Scope Question -- Thin Reticle Lines

[rebs]

I have a sightron SIII 8 - 32 with fine crosshair and .125 dot. When shooting F class at 300 yds the crosshair and dot fade against the black back ground of the target. How much would it help to go to a .250 crosshair and dot ? What reticle are you guys using for F class ?

 

[JEFFPPC]

I do not shoot fclass but I do shoot 1000yd br. One thing for sure, you can not hit what you can't see. I do not see a problem with your idea.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

Aim small miss small. Youll have twice the error on a crosshair twice as big. Aim at a different spot and make it hit the bull

 

[mike mccormick]

I had the same problem. Then I figured out Transitions lenses in my glasses were getting dark.......

 

[ShootDots]

I have a sightron SIII 8 - 32 with fine crosshair and .125 dot. When shooting F class at 300 yds the crosshair and dot fade against the black back ground of the target. How much would it help to go to a .250 crosshair and dot ? What reticle are you guys using for F class ?

I had 2 of your Sightrons and 2 of the 10-50x. They are excellent scopes. The phenomenon you are describing, if I am visualizing it correctly, is not caused by your reticle.. I believe you either have 1.) your "quick focus" slightly out of phase; 2.) your parallax slightly out of phase OR 3.) possibly a little of BOTH of the aforementioned issues.. I now have a few Khales with very fine reticles and I have experienced what you are describing. Virtually ALL of the time, I have found it to be a slight parallax error..

 

[Boisblancboy]

I’ve run into this same problem and I have younger eyes. What I noticed is when my eyepiece was out of focus my eyes were able to adjust until I pointed at the black F class target and things got difficult to see. Once adjusted problem solved for me. I currently shoot with a 3/32 Dot with no problems.

 

[FeMan]

I was thinking the same as Shoot Dots. I’d make sure your eye piece is focused correctly for your eyes.

 

[rebs]

Thank you for the replies, I'll check the eye piece and parallax again.

 

[JFrank]

Adjusting the Ocular against a blank background opening and closing your eye similar to an eye exam asking yourself is this reticle better or worse each time ,(clear and sharp) you’ll be surprised where you end up.
I was.

 

[Fred Bohl]

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.

 

[fyrewall]

Being real olde my diopter/reticle focus is screwed far out. As mentioned above there is some relationship between target image/parallax and reticle focus. Tiny dots & real thin cross hairs demand attention to scope focusing for exquisite bullet placement (aiming small).

If you need to mark stuff on a matte finish scope get a Milwaukee brand INKZALL, silver color, fine point felt tip. I use these to write all sorts of stuff on my scopes it can be cleaned up with Isopropyl alcohol.

 

[Big Mc]

I have a sightron SIII 8 - 32 with fine crosshair and .125 dot. When shooting F class at 300 yds the crosshair and dot fade against the black back ground of the target. How much would it help to go to a .250 crosshair and dot ? What reticle are you guys using for F class ?

Change your POA its free. Just my two cents Tommy Mc

 

[Walt Schmidlin]

When you get the eye piece adjusted to your satisfaction use a pencil and mark it so you will be able to verify it has not moved which can easily occur when replacing or removing the lense cover. Night Force scopes has a very SMALL dot on the moving part.

 

[Steve Donlon]

Your crosshairs are only .012" and your dot is the same size as the crosshairs on my Nightforce NX8 F1 4-32x50. I could not even see the crosshairs on your scope. I was looking at the Sightron 8-32 with the narrow duplex retical, and for me, that was the only one that would work. Some times, your just wasting your time trying to make do when there are better options out there. If all the advice does not work, there are plenty more options. The narrow duplex has the thickest lines of all their scopes from what I've seen on their web page. To bad they don't offer the German 1 retical. That's really easy to see. For me the retical is the most important part after the trigger and glass. I don't like to waste time with the wrong retical when conditions can change fast.

 

[KY_Windage]

According to Sightron the FCH subtends .025 moa @ 32x.
My Nightforce Competition FCR-1 subtends .016 moa @ 40x.
Therefore the Comp. must subtend about .02 at 32x.
So my lines are finer than yours but my old eyes can see them fine on an F-class target at 300 or 600.

But if my ocular is not adjusted perfectly it is hard to see my reticle. Only takes a second to adjust it, though.

 

[Steve Donlon]

According to Sightron the FCH subtends .025 moa @ 32x.
My Nightforce Competition FCR-1 subtends .016 moa @ 40x.
Therefore the Comp. must subtend about .02 at 32x.
So my lines are finer than yours but my old eyes can see them fine on an F-class target at 300 or 600.

But if my ocular is not adjusted perfectly it is hard to see my reticle. Only takes a second to adjust it, though.

The fine cross hair model has .025 crosshairs but the .125 dot, the one I was talking about, has .012. that's less than half. I think that is the one rebs has according to what I read. That seems small to me, but that's just me.

 

[Steve Donlon]

I have a sightron SIII 8 - 32 with fine crosshair and .125 dot. When shooting F class at 300 yds the crosshair and dot fade against the black back ground of the target. How much would it help to go to a .250 crosshair and dot ? What reticle are you guys using for F class ?

After looking at the size of your crosshairs, I would go bigger if the advice given here has no affect. Your retical is very important and the longer the distance the more important. I had a Leupold target dot 8-25x50 and really wanted to like it, but it drove me crazy trying to put that little dot on the bullseye. For me, it is much easier to bracket the bullseye. I like to see the target. The MOA-2 with the .250 dot has .075 crosshairs with the illuminated red dot. Much better IMO. Compared .012. But, what ever works for you.

 

[KY_Windage]

The fine cross hair model has .025 crosshairs but the .125 dot, the one I was talking about, has .012. that's less than half. I think that is the one rebs has according to what I read. That seems small to me, but that's just me.

I don't know what you were looking at, but according to their website Sightron does not make a reticle any finer than its .025 moa FCH.

But that is not a dot reticle. Their LR dot ("LRD") has a .030 moa reticle, which is slightly larger than the FCH's .025.

But, while not as thin as the NF Comp's FCR-1 reticle, both of the Sightron reticles are extremely thin, and are not for everybody. Before I pitched one, though, I'd make certain I had my ocular adjusted perfectly. I know several guys around 70 yrs old who are shooting FCR-1's at F-class and love them.

 

[chkunz]

I have been dealing with this problem, old eyes, black reticle on black target. I shoot XTC and after some experimentation I have changed my sight picture to a six o'clock hold with the target dot reticle just out in the white at 6 o'clock and that is working well. We get a big target in XTC and this may not work for your application but may be worth a try.

 

[Steve Donlon]

I don't know what you were looking at, but according to their website Sightron does not make a reticle any finer than its .025 moa FCH.

But that is not a dot reticle. Their LR dot ("LRD") has a .030 moa reticle, which is slightly larger than the FCH's .025.

But, while not as thin as the NF Comp's FCR-1 reticle, both of the Sightron reticles are extremely thin, and are not for everybody. Before I pitched one, though, I'd make certain I had my ocular adjusted perfectly. I know several guys around 70 yrs old who are shooting FCR-1's at F-class and love them.

Look at scope Sightron SIIISS832X56LRDT/TDT for the right one I was referring to. It is .012. crosshairs and a .125 dot. I don't want to get in a pissing contest, but I just want to get the right information out there and not have people get the wrong information. I'm sure you agree. I hope this helps you.