What Is a Front Focal Scope?

A front focal scope is an optical sight used on rifles and other firearms. Though not commonly used in the United States, most scope manufacturers offer these scopes for hunters and shooters to consider. Front focal scopes, also referred to as first focal scopes, differ in performance from back or second focal scopes; hunters and shooters should understand how these scopes operate.

  1. Design Differences

    • A scope includes crosshairs, more properly referred to as a reticle, which provides an aiming point when looking through the device. On a front focal scope, the scope places the crosshairs into the image before the scope magnifies the image. When used on a variable power riflescope, crosshairs in a front focal scope increase in size as the shooter increases the magnification of the scope. Conversely, a back focal plane scope places the crosshairs into the image after magnifying the image. Regardless of what magnification setting the shooter uses, the crosshairs always appear the same size with a second focal plan scope.

    Advantages

    • Front focal scopes may be the best choice for scopes that use a reticle-based range finding system such as mil-dot scopes. With these, the reticle uses evenly spaced dots above and below as well as left and right of the center of the crosshairs. These dots allow a shooter to estimate the distance to a target. For example, if a target is 5 mil-dots tall at 100 yards, it will be 2.5 mil-dots high when it is at 200 yards. With a front focal scope, the target will measure the same height regardless of the scope's magnification setting. As the scope magnifies the crosshairs along with the image, a front focal scope will not change the point of aim when the shooter changes magnification as may happen with some poorly made back focal scopes.

    Disadvantages

    • With a front focal scope, the crosshairs will appear thinner at lower magnification settings and thicker at higher magnification settings. The thinner crosshairs on low magnification setting may make finding the crosshairs and aiming the scope difficult in low-light situations. On higher magnification settings, the thicker crosshairs make more precise aiming difficult at distant targets. With a front focal scope equipped with a mil-dot reticle, the mil-dots also will appear larger on higher magnification, obscuring more of the shooter's view. Another disadvantage of a front focal scope is that the crosshairs may blur when the shooter changes magnification. Most front focal scopes have a fast focus feature on the eyepiece to adjust for this blurring.

    Other Information

    • Front focal scopes are more difficult to manufacture than back focal scopes, meaning that the retail price for a front focal scope is higher than for a similar back focal scope. Whether the additional cost is worth it for a shooter depends on the firearm's purpose and personal preference. Police and military snipers, as well as many long-range competitive shooters, use front focal scopes with mil-dots due to the scope's ability to quickly and accurately range a target at various magnifications.