I disagree with the crying part in expensive binos walk away, your kid leaves them on the hood and drives off losing them, your buddy drives over them or a pack horse discovers they are the one thing to fall on. Expensive binos do make people cry.

In that, I believe in expensive binos named above, but I also have several pairs of Bushnell and Tasco for my shirt pocket to bouncing around in my pickup. I do not need a thousand dollar pair to see if a set has something in it, or to tell me a trash pile is not a deer. Long hours of glassing or nature watching where eye fatigue and the need to see the pretty animals is where the expensive glass belongs. Otherwise, I use my cheap glasses and I have yet had anyone steal them.

Good spotting scope and adequate binoculars and adequate rifle scope. Generally, the people I guide have swarovski stuff and I almost always find the game and hit their wounded stuff with Leopolds.

Since I had cataract surgery I don't need binos, lol

I've had a pair of leica's for 40 years now. their warranty was second to non when a pair was seen by a dealer, a pair was in my hand in 3 days.
It's the difference in seeing a downed duck blinking it's eye for a mercy shot or loosing it. Probably paid for themselves with saved shots and retrived more birds.
With their weight they are always on your neck, not bouncing around and getting lost or such.

For checking sets those 100 yard walk ins saves johnny sneek-up walk-up on the sets especial in the snow.

I may a little slow, but if you need to use a warranty doesn't that mean your product failed?

yes Dirt the Leica's bino's lense something happened internally and binocular vision was distorted on one side, replaced with a new pair.
May have helped that I had published photo's of me wearing them in a DU magazine that helped with the PR. (they were not standard issue)

I swear some guys buy the expensive name brand outdoors gear to look like they belong on a TV show. I've got a friend that lives to shop for the new Sitka, kuiu, or stone glacier gear. Its like a woman shopping for a new pair of shoes. I guess it's proof that marketing does work on some people. I bet hupurest has a $3000 spotting scope to go along with his fancy binos. Vortex trash just won't cut it.

^^^^^^
I use what works best in the environment I work in, that means:
European glass when it comes to binos and spotting scopes.
American (Leupold) when it comes to scopes.
Norwegian rain-gear (Helly Hansen, Grundens) when comes to outerwear.
Any sort or poly/fleece for inner layers.

I have found little need for flashy, almost magical name brand outerwear.

If he is a sheep hunter in Alaska. That's right, I believe he does dabble. The top of the line spotting scope will improve his chances of finding a legal sheep. This is not the lower 48 where any ram is a legal ram. Sometimes you have to age them which means counting growth rings and those 8 year ones are tough to see. You don't want to waste whole day climbing up glaciers and fighting through alders and snaking through cliffs just to find you are an inch shy making full curl. The best sharpness at the most power will really help. Might even help on a moose hunt where you need to figure out if you want to take off after a moose 2 miles away. Just might be able to find those 3 or 4 brow tines that make him worth wasting time on.

After ten days intensively comparing Razors to Swaros on the mountain, you’ll never convince me the swaros are worth double the money. Never.

Better? Yes.

Worth the extra $1000-1500? Not in a million years.

That is why you buy a Ziess, if you need the best and want to save $600.

So what do you glass guys think of the Steiner binocular?

When you are getting paid to sit behind glass all day, I'll pay the extra money to make sure I don't have the headaches and eye strain at the end of the day, and being able to see a slight flick of an ear at 1000 yards because the glass is clear, I've had hunters that couldn't believe the animals I've spotted, and it all had to do with the glass you use.

I do actually have a Swarovski spotting scope as well.

Dirt articulated the reasons for having such good glass. And unless you have used one of the best spotting scopes, you won't know that the $250 one is garbage.

Looking at a ram that is half a days walk away, at 60x and knowing if it needs a closer look or it doesn't is priceless.. as is counting age rings at 200 yards.

or a goat, trying to decide if it is a 9.5" goat or a 10" goat, or if it is an immature 4 yo billy with 9" horns that needs to live, while you leave it to find a better goat.

Unlike alot of people who opine, and i'm going to lump you in there, I have the experience and pictures to back up my experience. I'm not just some keyboard warrior or stooge who read Field and Stream and thinks they are an expert.

also, theres only one show that I am aware of that uses Swarovski products, the rest use the stuff the average guy can afford, like Nikon and Vortex. Put all the brands out on a table and let the guides and pros choose for free, what they want, and I would bet alot of money that the vortex, nikon and leupold pile is untouched.

as for the Sitka gear, again, you must not know what you are talking about and never used it or used it properly. It is by far, the best gear one can buy IMO. Do people need it? No.
Have Dirt and Waterrat klilled huge sheep, moose, et al in green hip boots and blue jeans, you bet. but, they are far tougher than I am.

