If you have time to adjust your turret, you have time to adjust your parallax. This is especially crucial for rifles that don't have an adjustable cheek piece, which will glorify the incorrect parallax setting since your head is is likely to be in the same spot shot after shot. Lastly, with it only being off a couple inches at greater distances might not sound like much, but you add in the equation of a bad wind call, low/high muzzle velocity of that particular shot you just took, and the adrenaline coursing through your body. That small difference is not stacked with other tolerances causing it to be a bigger issue than expected.
I shoot HPA air rifles and powder burners. Eye relief, scope mounts, and how you mount your scope is everything for getting your parallax set right. I have multiple guns that I’ve had to either adjusted my cheek piece, or build up my cheek rest in order to get my eye relief perfect, so that when pulling my gun up in a stressful situation, I can trust my eye will hit right where it needs too so my parallax is dang near perfect or needs very minimal manipulation to get it perfect. This is super important with 2 of my air rifles that have FX “No Limit” scope mounts that can tilt to give you more MOA for longer shots.
This video provides almost no useful information, except that Sig Sauer is now a major MeatEater sponsor, which is neither here nor there. An incredible number of variables went unaccounted. Firstly, the groups were too small as to even approach statistical relevance. A 10 shot group gives you a less than 70% chance of coming to an accurate conclusion. A 20 shot group still is barely above 80%, and a 30 shot group is where you get over 90% predictive accuracy. 6 shots is irrelevant information. Second, there was no accounting for the shifts in points of impact vs points of aim and no addressing any of it. Massive miss as far as analysis goes. Third, no accounting for variation in ammunition. We don’t know if it was all the bullet, powder, case, primer, and manufacture lot. We don’t know the velocity data of the shots. We don’t know what we don’t know about the ammo, but larger group sizes and the use of a chronograph could have helped us get a much clearer picture. Fourth, parallax has its greatest effect when eye alignment behind the reticle is inconsistent, like on the classic sporter-style sticks found on most hunting rifles. Chassis rifles with adjustable cheek pieces are designed to eliminate misalignment of the eye and reticle, so using chassis rifles for this test was misguided at best. (Again, I understand Sig is the sponsor and only makes the Cross which is a chassis rifle, so options weren’t great) I don’t think there is any actual good takeaway info available from this video.
Y'all didn't account for any potential change in impact point, which is what matters at least as much as precision! You'll notice that Spencer's point of impact, in particular, changed at least 1" between the two groups. It looked like Cory's didn't change, but a fixation on group size (which is common) misses a lot!
Think I learned those sig rifles shoot crappy. Parallax aside. Also. Just cause the image is clear does not mean parallax is gone. You have to move your head around and check to make sure reticle is not moving.
@@pieceofparadise9338 I wouldn’t consider any of those to be good groups. If my rifles don’t shoot 2” or better at 300 yards after multiple attempts to make good loads they go down the road. For the money that rifle is it better be shoot 1” or better at 200. I have rifles 1/3 that cost that shoot better. Not impressed by any means.
Oddly enough, group size does not always scale with range, especially if the bullet is not balanced (has a small air bubble in the core or one side of the jacket significantly thicker than the opposite one). Dr. Mann's 1909 book "The Bullet's Flight From Powder To Target:" included experiments with out of balance bullets. He would remove material from one side. Mann tracked bullet patch with paper targets. What he found was that a bullet that was out of balance jumped laterally as soon as it left the confines of the barrel, but afterwards would continue on a straight path. In other words a significant part of the dispersion would occur very close to the muzzle. In this specific case, a 2" group at 100 yards may well have a 3" group at 200 yards.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but i believe you want to measure a group outside to inside. Essentially centre to centre but that can be hard to judge, so you take same side edge and measure that. Otherwise a group that all lands in a single hole would make the diameter of the bullet and not be zero.
There’s technically some guesswork when it comes to establishing “center” so not necessarily the easiest/best. Most repeatable method I have found is measuring outside to outside and then subtract bullet diameter for true center to center without guesswork.
Parallax isn’t a focus adjustment. To set parallax you need to put the crosshairs on a specific target and then move your head around and make sure the crosshairs don’t move.
In terms of making an inference, it would be better to account for hunter/rifle variability - each hunter with their own hunting rifle, so we can better generalize to the population of hunters. Also, since the same hunters shot both ways, it would be far more informative if a paired contrast was used, so that the difference in response variable(s) (group size, POI) was measured as a between the two treatments the hunter/rifle groups (i.e, in Spencer's case, his result would show a negative effect of using paralax/time since coffee); the average result would then be the average difference in group size, not the average group size. And yes, each hunter should should 30 rounds for each test (60 rounds total for each person).
