First Focal Plane v. Second Focal Plane

first focal plane first second focal plane this has a lot of information to it I'm gonna do my best to make it somewhat concise for all of you but it's a big question we get asked a lot a lot of you have asked it out there and comments all over the place so here we go let's start out with second focal plane second focal plane is the one many of you are probably used to if you grew up hunting or if you started out hunting and you use kind of a simple three to nine power rifle scope chances are it was probably 2nd focal plane as you change the magnification on that scope looking through the optic you'd probably notice that changing the magnification makes the image grow and shrink that's exactly what it does from 3 power to 9 power for example that image will appear to get about three times bigger than it was on its lowest setting on its highest setting you would also probably notice that the reticle does not appear to change at all with that change in magnification it just stays the same size as the image around it grows and shrinks that is second focal point you see what's happening there is that even though the reticle doesn't appear to be changing at all it's actually changing the entire time all the way up until usually you get to the highest magnification which is where it's size in relation to the image size has been scaled up correctly because our reticles are a lot like rulers they usually have hash marks that are correlated to MOA or em red or ballistic drop compensation of some sort for some caliber and all those hash marks and features of our reticle need to be in proper scale to the image in order for them to really mean anything or at least mean what they meant on the reticle manual that you got with your optic so if you're using a three to nine let's go back to that example and a BDC and you wanted to use those holdovers with the BDC out at 400 yards let's say you would have to make sure that you're on again we're gonna assume it's one of those scopes that has it calibrated to the highest power nine power in this case you're going to want to make sure you're on nine power in order to use that BDC reticle around one of the other powers where the image got smaller but the reticle didn't get smaller with it and you try to use those holdovers everything's not to the right scale so you're probably unfortunately going to miss if that's the case nine power though it'll work just fine no one really important thing to point out with first focal plane and second focal plane is a lot of people here is talking about the fact that second focal plane the reticle only works when it's on the highest magnification now Matt's talking about all the features about your reticle around the center crosshair the center crosshair in and of itself though that one single point doesn't have to worry about scale whether reticle size image size it really doesn't matter it's a single point in space it always works no matter what magnification you're on and no matter whether you have a first focal plane or a second focal plane reticle what does that mean it means that you can always dial your turrets and use the center crosshair no matter what magnification you're on now let's talk about first focal point first focal plane is the one that a lot of people think is pretty sweet because a lot of the big time PRS competitors or professional end users are using first focal plane for their long-range shooting a lot of people out there will tell you if you're playing a to long range shooting anything but first focal plane just won't work now that's really not true first focal plane has its own inherent advantages to specific types and applications of long range shooting but long range shooting in general doesn't have to be accomplished only with first focal plane again like we just said with a second focal plane reticle like the one we have in the Viper HST here for example a great six at 24 by 50 scope with tall exposed dialing turrets that can dial you out to long range and you can just shoot off that Center reticle this scope works excellent at long range and since its second focal plane it's actually a little bit cheaper than the first focal plane options too they have a little bit more complicated manufacturing process so if you're somebody who just wants to shoot long range and not have a giant budget something like this would work just fine now where does first focal plane come into play so remember when we talked about that image size growing and shrinking with your magnification as you changed it and the reticle and a second focal plane optic does not appear to grow and shrink with the image when a first focal plane riflescope the reticle will appear to grow and shrink with the image which is kind of weird because like we were talking about with scales of things that actually means it's retaining perfect scale to the image as the image is getting bigger and smaller too they both grow and shrink at the exact same rate so if you're using a scope like this Viper PST Gen 2 5 to 25 by 50 you'll notice that when you zoom all the way into 25 power the reticle looks kind of big it actually takes up a fair amount of your field of view relative to how it looked when it was on v power when you zoomed way out and the image got smaller and all the sudden the reticle was just a tiny thing in the center of your field of view in fact in most cases you may even need to turn the illumination on to really see it really well which is a reason why some hunters may not want to go for first focal plane despite how awesome it sounds on the Internet when those first focal plane reticles get zoomed out with the image they do get pretty small and if you're hunting in thick brush or timber or a lot of shade or something like that that reticle may be tough to see unless you crank up the illumination but anyway where this really comes into play and again like