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Range finders

eulingertrim

eulingertrim

Member
I am in search of a range finder. Primarily for bow hunting but will possibly use it for rifle out west. Its hard to make a decision when you walk into a store and all the batteries are dead. Or the clerk hasn't a clue. What are you guys using? Or better yet, what to stay away from.
 
I have a Nikon archers choice, bought new in 09 and I still haven't changed the battery. Has been very dependable. If I had to get another rangefinder I think I'd go with Nikon again.
 
Ditto on the Leica! Pretty much overkill for bow hunting but it's tough to beat it if you'll ever be using a rifle for anything, including coyotes. However, I would like to try the G7 BR2 system that not only calculates range but also corrects for up/down angle, wind speed and air density if I ever find $1600 that I don't know what to do with. :D
 
Many will come on here and tell you the brand they have is great, and I'm sure they all are. But here's some information from last late season muzzleloader that left me scratching my head. I have a Leupold, and one of the guys I hunt with has a Bushnell. Both have been around for 3 or 4 years and seem to work just fine. One day I borrowed his thinking I'd forgotten mine at home. When I got to the wagon blind I realized mine was in the bottom of the backpack. So now I had both, the hunt was a little slow, and I decided to run a couple of comparisons. The blind I was in was on top of a hill with a view of a foodplot down below. There was another wagon blind closer to that plot, and I decided to range it...nice big target and all. The Leupold read 199 and the Busnell 212. It may not seem like a huge difference, but it was also more than I would've expected. I repeated the tests, and a few days later had another hunter take them out and do the same thing...same results. It really made me wonder which one was right, and in general, how accurate are these things. I guess it's certainly better than nothing, but if my Leupold was the one that far off I'd have to think about getting something different. Just some food for thought...

NWBuck
 
nemohunter said:
I have a Nikon archers choice, bought new in 09 and I still haven't changed the battery. Has been very dependable. If I had to get another rangefinder I think I'd go with Nikon again.
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X2 been great. Love the drop compensation feature.
 
NWBuck said:
Many will come on here and tell you the brand they have is great, and I'm sure they all are. But here's some information from last late season muzzleloader that left me scratching my head. I have a Leupold, and one of the guys I hunt with has a Bushnell. Both have been around for 3 or 4 years and seem to work just fine. One day I borrowed his thinking I'd forgotten mine at home. When I got to the wagon blind I realized mine was in the bottom of the backpack. So now I had both, the hunt was a little slow, and I decided to run a couple of comparisons. The blind I was in was on top of a hill with a view of a foodplot down below. There was another wagon blind closer to that plot, and I decided to range it...nice big target and all. The Leupold read 199 and the Busnell 212. It may not seem like a huge difference, but it was also more than I would've expected. I repeated the tests, and a few days later had another hunter take them out and do the same thing...same results. It really made me wonder which one was right, and in general, how accurate are these things. I guess it's certainly better than nothing, but if my Leupold was the one that far off I'd have to think about getting something different. Just some food for thought...

NWBuck
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Makes you want to use all of your own equipment when target shooting and hunting, so you know all of your equipment is in sync and using the same yardages, whether it is actually correct or not. Guess you could stretch a long rope between the two points and measure it to compare!
 
I did a pretty elaborate test of several rangefinders here about 3 years ago.
We compared on various targets such as 3D foam, paper, block target, etc and at various archery ranges comparing to a tape measure for exact distance.
The Leupold RX-1000 came out on top by a substantial margin as it always read the exact correct yardage on all test targets. Some of the rangefinders were off by as much as 4 yards at 40 and would range different target media up to 4 yards different even though they should be all exactly the same. Most companies have released new models since then so I don't know if that is still the case but I know I am confident in my Leupold.
There is a difference in accuracy - actually quite substantial at times.
 
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I don't claim to be an expert on rangefinders but the first one I had was made by Bresser...I bought it for 75$ brand new from sportsman guide...it worked fantastic! The only issue was it was a little bit bigger than I liked but still good enough to get the job done...I somehow lost it so I just recently bought a Nikon Prostaff 3 got it on sale for 180$...I'll see how I like it but if time wasn't an issue I would've bought a Bresser again...
 
I have a leupold and after looking at a lot of different range finders I am pretty happy with it and probably biased as well. I could have got one for $100 less but the Jurassic park saying, "is it heavy... Then it must be expensive" is true and the leupolds are heavier than the first couple I had.
 
gunrunr said:
I did a pretty elaborate test of several rangefinders here about 3 years ago.
We compared on various targets such as 3D foam, paper, block target, etc and at various archery ranges comparing to a tape measure for exact distance.
The Leupold RX-1000 came out on top by a substantial margin as it always read the exact correct yardage on all test targets. Some of the rangefinders were off by as much as 4 yards at 40 and would range different target media up to 4 yards different even though they should be all exactly the same. Most companies have released new models since then so I don't know if that is still the case but I know I am confident in my Leupold.
There is a difference in accuracy - actually quite substantial at times.
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Did you test the vortex products when you did your testing?? just curious
 
ShedderKG said:
Did you test the vortex products when you did your testing?? just curious
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Actually, yes we did. It was when they first came out with their own rangefinder.
Normally I am a big Vortex fan but that unit was horrible. We had several pre-sold so had six units here on hand to test and they were all horribly inaccurate. Luckily their customer service is great and I sent them all back without issue. I'm hoping they have made them better now as I filled them in on the whole test and how theirs performed and they were really interested in what I found. Made me gun shy so I haven't tested one of thiers since.
 
I have a vortex, and I really like it. Can't speak to the accuracy of it, other than at my home shooting range, it matches up exactly out to 50 yards with the 100' tape I used to mark out from 10-80 yards. At 80 yards I have about a 1.5-2 yard difference. Nice compact, and it works.
 
I use a Leupold rx-600. I wouldn't say it's perfect by any means, and can't say for sure that it's spot on as I've never put a tape to the distance it reads. Troubles I've had is it doesn't like a lot of brush or mesh blind windows, and I can't seem to range deer out to the distance they say is possible, which I believe is at 350-400 yards (could just be me not holding exactly on the deer tho). Will range trees at that distance, but not much past it for me, which I believe they say it will range trees to 600 yards. But for a typical bow or shotgun/muzzleloader hunting situation, I make it work for me. Will likely use it 'til it quits. Bought it 6 years ago and I believe I'm on the original battery as well. If not, then 2nd battery.
 
gunrunr said:
Actually, yes we did. It was when they first came out with their own rangefinder.
Normally I am a big Vortex fan but that unit was horrible. We had several pre-sold so had six units here on hand to test and they were all horribly inaccurate. Luckily their customer service is great and I sent them all back without issue. I'm hoping they have made them better now as I filled them in on the whole test and how theirs performed and they were really interested in what I found. Made me gun shy so I haven't tested one of thiers since.
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Interesting... thanks for the update on that. I'm a big Vortex Bino guy but have never had the opportunity to try the rangefinder.
 
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