2 MOA is 2” at 200 yrds. Not great. I think you should be within 1. But at 5-600 yrds your looking at accuracy of a 5-6” circle which, in my opinion isn’t the most ethical shot you can make, but even on a California deer, that’ll make a pretty clean kill with a heart/lung shot if your crosshairs are just behind the shoulder. For target competition you might want to not compete. 😅
@@wcb5890 A 10 MOA target at 1000 yrds is a 10” ROUND target, not 20”. Keeping a 1 MOA group at 100 yrds is shooting a 1” group, not 2”. At 500 yrds it is a 5” circular target not 10”. MOA is either diameter or square, not radial.
Set your rifle up steady on a rest, move your eye around, see the point of aim change, that is the maximum error it can contribute at that distance and setting.
Interesting, but some info was missing here and a different test would be useful in my opinion. As someone else noted, with perfect eye alignment, parallax does not matter. One strategy to ensure minimal parallax error on scopes without adjustment is to use the scope shadow to ensure you are centered behind the scope. Parallax would be most severe if you were looking through the very edge of the scope (which isn't how anyone actually shoots), and there are calculations for the maximum error. With a typical hunting scope 3-9x40 at 500 yards, I believe the maximum possible parallax is just over 3". It would be interesting to see a third group with parallax out of adjustment, but with shooters looking through the edge of the scope to see how that group compares. Regardless, the averages reported here don't necessarily indicate a meaningful difference. Was the difference between averages statistically significant?
The worse your shooting form the worse your parallax error potential. If you have good form and get a very clean crisp sight picture around the field of view ,parallax will have much less affect (assuming it’s not so far off that you cannot see the target ie running 10 yard parallax setting at 400 yards) If you are getting any type of shadowing around the edge of the field of view the effects will be much more apparent. Cal’s target (most of the shooters actually) showed a significant point of impact shift between properly adjusted parallax and not properly adjusted. I question that the parallax was even properly adjusted as well. “Clear” is not properly adjusted parallax. Many people will see a totally acceptable image clarity with a scope that is not set parallax free.
Everything about this video is bad, groups are terrible, measuring the groups, shooting technique behind the gun, thinking with those groups your effective range is 500-600 yards...WTF. This is exactly the thinking and shooting that wounds game in the field..as a sniper / life long hunter this is embarrasing to me to even watch.
Seems to reflect a lack of understanding. With good form the eye should be looking down the centreline of the scope, there will be no parallax regardless of the parallax dial setting or range. There would be nothing to compensate for. That should have been mentioned. Not a bad excuse for work if you can get it but it was a bit of a meaningless test and completely dependant of the shooters skills.
This test would have made more of a point if you would have done it without the adjustable cheekrests. Even if paralax would have been set to 100yards for the "out of focus" group, the diffrence would have been very noticeable
Shouldn't you also be measuring the aver distance from POA to POI? Like, it doesn't matter if i shoot a 1" group at 500 yards if I'm grouping 5" from where I intended. In this video, you are measuring precision and not accuracy.
Does parallax matter? For most hunting? No. Not 9 x power scopes for 1-200 yard average shots on big forgiving targets. For competition and prairiedog shooters? Absolutely! Tiny targets require fine tuning adjustments. Too much slop equals bigger misses.
Something that hasn't been mentioned is that the results are already in favour of shooting a relative group since a 50yrd zero follows roughly the same trajectory for POA/POI. So setting your parallax at 50 and shooting at 200 isn't really showing what the difference could be. A 300 yard test would probably give you realistic field results. Also different rifle are used so a group comparison isn't really true to the overall results as they were averaged as a total group with more than 1 rifle.
I suggest you do more research. Now if you wound an animal on your channel your shit with your viewers. Steve show's all his misses. Don't let this ruin your channel. This was a novice experiment.
Janis (or whoever wrote his script) did NOT state the correct normal fixed parralax distance for rimfire rifle scopes . It is NOT 25 yards Rimfire scopes are nornally set at 50 or 60 yards from the factory.
Spencer’s first group threw that average out. Shooting sub minute with parallax out of focus is just plain luck at 200 yards. Not dogging Spencer but him not being able to do it with parallax in focus proves my point
I was thinking this wasn’t a very good add for the Sig Cross until Spencer shot.
If you have time to adjust your turret, you have time to adjust your parallax. This is especially crucial for rifles that don't have an adjustable cheek piece, which will glorify the incorrect parallax setting since your head is is likely to be in the same spot shot after shot. Lastly, with it only being off a couple inches at greater distances might not sound like much, but you add in the equation of a bad wind call, low/high muzzle velocity of that particular shot you just took, and the adrenaline coursing through your body. That small difference is not stacked with other tolerances causing it to be a bigger issue than expected.
It may not be a big deal on large game. But it is critical for zeroing and load development. Also makes a difference in small game like Prarie dogs.
