The AccuCover is an aiming and accuracy enhancement device that fits the rear ocular eyebell of the scope, much the same as many other flip-up type scope covers. It has a rubberised body tube, moulded onto a hinged plastic collar, to which the cover itself is fitted. The hinge is spring loaded, so on operating the opening button, the cover automatically moves out of your line of sight, giving an unobstructed view through the scope.
I was very kindly sent one of these covers a few months ago to review, unfortunately, due to unusually prolonged and high local wind, (and other circumstances) I have not been able to test the AccuCover as thoroughly as I would have wished, but I hope that what experience I have had with it, will be of interest and benefit to you all.
"Nothing much different to other covers there then" you may say, but what marks the AccuCover out as unique is the inclusion of four small fluorescent yellow/green aiming arrows on the internal rim of the cover, in the 3, 6, 9, and 12 o'clock positions. These are to be precisely aligned with the scopes cross-hairs when fitting the cover, and then aligned with the ends of the cross-hairs again, by centralising your eye in relation to the scope when taking a shot. The whole point of it is that it helps to eliminate scope cant and parallax error, and introduces consistency into your aiming technique, and as is well known and accepted, one of the biggest keys to achieving accurate shooting is consistency.
The AccuCover comes smartly presented in a clear blister pack with a colourful card insert that shows the size of the contents and tells of the benefits of the product. I had thought that there weren’t any instructions included, but upon opening the pack I discovered that the card insert opens up to reveal the instructions, and other information inside.
Three sizes are available, the E3538 which fits scopes with an eyebell diameter of between 35-38mm, the E3841 which fits eyebells between 38-41mm, and the E4144 which fits 41-44mm diameter eyebells. Each different size has a different coloured opening button, blue for the smallest, red for the medium, and green for the largest size, so it is easy to see at a glance which size you have without measuring, especially handy if you swapped over covers from gun to gun.
After checking the scopes that I personally own, I found that the largest AccuCover, the E4144, would fit nearly all of my scopes, but a very small percentage of them would require the medium size. One or two of my scopes were only just able to accommodate the largest size AccuCover, but none of them required the smallest size.
On the sample I was sent, the cover would sometimes not open automatically when the button was pressed, due to a very small piece of rubber flashing impeding the cover from springing open. A few seconds trimming with a craft blade removed the tiny obstructing bit of rubber, and everything then worked perfectly.
One feature that I really like is the ability to be able the push the cover fully forward, so it lays flat and parallel against the scope, rather than sticking up out at 90 degrees to it. This then stops it from fouling on your cap peak or hat brim, or snagging on foliage, something which can be very annoying and distracting when using other certain makes of covers.
Another thing I noticed when trying the AccuCover on different Rifle/scope combinations was that if the scope had been zeroed using up a lot of turret adjustment (so the internal erector tube was not optically centralised) then the Accucover forced you to look directly down the centre of the scope, sometimes where the image was not at it's best.
Without the AccuCover you tended to slightly adjust your eye position to find the best image, but doing that with the cover fitted sometimes produced a slight less than sharp sight picture so you were caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, good sight picture, but not looking directly down the centre of the scope or look centrally, but with a slightly blurred image.
This anomaly cannot in any way be pointed toward the AccuCover, blame in that instance has to go to a poorly set-up rifle/mount/scope arrangement but the AccuCover does tend to highlight any shortcomings in that area.
So how does it fair when it actually counts, when shooting? Very well, I’d say, especially in certain situations, please allow me to explain.
If you have a parallax adjustable scope, set to say, 40 yards, and you were shooting at a distance of 40 yards, then the scope would have already done the job of removing parallax error for you, and so the AccuCover would be of little benefit.
However if you don't have a parallax adjustable scope, or were shooting at a distance other than which the parallax was set to, then the AccuCover comes into it's own.
It is especially suitable for hunting, as quarry rarely presents itself at your zero range, and so you usually have to take a very quick shot while 'aiming off'. This was where most of my 'testing' of the AccuCover was done, snap shooting at long range, and my accuracy did seem to improve in that scenario.
Also, informal practice shooting at inanimate objects (small stones, clumps of earth, etc.) at varying ranges while using the AccuCover did produce a higher success rate than I recall achieving when I wasn't using it. At first, having to consciously make sure the pointers were aligned with the cross-hairs was a distraction, but it soon becomes second nature, and after a while, you do it automatically without even thinking, just the way it should be!
Unfortunately, I have not been able to produce any 'With AccuCover' and 'Without AccuCover' target cards to compare against each other, but I will add some to this review as soon as nature and circumstances allow me to.
Would the AccuCover be of benefit to your shooting? Well, I would say that depends on the type of shooting you do, if you shoot at the same distance using a scope that is set to be parallax free at that range, then I would say it's benefit would be limited to reducing cant.
However, if like the vast majority of people, you shoot at various ranges, from various shooting positions, and you tend not to re-set your parallax for each individual shot, then I would say the AccuCover is bound to help improve the level of accuracy you are currently able to consistently achieve.
