Ever been out on the hunt and lost sight of your target because your lens suddenly lost focus or was blurry? Well you’re certainly not the only one. The unfocused image in your lens can be due to a number of reasons, but a significant one is known as eye relief. What is Eye Relief on a Rifle Scope? Eye relief is the term given to the distance between your eye and the lens through which you can observe your surroundings. This distance is important to ensure a clear, undisturbed view and to prevent your eye from straining too much. It is usually measured in millimeters or inches. Typically, for rifle scopes, it’s best to measure in inches. Eye relief is impacted by the magnification of your scope. The higher the magnification, the lower the eye relief you have because of the shortened distance. This basically means that the higher the power, the lesser eye relief and the lower the power, the higher the eye relief.
Short Eye Relief Eye relief of less than 13 millimeters is referred to as short eye relief. The main struggle with short eye relief is that your field of view may be perfectly fine, but it’ll feel like you are pressing the scope lens into your eye to see through it. For people who need glasses to see clearly need larger eye relief. Anything as short as or shorter than 16 millimeters can be problematic. Hence, for people who wear glasses, eye relief has to be longer. Standard Eye Relief The average length of standard eye relief is around 4 inches. Scopes which offer standard eye relief are ideal for rear mounting. They give you the leeway to have greater magnification and alter reticle positions. These are features which the long eye relief scopes do not provide. You can get a decent amount of magnification and easily take aim at long distance shots. Scopes with standard eye relief help maintain balance in your gun since the weight is more evenly distributed. Long Eye Relief Many hunters do like scopes with long eye relief. Anything greater than 4.5 inches is considered to be long eye relief. It offers extra room to people who wear eyeglasses and since your eye is not glued to your eye piece, there is additional comfort in using it. There is more room for movement. Every tiny movement will not cause disturbance in your image. If you don’t follow the recommended eye relief settings of your rifle and scope, you may experience disturbances, such as chopped views or loss of light. The worst for most hunters and shooters is being in danger of the rifle scope hitting you during recoil. Set the eye piece based on your rifle and scope before you begin. Look through the lens and adjust the eye piece as required to get the optimal view. Determining the Right Setting for Eye Relief Ideally, the exit lens of your scope should match the dilation of your pupil. The average diameter for this is generally 5 millimeters. In darker situations, the eye becomes more dilated for more light transmission. This can visually cause you to see a ring around the view from your scope lens. Maintaining a balance between the distance from your scope and the diameter of your pupil, regardless of the amount of light available is the key to maintain clarity of image. Just make sure that you are not too close to the eye piece to avoid being hit by the rifle’s recoil, whether it may be on your eye or the skin around it. To maintain good eye relief, some hunters may opt for weapons with lesser recoil. That being said, others may prefer to have a limited view and more recoil simply because they’re more comfortable with the rifle they’re using. You’re in charge of making your own decisions but bear in mind that missing your target isn’t the end of the world! Potentially damaging or even losing an eye is a much more serious problem. Regardless of how adventurous you are or how much you love feeding your thrill seeking nature, avoiding harm to yourself is always a priority! Adjusting Eye Relief Getting the right eye relief is the job of your rifle scope manufacturer. Certain calculations are required to get optimal eye relief measurements. But every person is different, physically and vision-wise. Generalized settings may not always be the right fit for you. Customize your scope settings to find the ideal shooting position that is most comfortable for you. It’s a relatively easy process and one that you should definitely follow to make your hunting experience an enjoyable one. Not only is your hunt more comfortable, having the right setting for your eye relief will also give the opportunity to have a faster and better aim. A 6-Step Process to Optimum Eye Relief Step 1: When you’re attaching your scope to your rifle, make sure you keep the rings a little loose to allow for minor adjustments as required. Step 2: Secure your rifle on a stable surface in a room/ place with sufficient lighting. Step 3: Place the rifle on your shoulder and stand in your hunter’s position. Don’t think about looking through the scope. Your focus at this stage should be to find out the physical comfort level of the scope’s position. Step 4: Look through your scope and adjust it till you have a very clear view. Step 5: Continue this process till you’re happy with the position of the scope, both in terms of how it feels and the image quality you can observe. Step 6: At this stage, you can tighten your scope rings. Often, hunters don’t even know they don’t have the right eye relief settings. They may scrunch up their shoulders or twist their neck to get a clear field of view. Even after you’ve adjusted the eye relief, make sure you adjust the windage and elevation adjustment turrets of your scope. Getting the right position requires both time and effort, but it’s well worth it when your body isn’t in distress and your aim is better than ever before. Final Thoughts Even if you’ve never considered it before, it’s time to focus on the eye relief of your scope. Rather than adjusting yourself to the scope, adjust the scope to YOUR needs. Just because you’ve spent a decent amount of time and money on picking out the perfect scope, don’t worry about damaging it with some small tweaks and adjustments. If your ego and pride have been hurt countless times because your target was in sight and vanished within seconds because your field of view was limited, you might want to consider adjusting your rifle scope’s eye relief. You may have spent a hefty sum on purchasing the best rifle, but it doesn’t stop there. You need to pair it with the right kind of scope set to the right adjustments which give you comfort and ease when you’re out on the hunt. Rather than just screwing the scope into the rings straightaway, adjust the scope’s position for a clear and comfortable view before tightening the scope rings. Gone are the days of missed targets and pulled shoulder muscles. Adjust the eye relief of your scope for a comfortable and enjoyable hunting experience. You don’t need to look like a fool anymore, twisting and turning to get your scope to cooperate. Twist and turn the scope to get it to work on your terms and have a good hunt.
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