Dumb benchrest question of the day

[Alex Wheeler]

I dont use a cheek weld for any rifle I shoot other than ones with iron sights. Because your eye position does become part of the sighting system and effects parallax. Everything else shoots better with my face off the stock.

 

[Shooter13]

You don’t need your cheek putting a lot of pressure if any on the stock. Some shooters use offset scope rings so they don’t touch the stock at all with their cheek.

The ONLY thing I'm touching on my 22PPC and the 6PPC is the trigger, on the 30BR I'm putting a little pressure on the butt of the stock to hold, sure don't want my cheek on there!!

 

[AICS308]

Have you focused the eye piece first?

Yes and that could be part of the problem. I use to shoot with safety glasses And one day forgot and used my reading glasses. I could actually get the reticle clear and sharp Which I could not do with shooting glasses. I’m still trying to use shooting glasses just for safety.

When I try to adjust parallax I make an adjustment, move my head around as I have read and just never get it right. If I could get it right just once and see it that would help. I’m still a rookie in training, so much to learn.

 

[Jayplace]

@Jayplace
This video might help, you may also want to look at stool height.

Videos | wheeleraccuracy

www.wheeleraccuracy.com

I have played with my stool height some, but i'm still working on what I like.

 

[Shooter13]

Why don't benchrest stocks have raised / adjustable cheek risers?

Is it because the rifle is secured via front rest / rear bag and allowed free recoil
?

Try not to flame me just trying to learn something here.

Thanks!

No flame! LOL by your question I'm guessing you've never shot benchrest? If it is short range BR you want to influence the shot as little as possible with your body or by touching the gun (aka cheek riser).

 

[Grey Kiwi]

I can't 'float' my head off the stock for free recoil style shooting.
A long time injured neck won't let me. So I have to rest my head on the stock.
Tried both sitting beside and then behind the rifle...prefer sitting beside, with the rifle up against the left side of the bench. This allows me to sit fairly upright.
Use a drummers throne (adjustable height), and that helps me to keep an upright position too. I did find that just a 1/4" difference in seat height does make a big difference in head height, gun fit, etc. Took me a few goes to sort out the height I liked.
I like using the cheek rest anyway as I feel it holds my head/eyes in the same place for each shot.
I do OK, and have shot some decent scores even with a wonky neck and 77 year old eyes.
So it can be done. Free recoil is fine for those who are able...me, not so much.

 

[RGRobinett]

I'm in the early learning process, so I have a question about parallax. I've read about and basically understand the concept. When I set my scope up at the range, I adjusted the parallax by focusing the target image as sharp as possible. The dot didn't seem to move around, so I thought that was good. The next time I went, it was considerably hotter and the image was out of sharp focus. I re-focused and used that. Is that normal to have the parallax/focus change.
The article I read indicated the parallax adjustment was not primarily for focusing. Is that true?
I have a Leupold 45x if that makes any difference.

Presumably/hypothetically, when the ocular focus is set first (reticle in perfect focus), and one sets the objective (target image) for perfect focus, regardless of eye/head position, the target and reticle images should be in the same plane, thus the reticle, relative to the target image should be "welded"/locked into place. The key word here being SHOULD. In the "real world", this is not always the case - mechanics/lenses are not always perfect.

Think of parallax affecting POA the same a sight alignment: essentially, the reticle is the rear sight and the target image is the front sight. That said, Paralax can be bassakwards - it can be set for either too near, or, to far,, however, it's still similar to sight alignment.

Faced with your dilemma, I'd opt for slightly/somewhat degraded image with a "locked-in" reticle (least movement possible) as opposed to a perfect image, with discernible reticle displacement when moving my head/eye.

In varying degrees of heat and humidity levels, focus may well be next to impossible: higher quality lenses and coatings can make a difference, or, "see through" mirage better than lesser lens quality - but as magnification increases, expect image quality to suffer. That's about as complicated as I want to get - just get out and gain experience until it, "falls together" for you.

Again, faced with the choice between a perfect image and observable reticle movement, I'd opt for for fixed reticle and degraded image: the lesser of the 2 evils. RG

 

[6MMsteve]

Yes and that could be part of the problem. I use to shoot with safety glasses And one day forgot and used my reading glasses. I could actually get the reticle clear and sharp Which I could not do with shooting glasses. I’m still trying to use shooting glasses just for safety.

When I try to adjust parallax I make an adjustment, move my head around as I have read and just never get it right. If I could get it right just once and see it that would help. I’m still a rookie in training, so much to learn.

get a set of safety glasses by RX single vision, no bifocal, no trifocal, just single vision and you will be in heaven it's what I use they are a old pair that I never wore I only use them for shooting through a scope and I have had easy times since