Effects of Parralax

[Gamo X-Ring Shooter]

Hi everyone I just wanted to know what everyone thought about parallax in general.  Is it really worth it to buy scopes with the ability to cancel out parallax at whatever distance or can you get by just fine without it?  In general hunting scenarios does parallax really effect your shots enough to result in a complete miss?  Does anyone know what the usually distance airgun scopes are made parallax free at?

Thanks Brian

[longislandhunter]

Hi Brian,

Welcome to the forum.  I am by no means any kind of expert in this area, but I can answer your question to a degree based on my limited personal experience.  Almost all of my scopes are "AO" but I do have a few that are non "AO" scopes and they serve me well when small game or pest control hunting.  My non AO scopes are all 4x32 scopes and  are factory set to be parallax free at 50 yards.  With these scope, when shooting squirrels or rabbits and such, it's  nice to be able to just put the gun up and shoot and not have to adjust the AO for the range.  It also helps me get off my shots much quicker, which comes in handy when sometimes all you have is a second or two once you spot your quarry.  I have taken quite a lot of game with these scopes and the lack of AO  has never caused me to miss a tree rat or bunny.

The only time my non AO scopes present a problem for me is if my target is very close because the target is blurry, but in my hunting scenarios it's rare for the animal to be that close anyway.  At ranges of 20 to 40 yards, my usual hunting range, the non AO does not have an adverse effect on my shooting.  

I'm not saying I prefer non AO scopes over AO scopes, I don't.  I'm just saying that for me I have a couple of rifles purposely set up with 4 power non AO scopes just for pest control and hunting.  When I'm target shooting, or shooting at further distances than I usually hunt at, or when I'm hunting with one of my magnum rifles at longer ranges, I make sure I am using one of my adjustable power AO scopes.  

Of course it's a simply matter, if buying a scope, to buy a good variable power AO scope and you actually have the  best of both worlds.  You have the zoom capability of the different magnification settings, you have the AO feature to use to increase accuracy for target shooting and such and if you don't want to have to adjust AO for each shot while hunting then you just preset the AO on your scope to whatever setting/range you want and just leave it there.  

I know there is a technique where you can actually change the factory parallax settings, but I'm not familiar with it.  I'm sure one of the more knowledgeable guys will chime in regarding that.  

Again, welcome to the forum.  Look forward to your future posts.

Jeff

[Gamo X-Ring Shooter]

Thank you for your insight longislandhunter your opinion makes tons of sense.  In a hunting situation you really won't have time to mess with the parralax settings anyway.  You mentioned being able to change the factory preset so you got me curious.  I got out one of my old piece of junk scopes and started taking it apart and I think I figured it out!!!  On the objective lense end there is a piece of metal that screws off.  Once you screw it off you can screw out or in the whole entire lense.  By playing around with screwing the lense in and out I was able to worsen the parralax at first and then eventually cancel it out all together!!  Do you think this is the way you were talking about or anybody for that matter?

[Gene_SC]

Great explanation Jeff.. And welcome to the GTA Brian..  We have some information in our library that may help with some of your questions also Brian..

Good Luck

[daved]

You nailed it, Brian.  That's exactly the way you do it, and it's purely trial and error.  The only thing to keep in mind it, you probably don't want to do it to a decent scope.  If it's nitrogen filled, changing the parralax will probably break the seal.  But for a cheap scope, who cares :-)?  I've done it to a couple of scopes, both were set at 50 yards, I changed one to 30, the other to 20.  Both are working fine.  Later.

Dave