Eye relief suggestions

Jspach said:

So I’m new to this sight, also new to air guns, I used to hunt many years ago but always had problems with eye relief. I have pretty bad eyesight. At the time I was using a shotgun and just turned the magnification up all the way. I am not sure where to start. I don’t even have a gun yet but working on it. Does anyone have any scope suggestions?

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Hello and welcome Jspach

If you have a gun shop near, I would suggest that you visit with them and look through as many different scopes that you can. Also your choice of a rifle and how you will be using it will guide your scope requirement.

ThomasT

Jspach said:

So I’m new to this sight, also new to air guns, I used to hunt many years ago but always had problems with eye relief. I have pretty bad eyesight. At the time I was using a shotgun and just turned the magnification up all the way. I am not sure where to start. I don’t even have a gun yet but working on it. Does anyone have any scope suggestions?

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Hi Jspach wecome aboard if possible and not shooting past 50yrs look into a 3X prism red dot type optics easy to shoot with both eyes open.
[works for me any way] good luck

Jspach,
Welcome, glad you're here. I've struggled with eye relief, as well. Think most guns are designed for average size shooters and for those of smaller stature and not wanting to shorten the stock, the scope is a long way off. Thankfully, I've found PCPs are no problem, my Benjamin Trail NP XL, on the other hand, required this Monstrum Scope Ring Set to get it right. Lots of innovation available now to help. WM

What exactly is your eye relief problem. You mentioned dealing with it by turning up the magnification, but that usually exacerbates an eye relief issue, making the distance between your eye and the the ocular lens of the scope (the eye relief) more critical. If your issue is obtaining clear focus on the target, then having a scope with adjustable focusing is important. This is done with either and adjustable objective, or a side turret adjustment. If the distance between your eye and the scope is the challenge, then having a good ocular lens adjustment, and choosing the least powerful scope necessary would both be helpful. If getting a clear target focus is the issue, then a scope with a wide range of focus, and a power selection on the higher end will help. And simply having good glass is also important. Scope quality has improved a lot during my 50+ years of shooting, but still the best glass is usually going to be the most expensive. Good luck with your shopping.

everybody has different eyes .. mine are pretty bad but westhunter scopes work good with my eyes, particularly the 16x ffp ..

what you plan to do in air gunning will determine what you buy. (unless your like me and impulse buy ) , Really , what is your thinking of what you want to do ? paper Target ? 10 yards , 30 yards ? Pesting in your yard , pesting on a farm ?

OH ! and Welcome to the best place to be AGN

ok i think .25 is overkill for pesting and targets . Coyotes are another story ,but how many Coyotes do you expect ? Maybe think of a gun that you can change barrels easily ? Talk to people here ,best source of info on the net. Warning most will try to sell you $$$$$ guns and high power. OR You can buy two guns in .22 and .25 Benjamin Marauder are great guns and around $400 PCP and hand pumpable.

IMO the Marauder is a good choice for a first PCP-I have a couple and they're solid accurate guns. They have great support from Crosman. If you plan on hand pumping to fill, consider a .22 caliber, they get more shots per fill. The bigger caliber guns use more air.
I don't fill with a pump myself, but once you fill to full pressure you can shoot for a while and then top off to full pressure so you don't have to start from minimum pressure. This is very practical if you mainly hunt and pest where you don't take a lot of shots.
Many folks here seem to favor the Air Venturi Avenger as a first PCP, I have no experience with them myself.
As to the eye relief, I found this video pretty helpful. (they use a firearm as the example, so I guess Youtube flags it)
The only goof in it is at the end the presenter has High and low magnification reversed-the optimal eye position moves rearward at high magnification, not forward.
Take your time, do some research, Have fun!

Jspach said:

I have run across the Marauder when looking, How long does it take to hand pump/fill?

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More like how strong is your heart? If you need the cardiovascular exercise, go for it.

Here is how I set my eye relief on all my rifles. I mount the rifle as if I am going to shoot it and get comfortable, like real comfortable. While doing this my eyes are closed. Once I get to the point of comfort I open up my eyes. If I have to move my head its not set correct. You want to be able to get comfortable on the rifle and not have to move your head. The issue I see most guys have is height. They will get comfortable on the rifle then have to lift their head up. I also set the power of the scope to the highest power I would shot it at. Which for me is usually all the way up. Do not do this on the lowest power.
To know better about eye relief and how to determine eye relief on a rifle scope you may check this Accurateordnance article.