I like to maximize my chance for success, and the right gear allows me to be out, hunting in weather that most rationale people would try to wait out, or cancel / reschedule a trip in.

Heres an example.. last goat hunt, it rained over 8" in 6 days. the winds were a steady 50mph and gusts over 70, and there we were, in my $1,000 hilleberg tent, sitting atop a ridge, waiting for the weather to clear for a chance at a goat. 3 days we only left the tent to take a crap and get water.
When the weather would clear enough to glass, i would don my Sitka Gear Storm Front set, grab my $3,000 scope and go glass, looking for THE goat i wanted.

on the 7th day, we had a 1/2 day weather window, and I shot a Mountain Goat that is a mere 1/8" shorter than the world record, and would be the biggest ever shot in the U.S.
all of my swarovski glass was working perfectly, i was dry, the tent held the storm, and I accomplished something that no one else has.

one gear failure, and the hunt would have been over. Cheap gear would have made it impossible to stay out that long..

but hey, if you cant afford something, then it isn't that good right?

or you have an opinion, but don't have the experience or results to quantify or justify your opinion. but the internet allows people with zero actual knowledge, or zero accomplishments to voice their own "expert" opinion and feel better about themselves......

I dont buy the most expensive things because they are perceived as the best, I seek out the best gear, that is tested and proven, and the cost is the cost. I personally can't afford to have failures, it is unacceptable to me, and a waste of the time i spend preparing for hunts and fishing trips.....

thats right, fishing trips... I have all of the best equipment for that too, $300 spinning reels, $200 rods, and I catch numbers of fish that most people can't even begin to wrap their brains around. perhaps im onto something with the gear and preparation... or, if it makes you feel better, just keep thinking that I am just lucky.

here is a tip..... Don't hate people that do better than you, emulate them.

Not everybody has to have the world record to feel good about hunting,lol.Sounds like an ego thing.
I bet most couldn't give a crap about a world record.

Did I say I gave a crap? Did i ever post pictures and brag about it? Prior to this, I haven't shared info about this goat publicly. So, Shut your stupid canadian suck hole...

fact is, I put in the work and effort to harvest a mature animal, that happens to be exceptionally big. and, i am proud of the years worth of work i put in to EARN that goat. I did it for me, not for some idiot in Ontario or anywhere else for that matter.

Some people aren't ok with shooting a nanny, or a 3 year old goat. some people aren't about doing the easy thing, to avoid the challenge of something difficult. Some people aren't willing to eat a tag, because they couldn't find a mature animal they wanted to harvest.

deciding what I choose or choose not to harvest is my own choice. My goal is my own goal, not anyone else's. My happiness is derived from my own accomplishments, my life and morals, and it doesnt matter what some NOBODY has to say about it.

The fact is, that, not everybody can shoot a goat that big, as evidenced by the fact that only one other person has, and there are 100's of goats harvested every year in North America. Most people never see a goat over 10", matter of fact, the man at fish and game who seals the goats said that he hears of a lot of 10" goats over the years, but has never seen one in his hand, let alone measured one over 11".

and if you asked any goat hunter, if they would rather shoot a 9 year old, 11 2/8" Billy or a 8" 5 year old billy, none of them are choosing the 8".

But then again, its something you don't know anything about, like most things you feel the need to offer your idiotic opinion on.

There is always some retard like you Boco, who chooses to be a negative fool, and belittle people, rather than offering up something positive, its probably why you are a nobody and always will be a nobody.....

LOL.

Great job on the goat! The right gear and hard work really do make a difference. The fellas who hunt goats and sheep at those altitudes and steep mountains are top notch in my book.

I shot a goat in 1989, before there was such a thing as Sitka rain gear or Hilleberg tents, and when Swarovski was a start-up in the US in optics. I had a cheap Sierra one-man tent and a rain jacket of some non-breathable fabric. The tent nevertheless withstood high winds and gave me shelter in pouring rain.

I did have a Swarovski binocular, 8x32, and a Leupold Vari-X III riflescope. My sheep hunting experience had taught me the need for good optics in the mountains.

My goat is on the wall of my living room. His one horn was 8 5/8" long and 5.5" around at the base, if I recall right. His other horn was lost in a fall from a cliff he took after I shot him. The mount now has a reproduction horn on that side.

Maybe I would have shot a better goat if I'd had better gear. I do know that goat hunting is very dangerous, more dangerous than sheep hunting, in my limited experience. On that goat hunt, I took risks I shouldn't have, and I knew it when I got back, so I swore it would be my last goat hunt, and it was.

Jim

Did I mention that I love my Swarovski bino’s?