about the same? Were shooting 300 yard F-class matches at a club without pits and on the days you cant see your bullet holes due to mirage I'm looking for a way to help

Spotting scopes are worse. All depends on heat, sun and wind. With the first two, forget it. Wind may help some but higher magnification will make it worse. 300 yards shouldn't be bad. Beyond that tho and it gets tough.

 

[jdh47]

The better quality optics like Kowa are better but mirage will defeat any scope. As has been said the higher the power the more distortion. Three hundred yards is a long way to see through a swimming pool.

Joe

 

[Gman]

Spotting scopes are worse. All depends on heat, sun and wind. With the first two, forget it. Wind may help some but higher magnification will make it worse. 300 yards shouldn't be bad. Beyond that tho and it gets tough.

I beg to differ with the first sentence above. I have been able to see 6.5 mm holes in the white @ 500 yards more with my Pentax PF-80ED spotting scope (with XW-14 eyepiece, which makes it 36X), than with my NF BR 8-32X -56mm on 32X. Its all about the resolution !

 

[Macropod]

I use a Kowa 883 and you can analyze mirage far better with that than most if not all rifle scopes. Mirage is your friend although when really heavy it makes precise aiming a real challenge.

 

[savagedasher]

It may be yours but I would like to never have it. lol Larry

 

[spclark]

Its all about the resolution !

Maybe... maybe not.

I've seen 6mm holes in the black @ 600 yards thru another shooter's Pentax exactly once.

No idea what eyepiece he had either. I recall target's image was about 4 times that of what my Kowa gives me....

Was in the afternoon too, range faces due east so no backlighting.

The mirage that day wasn't too thick, humidity was fairly low for N. Ill in Sept.

Resolution's no match for when the air between your target and a scope's objective is moving around, usually in any number of different directions depending on just where along the distance to the target you choose to try to gauge it.

The bigger the objective lens, the better the image clarity too. Look through a 'binocular' team scope when you have a chance, you'll see things make you a believer.

 

[DirtySteve]

I beg to differ with the first sentence above. I have been able to see 6.5 mm holes in the white @ 500 yards more with my Pentax PF-80ED spotting scope (with XW-14 eyepiece, which makes it 36X), than with my NF BR 8-32X -56mm on 32X. Its all about the resolution !

Yes, but was it a cool dry day, or hot and humid? I believe the op is trying to practice for F-class with out a pit crew. So I don't think it is plausible.

 

[4xforfun]

In my head, if there is mirage, there is mirage. The better the scope resolution and clarity, the easier it is to see the mirage. How can a better quality scope see LESS of something that is there?

Just my .02,

Tod

 

[savagedasher]

In my head, if there is mirage, there is mirage. The better the scope resolution and clarity, the easier it is to see the mirage. How can a better quality scope see LESS of something that is there?

Just my .02,

Tod

A friend told me to look below the target to see the mirage . Larry

 

[284winner]

I beg to differ with the first sentence above. I have been able to see 6.5 mm holes in the white @ 500 yards more with my Pentax PF-80ED spotting scope (with XW-14 eyepiece, which makes it 36X), than with my NF BR 8-32X -56mm on 32X. Its all about the resolution !

I should have said with MY spotting scope. I do not have a top quality glass spotter. It's a Leupold but its not Leupolds best glass. Very tough to see holes at 500 yards in heat and mirage.

 

[4xforfun]

A friend told me to look below the target to see the mirage . Larry

I always grabbed a hand full of paralex adjustment and went through the range, from far to close and back to far and it would bring the mirage into focus at different distances. It helped me see what the wind was doing at different distances. I also do this to see the fuzz flying from the cottonwoods, cat tails, and thistle at certain times of the year.

I guess my point is that wouldn't a better scope make it EASIER to see mirage?

 

[Liven The Dream]

In my Service Rifle days (.223) with a 821 Kowa with 27LER I could see Bullet Holes a 300 yards.
Your Spotting Scope is good to reading Mirage up to about 8mph Wind. This is done by backing off on your adjustment .
I am sure I am not stating anything new.

 

[MGYSGT]

We also have 300 yard F Class without pits/butts. We put a 6" SHOOT AND SEE over the 300 yard target. Makes it much easier to see your hits. Then you peel it off (carefully) and score the hits underneath. It does get a little hard when the 10/X ring turns into a big yellow blob, but at least you can see the hits. On thing we do, is to put an orange spotter in the 8 ring above the one printed on the target to aim at with the impact on the center orange dot. That way the yellow blob doesn't affect your aiming point.

 

[savagedasher]

I always grabbed a hand full of paralex adjustment and went through the range, from far to close and back to far and it would bring the mirage into focus at different distances. It helped me see what the wind was doing at different distances. I also do this to see the fuzz flying from the cottonwoods, cat tails, and thistle at certain times of the year.

I guess my point is that wouldn't a better scope make it EASIER to see mirage?

Great idea but I haven't ever seen one .
Many of times I have seen it so bad that you couldn't see bullet holes on a white target at 200 . Larry
Target cam works

 

[memilanuk]

A friend told me to look below the target to see the mirage . Larry

Really? Your bullets fly below the line of sight down there in Florida? Cool

 

[savagedasher]

Really? Your bullets fly below the line of sight down there in Florida? Cool

Below your target is where you can see the mirage the best . It runs across the face of the target . Larry

 

[carlsbad]

Mirage is light being bent by atmospheric variations in density and refractive index driven mostly by thermal waves coming off the ground as the sun heats it up. It is there independent of the optics and changes in optics will do very little to help it. Adaptive optics is how astronomers deal with it and that helps some but that's not possible for shooting. Stacking multiple images and processing them can sort the image out of the haze for planetary astronomy. But for shooting, there is really nothing you can do about it.

For 90% of the target shooting we do, the image you see is dominated by the mirage. Thus, I don't worry too much about the quality of the "glass" and worry more about the quality of the tracking and adjustment.

When a scope manufacturer says his scope is better in mirage, that is "marketing" aka material false statements that aren't quite to the level of a lawsuit.

When people say "turning up the magnification" will make it worse, that is technically incorrect. The mirage is unchanged but more magnification, that would allow you to see more detail on the target, also shows more detail in the mirage. Low magnification does not see the mirage and gives you the false impression that the image has more detail. it doesn't.

bottom line: atmospheric conditions are almost always more limiting that the quality of your scope. And there isn't really any significant difference between a spotting scope and a riflescope.

Sure, there will be days when you'll find a spell of clear air and seeing will improve greatly. I've spent hundreds of hours peering through telescope eyepieces at Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, etc. You'll watch a fuzzy image for a long time and suddenly the air will settle down and for a few minutes you'll see clearly. then the fuzz will come back. When the sun it out, the clear air times will be few and far between.

--Jerry