Burris FFIII

[st8tman]

I have a Burris FFIII mounted atop a SBEII, it has the 3moa dot. This may be a stupid question, but I am curious where the red dot actually appears in the sight picture IN RELATION TO THE SHOTGUN's BEAD?  For some reason I cannot get it out of my mind that with my "Red-dot appearing considerable above my bead it will put me shooting low. I have fired several "test patterns", but can't seem to shake this ideal. Someone please explain this concept to me. Thank you for your time.

[hookedspur]

I have 3 FF2 and 2 FF3 and they are all well above the bead in the sight frame.

[Xcal1ber]

My dot is a little bit above my bead and a little left

[mudhen]

On my Super Vinci, you can see the bead (barely), the bore sight dot, and the FF III dot, all stacked up like a snowman....

Can't explain, I'm pretty dumb, but dat's the way it is 



mudhen

[st8tman]

To those who responded....Thank You!.....To whomever may have a concrete answer...WHY this happens....Sound Off Please!

[BurrisOptics]

It should be above your bead.  Your FF sight plane is above the normal sight plane of your bead.  Your bead sight plane sits lower than your FF.  Where the 2 sight planes converge is at 40 yards down range (I'm just using 40 yards as an example) and not at the end of your barrel.  The flight path of your shot will also converge at 40 yards.  If they converged at the end of your barrel you'd be shooting into the air.  Exaggerate the 2 sight planes and it will seem obvious.

Imagine you are holding 2 pool sticks.  Hold the first one outwards away from you.  This will represent your normal sight plane using the bead.  Hold the second pool stick a foot above the first.  This will represent your FF sight plane which is sitting higher than your bead.  Point both sticks at the same point on the wall in front of you which represent your 40 yard target.  Using either stick as a sight plane will allow you to hit the target however if you look at the end of the sticks you will see that they don't touch each other.  This would be the same at the end of your barrel.  What matters is that they are both converging at the distance in which you are sighting in your gun.

So let's go at this from a different perspective.  Take the two pool sticks and while still holding one of them a foot above the other, make the two ends farthest away from you touch each other.  Are the 2 sticks still pointing at the same point on the wall?  Absolutely not.  It would be impossible UNLESS your barrel didn't shoot at the point of aim when it came from the factory.  While still holding the sticks in this configuration make the top stick point to your aiming point on the wall.  Now look at where the bottom stick is pointing.  It should be aiming at the ceiling.  This is essentially what would happen if your FF dot and your barrel bead were to be seen at the same point when shooting your shotgun.  Of course we are exaggerating the effects in this example but the principles are the same. 

Just remember that everything must converge at your target not at the end of your barrel.  It makes absolutely no difference where the dot sits in relation to the rest of the gun.  I've seen a SpeadBead that had a dot that was below the bead because it was so far off from the factory.  It made no difference because the sight plane of the SB and the shot from the shotgun converged at the same point down range. 

Another thing to keep in mind when thinking about sight planes in relation to shot flight paths is where to aim when shooting a target that is much closer than your zeroing distance.  We always aim high for further targets so that our bullet drops down onto our target so logic would have it that you should aim low for very close targets.  If you do you will actually shoot way low.  Instead aim slightly high at very close targets.  Use the pool stick example above and you will see why.  This is a concept that I struggled with for a long time because it seems illogical to aim high at close targets.  When you use the pool stick type example then it makes sense.  If it doesn't then let me know and I'll try to explain it a bit more. 

Does that help or did I just make it even more confusing?

[st8tman]

BurrisOptics,
                     Thank You Very Much for the explanation.....YES Now the Light Bulb has been turned On! I sincerely appreciate the time you took to provide an in-depth explanation to this phenomenon. I hope it will help another confused soul.

PS: Being an old sub-machine gun operator I should have remembered this ideal, as I now recall how very close targets required one to aim High for target contact!