Worst: Its ABS plastic bezel rim is unarmored and could be fragile. Touted to be waterproof to 1 meter, but ours took on water immediately. Toggling through high, medium and low to shut it off is annoying. The same goes for the trouble light on the side.

Leupoldfocusadjustment

Beginners to rifle scopes or even high magnification scopes may experience the annoyance of blurry targets and poor image quality more than once in their lifetime. But, don't worry, it's an easy fix if you know what you're doing.

Streamlight and Goodsmann brought the best lights to our test. Streamlight has been a workman’s and sportsman’s brand for decades, and has proven reliable for all those years. Goodsmann manufactures all types of lighting for decor, landscaping and security, as well as a number of spotlights.

How to focuseyepiece on riflescope

The Waypoint is rugged and feels that way the second you touch it. It’s got an IPX8 rating for shock and is waterproof and floats. High-, medium- and low-light settings conserve batteries when maximum illumination isn’t needed. It is the second-largest light on our roster, which is not surprising considering the shock-resisting capability. $140.67; amazon.com; streamlight.com

Each LED emits an amount of light measured in lumens. You’d think 3,000 lumens would be brighter than 1,000 lumens and would illuminate more at a greater distance. Our tests proved that hypothesis wrong. Lumens matter, but the geometry of the light bezel and dome matter equally. We found that a lower-lumen light could illuminate a target farther away than a higher-lumen light—it was all in the geometry of the bezel and reflector.

Riflescopeblurry at high magnification

Once the reticle is perfectly sharp, black, and crisp, the reticle has been correctly focused for your eyes. Skipping this step or settling for mediocre reticle quality will cause eye strain/fatigue.

Worst: It’s water-resistant, not waterproof. However, the battery door and switches appear waterproof. A longer battery life on high would be appreciated, but the low level still lit the waterway for safer navigation. This light doesnot float.

Best Case: This light is compact and powerful, ideal for spotting targets at long range, and it has a broad enough beam at close range to offer some peripheral illumination. We liked its heft.

This is probably the number one cause of many frustrations for rifle scope owners - an out of focus reticle. The reticle may seem fuzzy, and even if it's not obviously apparent, many users don't know how much reticle sharpness they're missing out on. The short of it is, your scope needs to be properly focused for your eyes and your vision.

My scope is in focus then after say 20 shots it get out of focus, I've made sure everything is tight and done all the checks, I have noticed that the focus ring at the rear has to be as far anti clock wise as possible for my eye sight and the parallax is not set at the distance I want to shoot at for it to be clear.

Beam Me Up: Lumens don’t tell the whole story. This one lit the marker post from 1.2 miles away in spite of its middling lumens rating. However, it is a pencil beam and required a spot-on aim to illuminate a dock or marker.

Target blurriness or overall poor image quality is typically related to magnification use or distance in relation to your target. You might notice that your image quality couldn't be better at low magnification, but as you crank up the power, you lose out on image sharpness. There are a few reasons for this and one of them is parallax.

Beam Me Up: Mount this light by the helm and use it to spotlight into the boat slip or pick your way through weeds, timber or other obstacles.

First, we illuminated the CM/3 light sensor on our meter. Every light, whether 1,000 or 3,000 lumens, overpowered the meter.

Many rifle scopes are factory-set with a parallax setting for 100-150 yards to infinity. Typically, these scopes will have lower magnification ranges than 10X or 12X. If you need more info on the anomaly before you proceed, then check out our Mastering Parallax article.

Ocularfocus scope

However, you can use mirage to make adjustments to your shots if you can read mirage and wind patterns to your benefit. But, the best way to correct a blurry image when it's because of Mother Nature is to dial down on the magnification. Being too high up just gives you a closeup of the waving illusion.

Pick a blank/white background like a wall or the sky. You're not to focus the scope while looking at a target. Look through the scope and identify the blurry reticle.

Lock in your eyepiece if needed. You might also want to take note of the diopter setting if it has one. If multiple people use this scope, you might want to use a marker to notate your specific setting for your focus.

Best Case: We liked it for running the inlet with a straight row of markers and for finding distant markers by scanning the horizon from side to side. Frog giggers (you know who you are) will like this light.

