Diopter Correction for Reticle Clarity?

[HopperH]

I shoot F-Open Mid-Range and Long Range. My prescription glasses sit too low and I can't tilt my head any further back because of injuries to my neck. Have both March High Master and Nightforce DD2R. Need to find a procedure or process to adjust the diopters on these scopes better than I have. Or other ideas to be able to see the cross hair of the reticles.

 

[ronemus]

Decot HyWyd-HyLo frames allow the lenses to sit high for prone via an adjustable nosepiece, and allows a lower position for the high positions or shooting from the bench; they use avaitor style lenses so you get the safety benefits of full coverage ("shooter" frames such as Knoblochs generally don't). They're available with plano or prescription lenses in many colors, but they're polycarbonate so there is noticeable chroma if you have a strong correction. I buy the frames from Decot and get Trivex lenses (high-index plastic) from my local optician. I think the lab they use is in southern Indiana or Illinois; most labs don't have Trivex available so it has to be jobbed out. Trivex was developed for the US armed forces, but has been available to civilians for over a decade.

 

[Eagle Six]

You might want to consider what is often referred as Occupational Lens. They cut the glass to the specific script for the distance and object, your optometrist can do that. Then the glass manufacture places that script at the top, bottom, center, right or left side, almost anywhere you need. Typically the bifocal is placed on the lower part of the lens as usual and another one on the top portion of the lens, so machine operators needing to read dials didn't have to crane their necks back so far. These are relatively inexpensive.

 

[fkimble@charter.net]

AS others have said, shooting frames and have sweet spot pushed up an slightly toward nose. When they tell you to look up and put the measuring device to your eye, explain these glasses are for shooting and get your head in the correct position for them to mark the sweet spot where you will be looking thru.You will also need oversized lens for your shooting eye to be able to shift the center/sweet spot as needed.

Frank

 

[Fred Bohl]

Need to find a procedure or process to adjust the diopters on these scopes better than I have.

After many years of doing it the conventional way (ocular first against blank background then parallax against the target) I finally found a quicker and more successful procedure. The best explanation I've seen is from a post on this forum but I've lost track of who posted it so with my apologies to him:

"The easiest way to adjust for both zero parallax error and sharp target/reticle focus (making no assumptions about the scope's adjustments whatsoever) is as follows:

1. Adjust objective (side focus or AO) for zero parallax error, i.e. no apparent reticle movement on target while moving your eye around behind the eyepiece. (Disregard target image sharpness or focus.) Now the objective is focused on the reticle.

2. Adjust ocular (eyepiece) for sharpest target image focus (and, coincidentally, reticle focus - since they are now in the same plane). This is much easier than focusing on the reticle alone with a bright blank background, but you should still glance at the image for short periods, and trust your eye's first impression, which will also avoid eye fatigue.

Usually, a second iteration of the above two steps pays dividends in fine adjustment, since detecting parallax error (reticle movement on target) is easier once the image is more sharply focused."

Try it, you will be surprised how well and easily this works to get your scope correctly focused especially if you are using fine cross hairs or fine cross hairs with dot.

Or other ideas to be able to see the cross hair of the reticles.

Scopes are designed to be used with the eye inter-ocular lens relaxed - distance vision or the top section of bifocals.

If your prescription glasses have blended (varifocal) lenses, the location of the spot you are looking through when aiming will not be part of the prescription ground lens area and may be on the edge where the effect may be to distort your visual field. Do not use blended (varifocal) lenses for shooting. Use single vision (distance) prescription if necessary.

If your distance vision prescription calls for less than ±2 diopters of correction, use plain (no prescription) shooting glasses and use the scopes ocular diopter adjustment as intended to correct for your requirement.

 

[JEFFPPC]

Way back in my small bore position days I would tape my glasses with a small strip of adhesive tape high on my forehead. Cheap, easy, effective and very adjustable.

 

[ronemus]

An AMU instructor taped a foam earplug inside the bridge of my glasses to raise them and space them away from my face - the gap made them very resistant to fogging.

 

[BoydAllen]

An AMU instructor taped a foam earplug inside the bridge of my glasses to raise them and space them away from my face - the gap made them very resistant to fogging.

I like it. This is a clever method that is virtually free. I seldom see things on a shooting forum that I have never heard of, but this is one of those cases, and it makes me smile.

 

[Knotwild]

I just shoot with my glasses off. But that doesn't work well for fast impromptu shots on pests.

