Choosing a scope for HFT
When selecting a scope for HFT, aside of the price tag / optical quality, there are a number of issues that effect selection.
Depth of field is the ability to see clearly from a close target to a distant one with the targets remaining sharp visually. If you don’t have enough depth of field for a given parallax setting either the close and or the far targets will become blurred.
Depth of field is related to the focal length of the lens and the aperture. The smaller the end lens the greater the depth of field. In hunting light gathering is a major criteria so large lenses have an advantage. HFT is never shot at dawn or dusk so the need for depth of field outweighs the need to gather light.
In HFT no scope adjustments are allowed. Fixed magnification scopes generally, for the same price / quality range, offer better optical performance. Parallax is best set around 22 metres or 25 yards. Scopes without parallax adjustment can be re-adjusted as detailed in an article elsewhere in this forum.
Mil dots are not essential but do give the ability the range find on the fly without breaking HFT’s no scope adjustment rules. It does require thinking in metric for ease of use as 1 mil dot is 100mm at 100 metres 40mm at 40 metres etc. So a 40mm kill zone on the target spanning 1 mil dot is 40 metres away, if it spans 2 mil dots it’s 20 metres away etc.
Given all of the above the ideal choice, in my opinion, for a HFT scope is a fixed mag scope. A magnification of between 6 and 10 times, depending on your preference, being ideal. With an object lens of around 40 mm or even less for best depth of field. At the higher mag the closest targets may start to become a little blurred although still shootable. Fixed parallax scopes once re-parallaxed to 22 metres / 25 yards have an advantage over scopes that have variable parallax. In that as there’s nothing to adjust, you can’t inadvertently set the parallax incorrectly and be forced to shoot the round out of focus once started!
Hope that helps in making your choice of scope for HFT.
Regards
Tony
(The Shootist)
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