Savage,
In a nut shell, having the larger objective enabled me to see where my naked eye could not. Through the shadows and into the deep brush. I also use a 3.5x15 for Coyote hunting in the EENT and BMNT hours and the 56mm Objective helps tremendously. Having the slightly larger objective does give you a few more minutes to shoot where a smaller objective would be lacking.
For target shooting you simply cannot beat a larger objective. This will give you a larger exit pupil size and this relates to better resolution. Your average guy sometimes cant see the difference between a 50mm and a 56mm but ask the shooters on the line if they can see a noticeable difference.
Hope this information helps you, if not give me a call.
Ken it always nice to talk to you.
I will have to disagree on the larger size bell helping you greatly. We hardly sell the 56mm to anyone we mainly sell the 50mm.
The disadvantage to the 56mm is you will have to go with taller rings.
The Issues:
· The Cheek Comb of the rifle has to be higher making your prone shooting position higher. The lower you can get the scope to the bore the lower shooting position you can have give you a slightly more stable position.
· If you do not have an adjustable cheek piece you will have to built it up to give you the proper cheek height.
· If you do not have a stock like the A5 but more of a traditional hunting stock and you build up the cheek piece the butt of the rifle may not fit in your shoulder properly.
Here is some info on the human eye:
The average size of a human's eye pupil at night is 7 mm and in daylight it is about 4mm on average. If the optic give you a 7mm of exit pupil and you are using it for daytime use more than half the light will not reach the retina.
Size of bell divided by magnification = exitpupil. Hare are some examples.
56/22x=2.54mm
56/5.5x=10.18mm
50/22x=2.27mm
50/5.5x=9.09mm
The sweet spots for the 56 and the 50mm at Night and Day use:
50/7.14x = 7mm night use and for day use 50/12.5x = 4mm
56/8x = 7mm night use and for day use 56/14x = 4mm
As you can see by the math there is really not a big difference.
In daytime shooting:
As a shooter have you every been looking through a scope and you go to look away from the scope and you notice rainbow like spots? This is due to your retina going on over load taking in too much light. Another sign of too much light is the targets look washed-out and do not have real sold edges. You can overcome this and here is how I overcome it. On my 50mm Nightforce I have cut a 1.25" hole in the center of a Butler Creek Cap. This acts like an F-stop on a camera. This keep my eye form getting too much light. The question I get ask is will this affect the Field of View? No it does not your FOV is not base on the OBJ.
It late and I hope I made sense.
Mike @ CSGW
