Mirage

doghunter

New member
G'day all.

I have often seen posts that a variable scope can be dialled down in power if mirage is a problem.

So thinking about this logically (always dangerous for me) I have arrived at the conclusion that this achieves nothing.

The mirage is still there, it does not care about your scope power and dialling down the scope power just means that one does not notice the mirage so much - but it's still there!

So could anybody please explain why is this is so? :confused:

* doggie *
 
G'day all.

I have often seen posts that a variable scope can be dialled down in power if mirage is a problem.

So thinking about this logically (always dangerous for me) I have arrived at the conclusion that this achieves nothing.

The mirage is still there, it does not care about your scope power and dialling down the scope power just means that one does not notice the mirage so much - but it's still there!

So could anybody please explain why is this is so? :confused:

* doggie *

doggie,

You are right. mirage doesn't care where your scope is set. But, and there is always a but.

When mirage gets so bad you really can't tell where your crosshairs are pointing, dialing down the power can bring them back into at least some focus.

Now the image of the target is still misplaced and you can't aim directly at it and expect to hit it. That is when you have to depend on your sighters to tell you where to point.

That is my two cents worth.

TKH
 
^^^^^^

Yep, still there as well as the optical displacement of the target but dialing back, to some shooters, helps reduce the appearance of the image distortion and makes holding an aim point easier. I am in that camp. Some don't dial back and hold the average position of the shimmering aim point.
 
Highpower rifle shooters, who are not allowed to use all the wind flags and pinwheels that are used in benchrest, usually keep the spotting scope focused on the mirage and use it to dope the wind conditions.
 
I know a guy

who was a military rifle team who told me he went to a week long school on mirage reading. A Week! I've mostly shot 6 Power Benchrest and ignored Mirage. I have shot a lot of higher powered scopes in Rimfire so know about the tricks Mirage plays.

Pete
 
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