Is there any other experienced shooters that prefer SFP also???

[Mr.Knowit all]

I have had a BEAST and a Gen II and both scopes are great. I mean if you can do without the fancy elevation knobs on the BEAST then get the ATACR F1 and save about $1200 JMO... The ATACR F1 was not out when I got the BEAST but I digress....

Let me just say that I make my self shoot in both mils and moa and FFP and SFP. I feel that it is good to be "fluent" so to speak between the both and it pushes me-keeps me thinking....

I always hear about people making the switch from SFP to FFP and I just wanted to know if any of you gave it an honest go and decided to go back to SFP optics? At low power not being able to utilize the reticle REALLY bothers me. It seems like they are useless until about 10-12 power(with the BEAST and Gen II). JMO

I am interested in your experiences. Thanks for your time.

 

[Erud]

I think you will find that most shooters on this board prefer SFP optics for the types of shooting that are discussed here. For F-class and benchrest style matches, there are no advantages to FFP, and plenty of disadvantages.

 

[Ned Ludd]

The main issue with most FFP scopes for competition styles such as F-Class is that the reticle line/dot sub tensions in FFP scopes are much too large at the high mags we tend to use, thereby occluding a significant part of the target center. I believe there are a couple manufacturers (March may be one?) that have rectified this issue on some of their FFP scopes. The Nightforce Competition scopes and, more recently, the Vortex Golden Eagle scopes have gone to using 40X as the magnification at which their reticles' sub tensions are calibrated. The 40X calibration magnification makes it much easier to use the reticle subtensions (hashmarks) to estimate turret corrections/holds in competition as it is in the range of magnification many shooters use during competition anyhow. In contrast, the older NXS scopes were calibrated at 22X, which is not sufficient magnification for many shooters. You could certainly ballpark the estimate with the scope set at 42X, but it's not exactly a 2X difference (22X to 42X) and I always found it to be kind of a pain. Frankly, all one need do for F-Class is simply memorize the angular dimensions of the target scoring rings. Very simple really, and the relationship of your shot marker position to the scoring rings should be pretty easy to see, regardless of the magnification you're using.

 

[ballison]

As already stated, if you're shooting only F-Class, SFP is the way to go. It will give you a thinner reticle and you're really not concerned about the reticle subtensions being "accurate" at different magnifications.

If you are shooting PRS, then FFP will have some significant advantages. With PRS, there is a good chance you will need to hold for elevation and windage at some point. Having accurate subtensions at every magnification is a must. The reticle does get small at low magnifications, but it hasn't been an issue for me. If I'm below 10x, it is usually a relatively close target, and your wind/elevation holds will be small or insignificant.

 

[flatlander]

I've never considered going ffp for conventional prone HP match use - if you've got the $$ to spend on the extra cost of a ffp scope, why not invest it in a better quality sfp model? OTH, I shoot more practical/tactical matches nowadays than conventional prone, so have invested heavily in ffp Kahles K624i AMR scopes, along with a few other 34mm ffp mil/mil models from Athlon, Bushnell, & Weaver.

So far as I'm concerned, the big advantage of ffp is in not having to do any mental math when holding off for either elevation or windage on stages where you aren't given time to click for corrections or the match description doesn't allow for clicking, and when shooting movers at magnifications other than the calibrated one with a sfp scope. My poor addled brain has enough work to do when I'm shooting under the pressure of time constraints than to deal with figuring out the value of reticle hashmarks when I've backed off the magnification that the sfp scope's reticle is calibrated for.

It's actually kind of relaxing to shoot conventional prone with a sfp scope - and not at all difficult to revert back to thinking in terms of MOA if you're going to hold off instead of dialing corrections.

 

[dondlhmn]

Simple answer...match the scope to the mission. If you're shooting only Known Distance matches or only known distance for whatever kind of shooting you do, there is no real need for a FFP scope. If you need to range with the scope, you most likely need a FFP scope. Don't listen to all the background noise about MOA vs. Mil....just see which one suits YOU best and is easiest for YOU to work with and go with that.