Many Thanks to Nick of AccuCover for kindly supplying the cover and giving me the opportunity to review it for you.
I was very kindly sent one of these covers a few months ago to review, unfortunately, due to unusually prolonged and high local wind, (and other circumstances) I have not been able to test the AccuCover as thoroughly as I would have wished, but I hope that what experience I have had with it, will be of interest and benefit to you all.
"Nothing much different to other covers there then" you may say, but what marks the AccuCover out as unique is the inclusion of four small fluorescent yellow/green aiming arrows on the internal rim of the cover, in the 3, 6, 9, and 12 o'clock positions. These are to be precisely aligned with the scopes cross-hairs when fitting the cover, and then aligned with the ends of the cross-hairs again, by centralising your eye in relation to the scope when taking a shot. The whole point of it is that it helps to eliminate scope cant and parallax error, and introduces consistency into your aiming technique, and as is well known and accepted, one of the biggest keys to achieving accurate shooting is consistency.
The AccuCover comes smartly presented in a clear blister pack with a colourful card insert that shows the size of the contents and tells of the benefits of the product. I had thought that there weren’t any instructions included, but upon opening the pack I discovered that the card insert opens up to reveal the instructions, and other information inside.
Three sizes are available, the E3538 which fits scopes with an eyebell diameter of between 35-38mm, the E3841 which fits eyebells between 38-41mm, and the E4144 which fits 41-44mm diameter eyebells. Each different size has a different coloured opening button, blue for the smallest, red for the medium, and green for the largest size, so it is easy to see at a glance which size you have without measuring, especially handy if you swapped over covers from gun to gun.
After checking the scopes that I personally own, I found that the largest AccuCover, the E4144, would fit nearly all of my scopes, but a very small percentage of them would require the medium size. One or two of my scopes were only just able to accommodate the largest size AccuCover, but none of them required the smallest size.
On the sample I was sent, the cover would sometimes not open automatically when the button was pressed, due to a very small piece of rubber flashing impeding the cover from springing open. A few seconds trimming with a craft blade removed the tiny obstructing bit of rubber, and everything then worked perfectly.
One feature that I really like is the ability to be able the push the cover fully forward, so it lays flat and parallel against the scope, rather than sticking up out at 90 degrees to it. This then stops it from fouling on your cap peak or hat brim, or snagging on foliage, something which can be very annoying and distracting when using other certain makes of covers.
Another thing I noticed when trying the AccuCover on different Rifle/scope combinations was that if the scope had been zeroed using up a lot of turret adjustment (so the internal erector tube was not optically centralised) then the Accucover forced you to look directly down the centre of the scope, sometimes where the image was not at it's best.
Without the AccuCover you tended to slightly adjust your eye position to find the best image, but doing that with the cover fitted sometimes produced a slight less than sharp sight picture so you were caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, good sight picture, but not looking directly down the centre of the scope or look centrally, but with a slightly blurred image.
This anomaly cannot in any way be pointed toward the AccuCover, blame in that instance has to go to a poorly set-up rifle/mount/scope arrangement but the AccuCover does tend to highlight any shortcomings in that area.
So how does it fair when it actually counts, when shooting? Very well, I’d say, especially in certain situations, please allow me to explain.
If you have a parallax adjustable scope, set to say, 40 yards, and you were shooting at a distance of 40 yards, then the scope would have already done the job of removing parallax error for you, and so the AccuCover would be of little benefit.
However if you don't have a parallax adjustable scope, or were shooting at a distance other than which the parallax was set to, then the AccuCover comes into it's own.
It is especially suitable for hunting, as quarry rarely presents itself at your zero range, and so you usually have to take a very quick shot while 'aiming off'. This was where most of my 'testing' of the AccuCover was done, snap shooting at long range, and my accuracy did seem to improve in that scenario.
Also, informal practice shooting at inanimate objects (small stones, clumps of earth, etc.) at varying ranges while using the AccuCover did produce a higher success rate than I recall achieving when I wasn't using it. At first, having to consciously make sure the pointers were aligned with the cross-hairs was a distraction, but it soon becomes second nature, and after a while, you do it automatically without even thinking, just the way it should be!
Unfortunately, I have not been able to produce any 'With AccuCover' and 'Without AccuCover' target cards to compare against each other, but I will add some to this review as soon as nature and circumstances allow me to.
Would the AccuCover be of benefit to your shooting? Well, I would say that depends on the type of shooting you do, if you shoot at the same distance using a scope that is set to be parallax free at that range, then I would say it's benefit would be limited to reducing cant.
However, if like the vast majority of people, you shoot at various ranges, from various shooting positions, and you tend not to re-set your parallax for each individual shot, then I would say the AccuCover is bound to help improve the level of accuracy you are currently able to consistently achieve.
Many Thanks to Nick of AccuCover for kindly supplying the cover and giving me the opportunity to review it for you.
