scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

im picking up my new tikka t3 lite stainless tomarrow with a nikon buckmasters silver shadow (i think thats what its called).

anyway, ive been looking at a lot of scopes at gander mountain and i find that without having my eye about 2-3 inches from the scope, i dont get the full field of vision. and im worried that with the kick of the 7mm, ill end up hittin myself in the eye unless i concentrate on really holding that gun in place. i want to beable to shoot rather comfortably and not have to worry about really packin the gun into my arm. is this normal? any suggestions?

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

PapaD, heavy recoil comes with having a lightweight rifle in a magnum caliber. That just comes with the territory. But, there is something you can do to make that recoil a little easier on the shoulder. I'm not a big fan of muzzle brakes, but a Sims recoil pad will make a difference. But as you said , "not concentrating on the gun" and "not packing the gun into my arm" will not only affect you accuracy, but it'll also make the you wish you were.;) Good luck.

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

i busted my eye open when i was about 16 and shot my dads 7mag for the fist time. it will make you pay attention real fast!:D

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

Get the Simmons Aetec scope. 5 inches of eye relief. More than almost any other scope out there. They will hold up to Magnum recoil well.

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

anything less than 3" is very poor eye relief in my book, i own mostly leupold's but as james b mentioned i do have a simmons aetec 2.8X10X44 on my encore m/l'er barrel and i love it, i paid 140ish for mine, i have heard you can buy them on-line for around 120. i have had mine on the m/l'er barrel for 3 years and no complaints with plenty of eye relief;)

best of luck,

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

James...you guys beat me to the draw on that one...:D

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

i mean dont get me wrong, im a pretty big guy and kick isnt a big issue with me. It's just that i never have shot a gun of that magnum with a scope before. im 6'4 and 235 incase anyone was wondering.

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

For the money your spending on the Nikon, if your worried about creasing your eyebrow, I would spend the same amount of money and get a Leupold VXII and have much more eye relief.

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

and you shouldn't shoot one with that little of eye relief, if you do your gettin what you deserve

it don't matter if your 7'10" and 400 lbs. gettin your eyes crossed ain't no fun

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

PapaD, Two to three inches is enough eye relief for a 7mm mag. Just make sure your stock is tight against you shoulder. Sighting in and elevated shots from the sitting position are times when you must pay attention. Use a rest or sandbags when sighting in that elevate the rifle enough for you to be in more of an upright position. A low position tends to have you creep up on the scope and possible ring around the eye. When sitting and shooting up hill turn a bit to the side. If you a right hander, turn so your shooting over your left leg. This will be a more stable position and help eliminate a third eyebrow.;)

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

Just picked up my first mag gun. . 7MMRM in a win model 70. I love it put a box through at the range last week everything was great. Shot my first pig Friday at last light nice shot dropped him like a rock. Saturday morning roles around and I am about frozen when a nice boar walks out, hoping for a nice Doe but what the heck, I get the gun up and with my face gear on my breath starts to fog my scope. So while I mess with this and try to see my target a must have moved a bit close and allowed the butt to be seated a bit loose to my sholder. Net Net . . .I fire he drops and then I feel something wet coming down my nose. Got a nice little split above my right eye. No pain but sure got my attention. I am not small, 6'3" 190 and the recoil is felt but not over the top. I can hardly wait until the next time I fire. I be I will be paying special attention to how far back my eye is. I have a Burris Fullfield II mounted on this gun and I thought the eye releif was at least 2 or 3 ". Who knows?

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

Gt, the FFII has variable ER of 3.1(9X)-3.8 (3X)" BTW.

It usually boils down to the scope not being mounted properly to begin with for your shooting position/style or lack of positioning the rifle before pulling the trigger vs. ER the scope affords.

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

Boy wish I had the answer EVER time my dad grabs my 300 win he gets a new ring around his eye. He allso did it with my 308 and 3006. I would say it is all in gun placement on your sholder and the scope mounting spot.I have never scoped my eye yet knock knock. DAd did not every do this with his guns just mine.

I would reposition you scope.

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

I've read about this problem for years in all the popular hunting/shooting magazines and frankly - I don't see how it happens. I've shot big guns with scopes (416 Rem mag) and I've shot light guns that recoil pretty hard with scopes (my current hunting rifle is a Wby ultralight in 300 Wby) and I don't see how anyone who is holding the gun correctly can have a scope hit them in the head on recoil. Do the people who experience this have protruding foreheads?

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

every scope brand i have looked at has had at least 3+ inches of eye relief even the cheap scopes, most scopes are 3.5-5.5"


thats the bottom line, the only time i've had my eyes X, while shooting a gun anyway, was when i shot uphill leaning up over the rifle, bad deal and i learned from it[:-].

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

hope it never happens to me!! im not sure on what the exact measurement was. but it seemed awfully close. so it might have been around 3.5.

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

Closest I have ever come was with a Remington 700 in 270 with a Nikon Buckmaster. I was shooting at a funny angle to begin with. Didn't cut me but it did hit.