I shoot HPA air rifles and powder burners. Eye relief, scope mounts, and how you mount your scope is everything for getting your parallax set right. I have multiple guns that I’ve had to either adjusted my cheek piece, or build up my cheek rest in order to get my eye relief perfect, so that when pulling my gun up in a stressful situation, I can trust my eye will hit right where it needs too so my parallax is dang near perfect or needs very minimal manipulation to get it perfect. This is super important with 2 of my air rifles that have FX “No Limit” scope mounts that can tilt to give you more MOA for longer shots.
This video provides almost no useful information, except that Sig Sauer is now a major MeatEater sponsor, which is neither here nor there.
An incredible number of variables went unaccounted. Firstly, the groups were too small as to even approach statistical relevance. A 10 shot group gives you a less than 70% chance of coming to an accurate conclusion. A 20 shot group still is barely above 80%, and a 30 shot group is where you get over 90% predictive accuracy. 6 shots is irrelevant information.
Second, there was no accounting for the shifts in points of impact vs points of aim and no addressing any of it. Massive miss as far as analysis goes.
Third, no accounting for variation in ammunition. We don’t know if it was all the bullet, powder, case, primer, and manufacture lot. We don’t know the velocity data of the shots. We don’t know what we don’t know about the ammo, but larger group sizes and the use of a chronograph could have helped us get a much clearer picture.
Fourth, parallax has its greatest effect when eye alignment behind the reticle is inconsistent, like on the classic sporter-style sticks found on most hunting rifles. Chassis rifles with adjustable cheek pieces are designed to eliminate misalignment of the eye and reticle, so using chassis rifles for this test was misguided at best. (Again, I understand Sig is the sponsor and only makes the Cross which is a chassis rifle, so options weren’t great)
I don’t think there is any actual good takeaway info available from this video.
Y'all didn't account for any potential change in impact point, which is what matters at least as much as precision! You'll notice that Spencer's point of impact, in particular, changed at least 1" between the two groups. It looked like Cory's didn't change, but a fixation on group size (which is common) misses a lot!
Think I learned those sig rifles shoot crappy. Parallax aside. Also. Just cause the image is clear does not mean parallax is gone. You have to move your head around and check to make sure reticle is not moving.
Yeah seems like Spencer really proved your point…
@@pieceofparadise9338 your implying?
@@SpudOutdoors you said the rifles shoot crappy and then Spencer proves otherwise with an excellent group with an out of focus parallax.
@@pieceofparadise9338 I wouldn’t consider any of those to be good groups. If my rifles don’t shoot 2” or better at 300 yards after multiple attempts to make good loads they go down the road. For the money that rifle is it better be shoot 1” or better at 200. I have rifles 1/3 that cost that shoot better. Not impressed by any means.
@@SpudOutdoors how many rounds in those 1” groups?
Oddly enough, group size does not always scale with range, especially if the bullet is not balanced (has a small air bubble in the core or one side of the jacket significantly thicker than the opposite one). Dr. Mann's 1909 book "The Bullet's Flight From Powder To Target:" included experiments with out of balance bullets. He would remove material from one side. Mann tracked bullet patch with paper targets. What he found was that a bullet that was out of balance jumped laterally as soon as it left the confines of the barrel, but afterwards would continue on a straight path. In other words a significant part of the dispersion would occur very close to the muzzle. In this specific case, a 2" group at 100 yards may well have a 3" group at 200 yards.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but i believe you want to measure a group outside to inside. Essentially centre to centre but that can be hard to judge, so you take same side edge and measure that. Otherwise a group that all lands in a single hole would make the diameter of the bullet and not be zero.
There’s technically some guesswork when it comes to establishing “center” so not necessarily the easiest/best. Most repeatable method I have found is measuring outside to outside and then subtract bullet diameter for true center to center without guesswork.
Parallax isn’t a focus adjustment. To set parallax you need to put the crosshairs on a specific target and then move your head around and make sure the crosshairs don’t move.
Depends on how well you can keep the crosshairs in the center of the view, when adjusted properly it's easier to keep the cross hair centered
In terms of making an inference, it would be better to account for hunter/rifle variability - each hunter with their own hunting rifle, so we can better generalize to the population of hunters. Also, since the same hunters shot both ways, it would be far more informative if a paired contrast was used, so that the difference in response variable(s) (group size, POI) was measured as a between the two treatments the hunter/rifle groups (i.e, in Spencer's case, his result would show a negative effect of using paralax/time since coffee); the average result would then be the average difference in group size, not the average group size. And yes, each hunter should should 30 rounds for each test (60 rounds total for each person).
Janis is shooting 2+MOA at 200yds and thinks his max range is 5-600yards. Dude needs a reality check.
