Laser Range Finders.

[22/17 SHOOTER]

Gentleman.

Not exactly rifle, but very much rifle shooting related so I hope I’m not intruding here.

I want to buy me a Laser Range Finder. But as always, there are thousands of those gizmos to choose from. What’s the better place to ask than here, yes ?

What do you have ? Brand name, model, pros, cons, all input would be greatly appreciated. Good thing to have or just another fancy toy ?

I don’t want to spend more than $200.00, this should narrow the field a bit. Also, I’m not a hunter if that matters. I rarely shoot at the targets more than 300 yards away, mostly paper targets.

TIA,
Cezar.

 

[dmazur]

I have a Leica 1200. I planned to use it for hunting, and I found out it works well to prepare a "range card", kind of a sketch that shows range to several trees, rocks, and so on that might be visible from a stand. Then I put the rangefinder away and just referred to the card for which ballistic reticle mark to use (200, 300) if a shot presented itself. This was much faster than messing around with the rangefinder while trying to take a shot.

Many scopes have reticle hash marks which can be used for rangefinding like a mil-dot reticle. I know the Zeiss Rapid-Z reticles have these on the vertical line, as an example. So this is an alternative to a laser rangefinder for target work. If you know how big the paper target is, you can do the math and figure range.

For a target range that doesn't have the targets set at known distances, you could always count paces. It is surprising how accurate this can be. All you need is a mechanical counter to help you keep track of every 10 (or whatever interval you decide to use between clicks.) An even simpler pace counting system is called "Ranger beads", I believe. Kind of like an abacus on parachute cord...

However, if you really want a laser rangefinder, Leupold has their RX-600 for $200. I'm sure this will work for you, if you shoot at targets at unknown ranges. It's rated for 600 yds, so it should handle 300 yds easily.