Ultra Short Riflescopes

Another post prompted by what I saw on the Hide.  That place is just a gold mine of discussion topics.

Let’s define, somewhat arbitrarily, what an Ultra Short riflescope is.

The phrase “Ultra Short” was originally coined by S&B and they have been trying to do this the longest.  Naturally, there is a whole slew of cheap crappy optics out there that are very short.  I am going to ignore those.

In principle, how short you can make a scope is a function of how large the objective and ocular lenses are.  The larger they are, the harder it is to make scope short.  Also, keep in ind that short does not have to mean light.

With that in mind, let’s make some educated guesses on what overall scope length qualifies it to be called UltraShort for different objective lens sizes:

Greater than 50 mm Objective: Under 15″

40 to 50 mm Objective:  Under 13″

30 to 39 mm Objective:  Under 11″

Under 30mm Objective: Under 9″  (March 1-8×24 Shorty, Nightforce NX8)

 

I reserve the right to make changes once I do some more research on the subject…