2 MOA is 2” at 200 yrds. Not great. I think you should be within 1. But at 5-600 yrds your looking at accuracy of a 5-6” circle which, in my opinion isn’t the most ethical shot you can make, but even on a California deer, that’ll make a pretty clean kill with a heart/lung shot if your crosshairs are just behind the shoulder. For target competition you might want to not compete. 😅
@@visamedicit is 10"-12" circle
@@wcb5890 A 10 MOA target at 1000 yrds is a 10” ROUND target, not 20”. Keeping a 1 MOA group at 100 yrds is shooting a 1” group, not 2”. At 500 yrds it is a 5” circular target not 10”. MOA is either diameter or square, not radial.
2 MOA is 4” at 200 yds
@@wcb5890 so a 10 MOA target is actually 20”?
Set your rifle up steady on a rest, move your eye around, see the point of aim change, that is the maximum error it can contribute at that distance and setting.
no adjustable parallax scope on big game for me. one less thing to mess up or have to mess with
Interesting, but some info was missing here and a different test would be useful in my opinion. As someone else noted, with perfect eye alignment, parallax does not matter. One strategy to ensure minimal parallax error on scopes without adjustment is to use the scope shadow to ensure you are centered behind the scope. Parallax would be most severe if you were looking through the very edge of the scope (which isn't how anyone actually shoots), and there are calculations for the maximum error. With a typical hunting scope 3-9x40 at 500 yards, I believe the maximum possible parallax is just over 3". It would be interesting to see a third group with parallax out of adjustment, but with shooters looking through the edge of the scope to see how that group compares. Regardless, the averages reported here don't necessarily indicate a meaningful difference. Was the difference between averages statistically significant?
It affects your ability to put the rifle on target, not the ability of the rifle to put bullets where you point it.
The worse your shooting form the worse your parallax error potential. If you have good form and get a very clean crisp sight picture around the field of view ,parallax will have much less affect (assuming it’s not so far off that you cannot see the target ie running 10 yard parallax setting at 400 yards) If you are getting any type of shadowing around the edge of the field of view the effects will be much more apparent.
Cal’s target (most of the shooters actually) showed a significant point of impact shift between properly adjusted parallax and not properly adjusted. I question that the parallax was even properly adjusted as well. “Clear” is not properly adjusted parallax. Many people will see a totally acceptable image clarity with a scope that is not set parallax free.
Everything about this video is bad, groups are terrible, measuring the groups, shooting technique behind the gun, thinking with those groups your effective range is 500-600 yards...WTF. This is exactly the thinking and shooting that wounds game in the field..as a sniper / life long hunter this is embarrasing to me to even watch.
Seems to reflect a lack of understanding.
With good form the eye should be looking down the centreline of the scope, there will be no parallax regardless of the parallax dial setting or range.
There would be nothing to compensate for. That should have been mentioned.
Not a bad excuse for work if you can get it but it was a bit of a meaningless test and completely dependant of the shooters skills.
This test would have made more of a point if you would have done it without the adjustable cheekrests.
Even if paralax would have been set to 100yards for the "out of focus" group, the diffrence would have been very noticeable
A good example would be a rifle with those see-through scope mounts that are all too common, where there is no cheek/stock contact going on.
Shouldn't you also be measuring the aver distance from POA to POI? Like, it doesn't matter if i shoot a 1" group at 500 yards if I'm grouping 5" from where I intended. In this video, you are measuring precision and not accuracy.
Does parallax matter?
For most hunting?
No. Not 9 x power scopes for 1-200 yard average shots on big forgiving targets.
For competition and prairiedog shooters?
Absolutely! Tiny targets require fine tuning adjustments. Too much slop equals bigger misses.
Too many variables to get an accurate answers
Animals don't have dots to focus on, so I've never really worried about parallax unless its out to 400+ and you are just looking for clarity.
Spencer is the only one that can shoot in this crew, that or their guns suck bad!
Something that hasn't been mentioned is that the results are already in favour of shooting a relative group since a 50yrd zero follows roughly the same trajectory for POA/POI. So setting your parallax at 50 and shooting at 200 isn't really showing what the difference could be. A 300 yard test would probably give you realistic field results. Also different rifle are used so a group comparison isn't really true to the overall results as they were averaged as a total group with more than 1 rifle.
I suggest you do more research. Now if you wound an animal on your channel your shit with your viewers. Steve show's all his misses. Don't let this ruin your channel. This was a novice experiment.
Who knew Spencer was that dialed in?
Janis (or whoever wrote his
script) did NOT state the correct normal fixed parralax distance for rimfire rifle scopes . It is NOT 25 yards Rimfire scopes are nornally set at 50 or 60 yards from the factory.
Spencer’s first group threw that average out. Shooting sub minute with parallax out of focus is just plain luck at 200 yards. Not dogging Spencer but him not being able to do it with parallax in focus proves my point