Mueller 8-32×44 Side Focus?

[E5_Bill]

What are opinions on the Mueller 8-32×44 Side Focus?

I currently have a Mueller 4.5-14×40AO mounted on my .204 AR. I shoot at 1/2" stick-on dots at 100yds, and plan to shoot longer distances. The rifle can shoot 1/2" or smaller groups, but this shooter so far is averaging 2" 10 round groups on a good day. JB Bore polish also helped accuracy quite a bit. The Mueller is consistent and maintains zero.

I had lasik which causes 'ghosting' and flare of the image. With low magnification the target dot looks like a slightly pyramid fuzzy fur ball (especially the orange dots). I think 8x-10x is normal for 100yd target practice. If I place the crosshairs on the 1/2" dots, I have to crank it up to 14x and the crosshairs seem the thickness of pencils and cover nearly half the dot. I'm thinking to reduce ghosting and flare, I need more magnification, maybe with slightly bigger objective for more light.

Question is, with lasik flare/ghosting, is a Mueller 8-32×44 Side Focus a good choice for range shooting 100+yds?

Another issue, the scope 4.5-14x40 is sensitive to eye position (2.8mm exit pupil) which is also close to the stock. Even with the high mounts (AccuShot Premium 1-Inch high profile) I have to turn my nose slightly towards the stock to minimize scope wink, and am not facing straight ahead. I have the VLTOR Emod stock which doesn't add much to the cheek weld area like a sniper stock would. My cheek is not shaped weird. What's the fix for raising the eye box?

[tanakasan]

Mueller is GTG.

The APV or APT you have is nice, but the cross hairs are also somewhat thick. If the exit pupil is small/touchy now, the 32x will be a challenge! The side focus AO is handy!

Robert

[E5_Bill]

I think you're right on exit pupil. I got the exit pupil numbers from swfa.com.

APV 4.5-14x40 = 8.89 - 2.86 exit pupil
Side Focus 8-32x44 = 5.5 - 1.37 exit pupil

So the higher magnification will make getting a sight picture a challenge.

I found a not so radical magnification (8.5-25x44 Tactical) Mueller on samplelist.com (swfa.com), and I ordered that to see what it'll look like through my lasik'd eyes. The scope was only $120. However exit pupil is 5.18 - 1.76.

[FMJBT]

Originally Posted by E5_Bill

I think you're right on exit pupil. I got the exit pupil numbers from swfa.com.

APV 4.5-14x40 = 8.89 - 2.86 exit pupil
Side Focus 8-32x44 = 5.5 - 1.37 exit pupil

So the higher magnification will make getting a sight picture a challenge.

I found a not so radical magnification (8.5-25x44 Tactical) Mueller on samplelist.com (swfa.com), and I ordered that to see what it'll look like through my lasik'd eyes. The scope was only $120. However exit pupil is 5.18 - 1.76.

Yikes, that's a really narrow exit pupil. Nothing worse than having to shoot through a scope with an almost non-existent exit pupil. I'd suggest something with less magnification, or a significantly larger objective. If flare is a problem, I would be concerned with the quality of the scope itself and not the magnification level. Increased magnification in most cases will only make optical deficiencies worse. If you have any local stores that carry scopes, I'd suggest looking through those to see which one will work best with your eyes.

[E5_Bill]

Thanks, I'll do that. Hopefully the one that works best isn't a big tube, big objective, $3K scope!

Easy calculation for exit pupil, objective/magnification or 40mm/10x=4mm exit pupil.

A massive objective sounds good, but would make me look like Mr. Magoo on a 100yard range.