Description
Rifle Scope Product Details
Vortex Optics Sonora 4-12×44 Second Focal Plane Riflescope – Dead-Hold BDC Reticle
The long eye relief, locking diopter, and fully multi-coated lenses are just a few of the reasons this riflescope will be a crowd pleasing favorite. Tough construction and bright images are just the icing on the cake. Its hard anodized single-piece aircraft-grade aluminum tube is nitrogen-purged and o-ring sealed for waterproof/fogproof/weatherproof performance.
Rifle Scope Product Features
About this item
The single piece, 1-inch, aircraft-grade aluminum tube offers a versatile blend of adjustment for a wide variety of shooting applications.
The Dead-Hold BDC is good for hunting and shooting at varying ranges where estimating hold-over is a concern.
Fully multi-coated lenses increase light transmission with multiple anti-reflective coatings on all air-to-glass surfaces. The locking diopter eyepiece allows the shooter to set and lock the eyepiece setting once for their eye and forget it.
The hard anodized finish provides a low-glare matte surface and helps camouflage the shooter’s position.
O-ring sealed and nitrogen purged, the Sonora delivers water and fogproof performance. Rugged construction withstands recoil and impact.
Sonora 4-12X44 Riflescope
The long eye relief, locking diopter, and fully multi-coated lenses are just a few of the reasons this riflescope will be a crowd pleasing favorite. Tough construction and bright images are just the icing on the cake. Its hard anodized single-piece aircraft-grade aluminum tube is nitrogen purged and o-ring sealed for waterproof/fogproof/ weatherproof performance.
SPECS
Magnification: 4-12x
Objective Lens: 44mm
Eye Relief: 4in
Field of View: 24.7-8.4ft/100yds
Tube Size: 1in
Turret Style: Capped
Deadhold-BDC MOA Reticle
The customized design of this reticle helps eliminate guesswork on hold-over and windage corrections. Good for hunting and shooting at varying ranges where estimating hold-over is a concern.
Second focal plane (SFP) reticles are located near the scope’s eyepiece behind the image erecting and magnifying lenses. This style of reticle does not visually change in size when you change the magnification. The advantage of an SFP reticle is that it always maintains the same appearance.
SPECS
Adjustment Graduation: 1/4 MOA
Travel per Rotation: 15 MOA
Max Elevation Adjustment: 60 MOA
Max Windage Adjustment: 60 MOA
Parallax Setting: 100 yards
About the Vortex Scope Maker
Vortex is a premium company for long gun scopes, optics, mounts, and other components used for firearms like rifles and long guns. They innovate and manufacture their mounts, scopes, and related products by making the most of building materials which are long lasting and resilient. This includes the Vortex Optics Sonora 4-12×44 Second Focal Plane Riflescope – Dead-Hold BDC Reticle by Vortex. For additional shooting products, visit their website.
What You Need to Know About Glass
Rifle scopes enable you to exactly align a rifle at various targets by lining up your eye with the target at range. They do this through magnifying the target by making use of a series of lenses inside the scope. The scope’s alignment can be dialed in to account for different environmental aspects like wind speed and elevation decreases to account for bullet drop.
The scope’s purpose is to help the shooter understand precisely where the bullet will hit based on the sight picture you are seeing with the scope as you align the scope’s crosshair or reticle with the intended point of impact. A lot of modern rifle scopes and optics have about eleven parts which are arranged inside and externally on the optic. These optic pieces include the rifle scope’s body, lenses, windage and elevation dials, objective focus rings, and other components. Learn about the eleven parts of rifle optics.
Rifle Optic Styles
Rifle scopes can be either “first focal plane” or “second focal plane” type of scopes. Finding the best type of rifle optic is based around what type of shooting you plan to do.
About First Focal Plane Optics
Focal plane scopes (FFP) include the reticle in front of the magnification lens. These styles of scopes are helpful for:
- Quick acquisition, far away types of shooting
- Shooting circumstances where calculations are very little
- Experienced shooters who recognize their target “hold over” as well as “lead” equations for their firearms
- Shooters who do not mind the reticle is bigger and requires more visual eyesight space than a SFP reticle
Second Focal Plane Scopes
Second focal plane scopes (SFP) come with the reticle to the rear of the zoom lens. In the FFP example with the SFP scope, the 5x “zoom” 100 yard tick would be 1/5th of the non “zoom” tick.
- Far away styles of shooting where shooters have increased time to make ballistic computations
- Shooting where most shots happen within shorter spaces and ranges
- Shooters who select a clearer optic sight picture without area used up by the larger sized FFP reticle
Details on Rifle Glass Magnification
The quantity of scope zoom you need on your glass depends upon the type of shooting you would like to do. Almost every style of rifle optic provides some degree of zoom. The amount of magnification a scope provides is identified by the dimension, thickness, and curvatures of the lens glass within the rifle optic. The zoom of the scope is the “power” of the scope. This denotes what the shooter is observing through the scope is magnified times the power aspect of what can typically be seen by human eyes.
Fixed Power Lens Optics
A single power rifle scope will have a zoom number designator like 4×32. This suggests the magnification power of the scope is 4x power and the objective lens is 32mm. The magnification of this type of scope can not change since it is a fixed power scope.