we said with a lot of let's say PRS competitors for example if you're shooting it long range and you have a number of different targets that you're gonna have to engage in say a relatively short amount of time a short enough amount of time that you wouldn't have time to go up and dial each shot individually or change your magnification around a lot this is where our first focal plane can be an advantage when a lot of them might do is with a Viper PST again 5 225 by 50 like this they may set the magnification at a magnification somewhere in the middle let's say 15 power for example for them that's just good enough to hit that target at 300 yards and it's also just good enough to hit the target at 900 yards they can see it just fine well now being on a 15 power if this were a second focal plane optic they wouldn't be able to use their reticle and all of its MOA or em Brad hash marks or windage dots or anything like that they would just have to shoot off the center reticle and then they would have to be dialing all the time throughout this entire course of fire for a three hundred five hundred and a nine hundred yard target for example well if they have a first focal plane reticle they don't have to worry about that so much they can actually just use the holdovers that they've figured out in their a ballistics calculator in either MLA or mrad on their reticle and they can just engage the targets rather quickly and use their holdovers as they were intended on that middle power another nice advantage of having first focal plane is just the fact that magnification isn't something you always need to consciously think about every time you're about to take a shot again if you're using a lot of the features on your reticle let's say you were on 23 power in this Viper PST here and it looked kind of like 25 power it's sort of hard to tell the difference and you wanted to use a holdover real fast if it were second focal plane that would be probably enough to throw you off enough to miss at longer distances with first focal plane it doesn't matter because that reticle is always in the proper scale to the image so to really kind of boil this down and there's a ton more we could certainly speak to which we're always happy to speak to in the comments or on the phone email social media you know all that stuff but to really boil it down the kind of people that want second focal point are probably going to be hunters who don't want their reticle to get so tiny on the lower powers which are the powers they can take advantage of a wider field of view and better low-light performance they don't want that reticle to get so tiny on those powers that they can't use it and Plus really when it's so tiny anyways can't really see the holdovers that well so it's not really something you always need when you're hunting so hunters and recreational shooters long range folks who are a-okay having the time to dial each one of their shots and shoot off the sinner reticle again you can always dial and shoot off the sinner reticle no matter what scope you have now if you're thinking about doing something that involves a little bit more long-range shooting in a time format like competition or some professional users certainly may have situations like this as well first focal plane may be worth the cost premium it has over its comparative second focal plane options this PST again for example is available in a second focal plane option two the slightly different reticle and the second focal plane option is a little bit less expensive but if you really feel as though you're going to need those holdovers in the crunch time where you don't have time to figure out what magnification you're on or dial each shot first focal plane certainly may be worth it and that really is what a lot of the professional and competition end users are doing now there always will be folks out there who say they want to do both competition shooting and hunting and they want to use the same rifle and scope that's fine and you can really do probably either one of these for both just understand that one way that you go is going to have its pros and cons which we went into if you go all in on the first focal plane just be prepared that if you zoom out when you're hunting the reticle may get small enough that it's kind of hard to make out if you get a second focal plane and you go to your competition you may have to take a little bit more time to consciously think about magnification dial your turrets all that stuff just know that it's very very hard to get the all-around perfect optic for every single scenario optics are always a game of trade-offs now this has been a really high-level explanation there certainly may be scenarios that I haven't described yet where first focal plane would work perfectly or second focal point would look perfectly maybe the other way around they wouldn't work that's all stuff that you're gonna have to determine when you're going through your list of must-haves and can live without but again this has just been a real general overview hopefully it helps some of you out there who didn't really even know where to start in terms of what first focal plane and second focal plane really even were we're always happy to discuss this topic more again in the comments below social media email phone all those things so always feel free to talk to us about that stuff we're all hunters and shooters ourselves that love this stuff so if you have any other questions by all means do that if you have any other video ideas that you want to see us do let us know as well otherwise we will see you next time thanks everybody for watching

Channel: Vortex Optics

Views: 338,502

Rating: 4.9314694 out of 5

Keywords: Vortex Optics, Vortex, Optics, Hunting, Shooting, Glassing, Riflescope, Binoculars, Spotting, Scope

Id: wdzHmixwxmk

Length: 10min 55sec (655 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 22 2020