Rim fire scopes !st or 2nd plane ?

[muleman69]

Shooting 50 and maybe some 100 yard targets which focal plane and power do you folks like the most for rim fire?

 

[gkgeiger]

I have 2 45X45 Sightron S III Comp. scopes, they are second FP. I also have a NF 15-55X52 which is also 2fp. I only shoot RFBR 50yd.

 

[Gizmo60]

It’s largely a personal choice but if you cannot see little wee dots you cannot hit them.

Minimum power seems to be 36 and up with fine crosshair or fine crosshair and fine target dot.

Sightron, Weaver, Athlon, NF are commonly used, I use a Sightron 36x myself.

With First Focal Plane the crosshair/tgt dot gets bigger as you increase scope power and can obscure the centre of BR tgts.

Second Focal Plane is preferred for BR shooting as the crosshair/tgt dot remains the same size regardless of scope power.

 

[6ShotsOr5?]

I think it depends on what you’re doing with the rifle. If you shoot Rimfire PRS competition, you would probably want first focal plane, but for most other activities I can think of you would want second focal plame.

 

[doclu60]

Second focal plane at your described dissidences for sure.

Scott

 

[Rob01]

Depends on what you will be doing with the scope. I have FFP on my rimfire rife for the matches I shoot it in. FFP helps to be able to use the reticle for holds. If shooting BR matches most use SFP. If just shooting targets at 50 and 100 either will work fine.

Semper Fi! From a 3/1 Marine.

 

[Littlecooner]

Agree 100 % with Rob01. benchrest targets - SFP is ok and probably preferred and I do like a min of 24x for benchrest work. As I see it, the PRS/NRL22 style of long range and moving with various distances for targets demands a first focal plane scope. after 55+ years of scopes and all moa, I now have two of the mil dot FFP scopes on the PRS/NRL22 guns and have been really surprised at how easy it was to go from MOA to MilDot in these matches. It all depends upon what you are going to do with your rifle/scope combination.

 

[1b1k]

All of the above comments are correct as long as you are shooting 50 yards and longer distances. If you will be shooting indoors at a 50 ft distance, (winter leagues or when you are snow bound), you need an SFP scope that will focus down to 10 yards. A March scope will do you good in this case.

 

[Rob01]

You can shoot 50 feet with a FFP also. Have shot down to 13 feet with a centerfire in a match once. 50 feet with a rimfire isn't bad with a FFP with the reticles we have now.

 

[flatlander]

I'll second the comment about how easy it was to make the move from MOA to MIL scope reticles & adjustments. I tried shooting CF PRS-style matches with SFP MOA scopes, and it didn't take long to realize what a handicap such scopes - without zero stops - were. So when I built my 1st 22RF precision bolt repeater, it was a no-brainer to go with an Athlon Cronus 4.5-29x56 ffp/mil scope. Good Japanese glass, very good tracking, and decent reticles across the years and all three major iterations of these scopes - have them on 40XB, Vudoo, and Rim-X repeaters. Whether for plinking or competition, I lean towards mil sfp scopes on my CZ457s, for the simple reason that I find myself outdoors at night every night, taking my dog out to 'do her business', and I need a scope with illuminated reticle that doesn't get too small to use when set at lower power.

But when I built my 1st Vudoo single shot BR rifle, I went to a Sightron SIII sfp 45x45, and am considering a SIII 36x45 for the smallbore prone V22S that's currently being stocked.

 

[Rob01]

That’s more about sfp versus ffp more so than moa versus mil. Now with the good moa reticles you can shoot moa in PRS style matches easily. Most use mils so communication is easier but if someone is wanting to stay moa they can do it now and be fine.