Hi Paul. Is the parallax fixed or adjustable? If it's adjustable, you'll need to set it for the distances you want to shoot. It's also possible that the diopter doesn't have enough adjustment for your vision. Just to make sure, the diopter (adjustable eyepiece in the rear) isn't moving during recoil? If you wear glasses, I'd try shooting with them on and see what happens just to eliminate any eye strain and visual acuity contributions. Are you able to refocus the scope after it's gone out of focus? If so, something must keep coming loose. Even if that is the case, I'd recommend sending in a troubleshooting request to the manufacturer. I hope they can take care of it for you.

Beam Me Up: Its design advantage is an extremely bright and impressively wide beam that illuminates an arc of roughly 150 degrees, but it doesn’t have the long reach of the Streamlight. While it didn’t illuminate the post at 1.2 miles, it did illuminate the reflective channel marker on it.

As you can see, most of the time, a blurry rifle scope is due to user error. It might be parallax, an out of focus scope, or mirage playing tricks on you.

Riflescope focuson reticle or target

Best Case: We liked it for navigating tricky waters with rocks and bars because the wide beam can pick up obstacles outside the periphery of other lights. It’s capable as an underwater dive light. Bully netters will like its wide beam.

This light is built tough, with an armored lens bezel and an aluminum bezel mount for durability, longevity and heat dissipation. It’s waterproof and floats. Removing the screw-on base cap at the back of the light requires a strong grip, but it gives access to the recharging port and a USB output port for device charging. We liked its compact, stout feel in the hand. The built-in stand on top folds out for road-hazard work or to prop it up at a campsite. A lanyard is available. It lit our target at 1.2 miles, but not as distinctly as the Streamlight Waypoint. $60; amazon.com; goodsmanngroup.com

Best: Its rechargeable batteries are removable and replaceable, extending its useful life. We loved the rock-solid wall-mountable charger holder.

The other type of mirage is what we know as barrel or suppressor mirage. This occurs even for close range hunters because the heatwaves are emanating off the rifle's barrel or suppressor itself. This can be corrected by allowing the rifle to cool down between popping off rounds or an anti-mirage shield or band.

How to focusNightforcescope

If your rifle scope has a side turret or adjustable objective (AO), then you'll need to make further adjustments to improve your focus. It might be the reason you're experiencing blurriness and poor image quality.

Look away and allow your eye muslces to relax on a distant target. Rotate the eyepiece (usually clockwise) a notch and quickly look through the scope again to identify the reticle. Immediately look away. It's important to look quickly so as not to allow your eye muscles a chance to compensate for the blurry reticle.

Best: A watertight cap (secured with a small lanyard) twists off on the back, revealing the charge port. Its battery life is impressive.

Best: This light had an efficient selector lever to choose high, medium or low illumination without toggling through those settings with the trigger. All the others required the user to toggle through high, medium and low to shut off the light. Also, a stainless-steel ring at the back allows it to hang with a downward-facing beam. A ring at the top allows it to hang as a trouble light, and an adjustable foldout bracket makes it a useful hands-free light for service work.

At certain times of the day, you might be ready to throw your scope out the window. However, in this case, it's not the rifle scope's fault. Shooters will have to deal with some sort of mirage whether it's long range or even close range. First off, you have mirage that long range shooters will know all about. The heatwave-like distortion that can have huge consequences on your point of aim, let alone just trying to see your target clearly.

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Worst: That annoying trigger toggle-through setting to get through high, medium and low to turn it off slows down operation.

This high-lumen light is designed with a durable, compact, portable aluminum body. Though it is among the highest-lumen lights we tested, its reflector is designed for a broad flood of white light rather than an extremely long beam. It barely reflected from our 1.2-mile target, but its lighting is impressive inside of 100 to 200 yards, and on high it provided ample light to illuminate a half-mile series of navigation reflectors. It fits comfortably in the hand. It has high, medium and low settings. $159; amazon.com; Cabelas.com

But, there are the occasional defects that make its way out to paying consumers. It's no secret that some cheap rifle scopes can't keep up with optimal image quality at higher magnifications, even for ranges out to 200 yards. But, if you've been through all the trouble-shooting steps, it might be time to take advantage of your warranty.