 

[BoydAllen]

After many years of doing it the conventional way (ocular first against blank background then parallax against the target) I finally found a quicker and more successful procedure. The best explanation I've seen is from a post on this forum but I've lost track of who posted it so with my apologies to him:

"The easiest way to adjust for both zero parallax error and sharp target/reticle focus (making no assumptions about the scope's adjustments whatsoever) is as follows:

1. Adjust objective (side focus or AO) for zero parallax error, i.e. no apparent reticle movement on target while moving your eye around behind the eyepiece. (Disregard target image sharpness or focus.) Now the objective is focused on the reticle.

2. Adjust ocular (eyepiece) for sharpest target image focus (and, coincidentally, reticle focus - since they are now in the same plane). This is much easier than focusing on the reticle alone with a bright blank background, but you should still glance at the image for short periods, and trust your eye's first impression, which will also avoid eye fatigue.

Usually, a second iteration of the above two steps pays dividends in fine adjustment, since detecting parallax error (reticle movement on target) is easier once the image is more sharply focused."

Try it, you will be surprised how well and easily this works to get your scope correctly focused especially if you are using fine cross hairs or fine cross hairs with dot.


Scopes are designed to be used with the eye inter-ocular lens relaxed - distance vision or the top section of bifocals.

If your prescription glasses have blended (varifocal) lenses, the location of the spot you are looking through when aiming will not be part of the prescription ground lens area and may be on the edge where the effect may be to distort your visual field. Do not use blended (varifocal) lenses for shooting. Use single vision (distance) prescription if necessary.

If your distance vision prescription calls for less than ±2 diopters of correction, use plain (no prescription) shooting glasses and use the scopes ocular diopter adjustment as intended to correct for your requirement.

Well written. I do something similar. I start by doing the usual glance at the reticle blank wall or clear blue sky eyepiece focus for sharpest reticle. That is my starting point before doing what you described. Adjust the eyepiece slightly to the right or left, refocus on the target to peak sharpness with the objective or side focus. If the parallax is worse, then I turned the eyepiece the wrong way, so I go back to where I started turn it a little in the other direction, refocus on the target and check parallax. Making small moves, moving the eyepiece first followed by refocusing the target image, at some point I will find an eyepiece setting that gives me no parallax and peak target sharpness. I think that there are a lot of shooter who are not getting the most that their scopes have in them, because they have not learned this procedure. Funny story, a younger fellow that I know who had been staring through his scope for extended periods (blank wall or featureless sky) found that when he switched to half second glances and working from that memory, his eyepiece setting changed by two full turns.

 

[Chiquita]

@BoydAllen & @Fred Bohl

I assume you do your procedures before you start your range time and through the shooting session?

 

[BoydAllen]

@BoydAllen & @Fred Bohl

I assume you do your procedures before you start your range time and through the shooting session?

I do the initial blank wall/ clear blue sky stuff at home, and the rest the first time I take the rifle to the range. Once the scope eyepiece is properly set so that I have peak image sharpness and no parallax at the same setting, I never have to mess with the eyepiece again, because for my eyes and the correction that I wear, it is focused in the plane of the reticle, which is correct for all distances. All that I have to do from that point on is to use the parallax adjustemnt, either front or side, to bring the image to peak sharpness and I am GTG wit no parallax. BTW doing this scope work is easier when there is not mirage, like at first light, or when the wind is sufficient to blow the mirage away.

 

[Fred Bohl]

For my own scopes on my own rifles, this adjustment procedure is done at my home shop as part of the scope mounting procedure. When done for others, I assist them in remounting their scopes and encourage them to do diopter adjustment this way at our local range (I have a small shop setup at the range for scope mounting and boresighting).

Since I had my cataracts removed and replaced with fixed distant focus only lenses, I no longer need to do short glances in either procedure since there is no refocusing being done by the interocular lens.

While I do not encourage others to follow my example, for the last 22 years now, I have taken my glasses off when shooting and do not use "shooting glasses". I've been shooting for 72 years including 54 years in competition and have never witnessed anyone receiving an eye injury so that has influenced my personal risk-benefit assessment. For new shooters, particularly young shooters, I do encourage that they use both shooting glasses and good ear protection.

Another bit of my personal history that contributes to my personal risk assessment and my right to make my own choices was in 1969. While voluntarily contributing to the war effort in southeast Asia where you good folks did not find it necessary for me to be equipped with shooting glasses, ear protection, a helmet or body armor, I was too close to an enemy RPG. I did survive but lost the hearing in my right ear and had shrapnel wounds that took awhile to recover from.

 

[Zero333]

For my eyes all scopes diopter adjustment works best when all the way in (all the way screwed clockwise).

Set your parallax to the smallest number printed on the knob. Find a wall at the same distance... Move head up/down, left/right to make sure it's at true parallax, and start turning the diopter till reticle is most crisp.
I don't know of any other way of doing it.

 

[HopperH]

ttt