Hey Fellas.!! Newbie Q concerning "eye relief"..

[Jake in NC]

.. Great board, folks.!! I've done a little lurking over the last few weeks.. Very informative..

.. I just joined a new range near the house and these guys have a little informal High Power match every month.. Camp Butner is in easy commuting distance as are a few other facilities.. So as a result I'm ditching one of my BR guns and gearing up for some of this game.. Looks like fun and a great excuse to get new toys.!!
.. Anyhow.. I'm checking into spotting scope options and have found a few contenders.. What I don't know about is the importance of eye relief.. The Kowa LER eyepieces claim something like 32mm and most others are around the 20mm-ish range.. How much is desired/needed.? (Stand is a Ray-Vin. F&F are great.. Ruby's a hoot.!)
.. Is that in and of itself a "deal-breaker" difference or is it mostly just a "preferred" option.??
.. I've been spoiled by good glass in the BR game but I also believe there's and end to the "value curve"..
.. Thanks for any helpful advice.!! d:^) Jake in NC

 

[Quintin Likely]

If you wear shooting glasses, the more eye relief, the better. And the further you have to crawl into the eyepiece to look downrange is the further you're crawling out of your position for every shot (or however many times you use the scope during whatever string you're shooting). I use a fixed 25X LER wide angle eyepiece on my Kowa 661, for what it's worth.

And I agree, Ray and Ruby are good folk.

 

[Jake in NC]

Thanks, Quintin..

.. Looks like one of the little Kowa's would fit the bill nicely.. I haven't seen many other spotters with as much relief as their eyepiece offers.. I bet resale, in the event of a flake-out, isn't too awful bad either..
.. Is there any consensus on the benefit of ED lenses with these.? There's a $280 difference in the TSN-663 and the TSN-661.. It'd have to be a helluvan improvement.!! Hehehe.. JiNC


PS- I will admit to being somewhat of a "gear-whore" (I read that term here somewhere).. There is proper gear for every task.. Sub-standard junk causes too much frustration to be allowed into my fun time..

 

[Quintin Likely]

I don't think the flourite lenses make a big deal, other than maybe image brightness, but the non flourite models are more than sufficient for checking mirage and wind.

I think there was someone selling a used Kowa 821 with the 27X LER eyepiece on nationalmatch.us - the highpower boards and your local range are good places to find good gear for sale used.

 

[MNgoldenbear]

I use a Kowa 821 with the 27x eyepiece. Pretty easy to read .22 cal holes at 100+ yards and 30 cal at 200-300 yards (at least). Looked through some of the fluorite lenses. They really only seemed to make a difference to me in really marginal light conditions. On most "normal" shooting days, my set-up is fine for anything I need to spot for. I miss highpower. Not many places to do that in west central MN (too flat, hard to get good backstop).

 

[Sunray]

Eye relief is the distance between your eye and the rear optic. Usually a scope sight consideration, but it applies to a spotting scope too. If you have to strain to see the whole picture, the spotting scope is too far away. If the spotting scope gets in the way of your shooting a longer eye relief rear lens shoud help. Ideally, you'd fire the shot and just turn your head to see the target. 20mm's is less than an inch. 32 is slightly more than an inch. It becomes a comfort thing.
"...If you wear shooting glasses..." "If"? You should always wear shooting glasses. Most ranges won't let you shoot or be anywhere near the firing line without them. As an aside, all prescription glasses have shatter resistant lenses. I asked about it when I had to get specs.