I have to be honest, I didn't like the eye relief on the Buckmaster. I also found eye placement was critical. Much clearer, to me, than my VariX-II

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

The scar anyone bears after getting whacked by a recoiling scope is called "the learning curve":D

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2-3 inches is fine for a 7mm.A 300wsm.NO,I found out....hard and PAINFULLY

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

The Leupolds all come with 4" eye relief. Even the Vari X Is. I take that back I don't know about the Rifleman series.

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

Not true.They have variable eye reliefs that are as little as 3.5" at 10x on the 3.5x10x40 vxiii.

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

stubblejumper is exactly right about the Leupold's variable eye relief. On a VX1 it goes from 4.2" @ 3x to 3.7" @ 9x.

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

And one has to wonder how there is so much range in eye relief on a Leupold when Bushnell,Nikon,Swarovski,Kahles,Zeiss and a few more have consistent eye relief.

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

Makes me glad that I shoot a .243...LOL:):)

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

Excuse me! I didn't know a lousy quarter inch was that important. Besides I use a 2x7, don't need anything bigger, cause I have a varmint rifle. :eek:

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

The 1/4" is not at all a problem to me personally as I feel that is plenty of eye relief. The problem lies in the FACT that Leupold variable scopes have variable eye relief dependent upon the magnification setting. You can go to Leupold's web site and read for yourself. Not flaming you just stating the facts.:)

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

Actually it is 1/2" in the case of the scope given as an example.In any case I find 3.5" enough eye relief for any of my rifles including the ultramags

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

Oldelk with their design of constant eye relief, they have to sacrafise some (very little). Leupold does not have to. I can try to get my optics engineer to dig up some info about it if interested. He's on vacation back to his home in Europe for a week. Basically, the constant eye relief has to do with another pair of lenses.

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

BC not sure much if anything is sacrificed with constant eye relief being that Zeiss,Swarovski,Kahles,Bushnell,Nikon and many others that have it are just as bright if not brighter then a comparable Leupold and have in most cases much better resolution.

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

Oh, I totally agree. Oldelk, but with a Ziess, or Kahles, you are going to pay more for the extra feature, usally around $50 dollars I find. And I am starting to think it is worth it. As far as brighter. That depends on the yeild and quality. I am in the manufacturing enviroment. And used to buy lenses from alot of the different manufactures. Some would come in here on the hairy edge of the spec and some far exceeding the spec and should have been sold as a higher quality piece of glass.

Maybe Ziess has tighter QA than Leupold. Knowing the germs, I wouldn't put it past them. But still don't mind buying Vari X III models either. We tried this test the other night. I had a new conquest, and one of my Vari X III and set both at 10 power. Me and a buddy both tried to read a licence plate far away in low light. He couldn't tell an ounce of difference, niether could I? Then I took another Vari X III and the other one (and conquest) was much brigher. I fiddled with adjusting the focus but no dice. Just a bad yield I guess.

By the way, picked up a stainless from your recommendation on ebay. Got a 3.5-10X44 conquest for 505. Excellent choice.

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

The tree I used to hunt out of gun season was sitting at such an angle I had to use the back side of the tree and turn around and be twisted when I shot...if they came out right behind me..I knew I was gonna get belted.....with that being said I have watched 3 deer fall at the same time on a few occasions due to being dizzy after getting whacked!!! Thankfully I never got cut (bad)...however it was the perfect tree and i could stand it...lol.

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

Learning curve My Eye !!! and I mean my eye. I have been shooting my 7 mag for years and never have I been hit by it, probaly because that I am fully aware that if you do not sholder any rifle with this kind of recoil correctly ( firmly against your sholder ) it can and will smack you. . .
As a reminder this years past muzzleloader season I was reminded of it very well and I dont think that I will forget it for a while, I was sitting on a chair along a logging road that I have hunted for years, so being right handed I was sort of set up to shoot primarly to my left ( I also had cut me a shooting stick ) well as you can guess I glanced to my right to see a nice 8 point Whitetail about 150 yards away he had already crossed the road and must have stopped ( for some reason ) just to glance at me, well I know from hunting this road for years that I had NO time to waste so I turned very Quickly moving the shooting stick along with the 7 and as soon as I seen the deers rack I hastly put the crosshairs on his vital area and pulled the trigger ( I have to mention that I use 150 grs ( 3 pellets ) and I busted the Buck and also took a chunk of meat out of the bridge of my nose, and was bleeding like a stuck Pig, a couple of days later I ended up with two Black eyes. What I did wrong was not turning completly and not setting up properly.
Moral of my story is Hold that rifle very firmly against your sholder and your head firmly against the stock and as long as you have 2 inches of eye relief it should be enough.

PS It is hard to follow a blood trail if you are also leaving one

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

Drhuner pretty funny story but not for you at the time. I too got the bad end of the scope after using 150 gr of pyrodex for the first time with my ML. I was used to shooting with 2 pellets and decided to try 3. I was shooting on a range and resting on a sand bag and didn't have the gun firmly and square in my shoulder. The other guys on the range had a good chuckle over my mishap. I tried to act like nothing was wrong but the blood started to flow and there was no hiding it.

RE: scope coming back and hitting you in the face
 

I have a Simmons AETEC on my Omega. Its awesome and has 5" of eye relief.