Flyer wrote:[
AO has finer focal adjustment than side focus and is slightly more forgiving.
If you're a competition shooter, you won't be adjusting your scope mid-shoot anyway - you'll adjust it BEFORE you set up at whatever distance you are shooting at. There should be no reason to be adjusting your scope midway through your detail unless you did not set it up correctly to begin with.
Some AO scales are better than others. Most competition shooters adjust their scopes to set target distances and then put a mark on the scope as to where that distance corresponds (in the event the scales do not line up). Ie, 25m, 50m, 100m etc (as most US scopes are also scaled in yards).
I completely agree that AO is a PIA in the field unless you pre-set it to a common shooting distance. For rimfire it could be 50m or 75m or whatever, but you probably won't need it much beyond that.
Parallax adjustment is not linear, so the greater the distance, the less it is affected.
Depth of field is a product of focal length, range and aperture.
So the bigger the objective (50mm vs 40 for example), the less depth of field. The higher the magnification, the less depth of field. The shorter the focal distance, the less depth of field.
The less depth of field you have, the more sensitive the scope is to focus.
It's for this reason a lot of rimfire and air rifle target scopes are AO and not side focus. For alround use, side focus is easier to use. The main problem is most side focus scopes won't go down to 25m or less for rimfire shooting, so that can limit your choice of scope. That's why I listed the Bushnell 4500 series, as it goes down to 25m.
You slmost sound like youre trying to correct me flyer...
Yet slmost everything you say just repeats what i said...
Having serviced professional commercial & corporate photographers for 14 yrs forced me to have an understanding of depth of field, but a re-education can be a good thing....thanks...
So steering awsy from unnecessary laws of physics of light passing through an apperture, like i suggested, one will notice the great shift in focus/paralex at closer range than at far--like that required from 25m to 50m...but not notice the ssme 25m when its from 275m to 300m...depth of feild...
And no AO scooes DO NOT have a finer adjustment than side focus at all...!!
Well none that ive seen...
BOTH AO & side focus scopes ARE infinately adjustable from minimum distance to infinity...
I think maybe you're getting a bit mixed up with the fact that becsuse of the nature of the side focus set up, the diameter of the dial & possibly the gearing/pitch of thread difference between the 2 different mechanisms,, you have to move the ring more on an AO scope for the ssme correction as a side focus.
And while this may seem advantagrous for "finer adjustment", on the other hand, i see so many novice shooters at the range constantly fiddling with focus on AO scopes, because self professed experts tell them silly things like over exagerating how important it is even at 50 metres, when infact you can shoot just as good a group if your eye is aligned centrally for every single shot while the paralex is set at 45m...
And how a side focus scope will more rspidly shift in & out of focus, i believe is much better for a novice...
Also, as many scopes arent in focus when paralex is set, once the mirage picks up, a minor adjustment from paralex set to target in focus (sharper looking target through the mirage) can be advantageous for shooting tighter groups...
But then im talking from my perspectine of shooting groups/load testing with a 3.5kg kit through a typical hunting style scope & not an AO version of Hubble mounted on a ton of steel pipe......
And i like paragraph where you say there should be no reason to have to adjust the parralex--unless you have a reason to adjust it...
Agsin, i havent read everything here, but i stand by my suggestion...i dont think AO scope is generally ideal for a novice...& i dont like them...& i dont shoot comps...
The man who knows everything, doesnt really know everything...he's just stopped learning...