Side Focus

[eck]

I'm looking at putting a new scope on my 7RemMag and I'm curious to get other peoples opinions on side focus vs no side focus. Right now the Leupold I have on it does not have side focus, is it worth the extra money to get a scope with side focus adjustments?

 

[SomeJackassOnAForum]

Depends on how high of magnification you want, how far you intend to shoot, and how accurate you want your setup to be.

Parallax (what you're calling side focus) brings the image of the reticle and of your subject into the same optical plane of the scope at the same time. This gives you a nice image of your subject at higher power at the distance you've set the scope to. On a fixed parallax scope, the image of the subject will be "parallax free" at usually 100 or 200 yds. The further you get from that distance, the less clear the image will be on a higher powered scope.

Likewise, the further you get from that distance, the more potential parallax error you introduce. If you have an extremely repeatable head/eye position on the rifle, this aspect becomes less important.

If you're running a 10 or 12x scope (or less), don't even bother with it.

 

[rayporter]

and if there is any chance of packing in on on a guided hunt forget it.
i have nightforce, valdada, and leupold scopes with side focus. to me it just gets in the road. i like it for paper punching but have no desire to hunt with one.

 

[eck]

Depends on how high of magnification you want, how far you intend to shoot, and how accurate you want your setup to be.

Parallax (what you're calling side focus) brings the image of the reticle and of your subject into the same optical plane of the scope at the same time. This gives you a nice image of your subject at higher power at the distance you've set the scope to. On a fixed parallax scope, the image of the subject will be "parallax free" at usually 100 or 200 yds. The further you get from that distance, the less clear the image will be on a higher powered scope.

Likewise, the further you get from that distance, the more potential parallax error you introduce. If you have an extremely repeatable head/eye position on the rifle, this aspect becomes less important.

If you're running a 10 or 12x scope (or less), don't even bother with it.

I'm looking at either 14 or 15 power on the high end, and I'm confident shooting out to 5-600 yard on an animal. So it sounds like the parallax adjustment would definitely be a good thing to have.

 

[eck]

and if there is any chance of packing in on on a guided hunt forget it.
i have nightforce, valdada, and leupold scopes with side focus. to me it just gets in the road. i like it for paper punching but have no desire to hunt with one.

I mostly hunt solo and I don't think a guided hunt is anywhere in my near future. I'm looking at both the Leupold VX-3HD and VX-5, either 14 or 15 on the high end of magnification. I'd like to be able to take a shot out to 600 yards if necessary and just don't know how well fixed parallax would work out to that distance.

 

[rayporter]

its a great reason to get a great scope that will work forever.