About Variable Power Lens Rifle Glass
Variable power rifle scopes use enhanced power. The power modification is achieved by making use of the power ring part of the scope near the back of the scope by the eye bell.
The Power and Range of Rifle Optics
Here are some suggested scope power levels and the ranges where they can be effectively used. High power glass will not be as beneficial as lower powered glass because too much magnification can be a bad thing. The exact same idea goes for longer ranges where the shooter needs to have enough power to see precisely where to best aim the rifle.
Lens Covering for Optics
All contemporary rifle scope lenses are layered. Lens covering can be a crucial aspect of a rifle when considering high end rifle optics and scope equipment.
HD Versus ED Lenses
Some scope manufacturers also use “HD” or high-def lense coatings that employ different procedures, components, rare earth compounds, and polarizations to draw out a wide range of colors and viewable definition through lenses. This high-definition finishing is commonly used with increased density lens glass which brings down light’s potential to refract through the lens glass. Some scope producers use “HD” to describe “ED” indicating extra-low dispersion glass. ED handles how certain colors are represented on the chromatic spectrum and the chromatic deviance or aberration which is also called color distortion or fringing. Chromatic aberration is often noticeable over objects with well defined shapes as light hits the item from particular angles.
Single Coating Versus Multi-Coating
Various scope lenses can also have different coverings applied to them. All lenses usually have at least some type of treatment or finishing applied to them prior to being used in a rifle scope or optic assembly. Because the lens isn’t simply a raw piece of glass, they require performance enhancing coatings. It is part of the finely tuned optic. It requires a coating to be applied to it so that the lens will be efficiently functional in numerous kinds of environments, degrees of sunlight (full VS shade), and other shooting conditions.
Single layered lenses have a treatment applied to them which is typically a protective and boosting multi-purpose treatment. This lens treatment can shield the lens from scratches while minimizing glare and other less beneficial things experienced in the shooting environment while sighting in with the scope. The quality of a single covered lens depends on the scope company and just how much you spent for it. Both the manufacturer and amount are indications of the lens quality.
Some scope makers likewise make it a point to define if their optic lenses are coated or “multi” covered. This suggests the lens has numerous treatments applied to the surfaces of the glass. If a lens receives several treatments, it can indicate that a maker is taking numerous actions to combat various natural aspects like an anti-glare finishing, a scratch resistant anti-abrasion coating, followed by a hydrophilic finishing. This also does not necessarily imply the multi-coated lens will perform much better than a single covered lens. Being “better” is dependent on the maker’s lens treatment solutions and the quality of products used in constructing the rifle glass.
Hydrophobic Lens Finishes
Water on a scope lens does not assist with retaining a clear sight picture through a scope in any way. Many top of the line and high-end scope manufacturers will coat their lenses with a hydrophilic or hydrophobic finish. The Steiner Optics Nano-Protection is a good example of this kind of treatment. It treats the exterior of the Steiner scope lens so the H2O molecules can not bind to it or develop surface tension. The outcome is that the water beads sheet off of the scope to keep a clear, water free sight picture.
Options for Mounting Glass on Long Guns
Mounting solutions for scopes come in a couple of options. There are the standard scope rings which are individually mounted to the scope and one-piece mounts which cradle the scope. These various kinds of mounts also usually come in quick release versions which use throw levers which enable rifle operators to quickly mount and dismount the scope.
Rifle Scope Mounts with Hex Key Rings
Normal, clamp style mounting scope rings use hex head screws to mount to the flattop style Picatinny scope mount rails on rifles. These types of scope mounts use a couple of different rings to support the optic, and are often made from 7075 T6 billet aluminum which are designed for long distance precision shooting. This type of scope install is great for rifles which need a resilient, sound mounting solution which will not move no matter how much the scope is moved or abuse the rifle takes.
Quick-Release Cantilever Glass Ring Mounts
These types of quick-release rifle scope mounts can be used to quickly attach and detach a scope from a rifle. If they all use a comparable style mount, several scopes can also be swapped in the field. The quick detach mount style is CNC crafted from anodized 6061 T6 aluminum and the mounting levers connect nicely to a flat top type Picatinny rail. This permits the scope to be sighted in while on the rifle, taken off of the rifle, and remounted while keeping the original sighting settings. These kinds of mounts are useful and practical for rifles which are shipped a lot, to remove the scope glass from the rifle for protection, or for sight systems which are employed in between several rifles. An example of this mount style is the 30mm mount designed by the Vortex Optics manufacturer. It generally costs around $250 USD
Rifle Glass Tube Sealing and Gas Purging
Moisture inside your rifle optic can destroy a day of shooting and your pricey optic by causing fogging and creating residue inside of the scope tube. Most scopes avoid wetness from going into the scope tube with a system of sealing O-rings which are water resistant.
Gas Purged Rifle Scope Tubes
Another element of preventing the accumulation of wetness inside of the rifle optic’s tube is filling the tube with a gas like nitrogen. Considering that this area is already occupied by the gas, the optic is less altered by temperature alterations and pressure distinctions from the outdoor environment which could possibly allow water vapor to leak in around the seals to fill the vacuum which would otherwise exist. These are good qualities of a good rifle scope to look for.