Sometimes, cheaply-made scopes just don't have the optical build to support optimal image quality at max power range. This is typical for many budget rifle scopes on the market since glass quality, lens coatings, and optical build can be compromised.

The general rule of thumb is, image quality should be optimal as long as your parallax setting is give or take 50 yards to the true distance to your target. Overshooting or underestimating the range may cause a blurry image and parallax may get the better of your shot.

All the listed spotlights are rechargeable, and all include charging equipment. All but one of the selected lights floated. Though all are advertised as waterproof, we found one that was not.

Scopeparallax

The job of the parallax correction turret or AO is to bring into focus the target in relation with the reticle. This means, the projected image (the target) must fall into the same optical plane as the reticle. When you see the crosshairs of the reticle seemingly moving about when you move your head or the angle, parallax is present. Your image may be blurry too.

Often times, poor image quality is related to shooting at a target too close. With factory-set parallax settings mentioned above, trying to focus on a target within 10-25 yards might be too close for the rifle's focusing capabilities. Turn down the magnification and see if it improves. You might just need to focus on a target that's further away.

However, things aren't always black and white when it comes to determining the cause of your blurry frustrations. Let's scrutinize the common issues responsible for your distress so you can get back on target in a jiffy!

When looking for a spotlight for your boat, review your priorities. On smaller, familiar waters, you likely won’t need a blinding pencil beam and would benefit from a wider beam to find gear in the boat or dropped overboard. If your light will double as a camping or hunting light, a pencil beam can be helpful and so is a trouble light. We found the built-in light stands extremely useful, and not having one would be a deal breaker for all but standard flashlight designs.

Best: It has a trigger lock, so it won’t turn on accidentally, avoiding wasted batteries at best or fire from heat buildup at worst. None of our other test lights could boast such a feature. We liked the phone charger.

Best: It’s bright, lightweight and can float. Its pencil beam lets users focus on distant objects. The phone charge port is great, making it a good buy at the price. A trouble light on the side is useful for service work.

Third, we took the lights out on Charlotte Harbor in Florida and illuminated the inlet markers at Punta Gorda’s Ponce de Leon Park inlet. All the lights produced a bright reflection from the farthest marker more than one-quarter mile away.

This light is rugged, watertight and floats. We selected this model for its high-lumen rating. Because it looks suspiciously like West Marine’s 3,000-lumen rechargeable light, and the specs align, we felt we could knock off two reviews in one product. It has high, medium and low settings, along with an SOS function. It is made of rugged plastic, with rubber armor on the aluminum bezel and handles to protect the device. There are three LED chips to make the total 3,000 lumens. Each is in its own reflective bezel, which creates a wide, bright beam. $79.99; amazon.com

This should only need to be done once assuming eye health remains the same for ownership of the optic. However, overtime your eyesight may decline, and refocusing the scope may be needed. If someone else uses your scope, they will need to adjust the focus for their eyes, and then you'll have to recalibrate it for your vision once you get it back.

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Fourth, we secured the boat 1.2 miles away from an Intracoastal Waterway marker and hit it with all the lights, one at a time. All of them produced a reflection of that marker, an attribute we thought made each a useful navigation tool. But—and this is an interesting but—some of our lights illuminated the marker post, and did so clearly. And it wasn’t always those with the most registered lumens.

How to focus a scopeonarifle

Its Amazon-advertised 160,000 lumens is disputed by package specifications listing 800 lumens. However, it did illuminate our distant target almost as well as the Streamlight. A near-blinding floodlight beam on the side is handy for camping and emergencies, and an included tripod makes it easy to use. There are separate triggers for the spotlight and floodlight. A green LED charge indicator on the back below the silicone door to the charge input port is a cool 5-volt charge output port for phones. $36; amazon.com

To complicate things further, magnification has a strong influence here. Many hunters often lose their shot because the power setting was inappropriate for that range, not necessarily because a hunter forgot to dial it in for the right distance.