What do you guys prefer in your LVPOs? First or second focal plane and why?
I started off using second focal plane LVPOs and found their Aimpoint-like brightness to be a huge plus, I found shooting at a power that the LVPO wasn't zero'd under made things more challenging. It was easy to hold-off to compensate, but I found that I didn't want my POI obscured especially if I'd zero'd the optic at 100 and was shooting at 50 or closer.
I have two rifle optics and both are FFP. However, truth be told, most of the capabilities and advantages of FFP reticles are largely lost/wasted on me as I either don't really utilize their features or use them as intended. For the LPVO, I don't use the reticle for ranging, or at least not really yet. I have used the ranging capability with the Vortex Viper on my Rem 700, but I can't say that is a feature that I would say that I need for that gun. For that gun since I'm typically shooting paper at known distances. I have played around with the ranging aspect of the reticle, but that's about it.
I chose the NF for a bunch of other reasons, no really for FFP. I really liked the fact that the red dot was 0.35 MOA at 1x and it's transition to 8x to similar to an EoTech reticle along with the elevation and windage holds was interesting. That said, the eye box forgiveness, red dot-like capability at 1x, proven durability, and optical clarity were the driving features for me.
Regarding optical clarify, I recall reading about differences between FFP and SFP, but I can't recall exactly the takeaways right now. I just recall it was a thread on Sniper's Hide where they were comparing the NF to the "usual suspects" of competitors. A rep from NF ended up chiming in and gave come background on some reasonings behind the whys of the NF, and that included some interesting discussion on FFP reticle of the NF.
Lots of folks also recommend based on intended purpose. Many hunters appear to swear one way (I forget which one, but I assume FFP), and I've seen many 3-gun guys mention preference for SFP. I wasn't interested in either, but I would say 3-gun probably closer to what I "could" envision using my gun with LPVO for.