if your ranges don't exceed 200 yards , use the money for something else


with a deer rifle I sight in at 200 yards running the 308

less than an inch high or low at 25 and 50

2 inches high at 100

right on at 200

3 1/2 low at 250

I have the Vortex BDC recitals on several scopes this when on the highest magnification gives you hashes to measure with

I probably wouldn't even need to sight in for 200 as I have never honestly shot a deer over 150 but I like to play at the range out to 400-500 so it s a good zero to work with

even many scopes with no hashes at all have a point where the cross hairs get thick

if you measure out 100 yards and make a cut out from a black sheet of poster board use that at the highest magnification to measure the subtenses of your scope

quite often even a basic scope with a cross hair that gets thick , it gets thick at about 6 MOA

19 inches X 95.5 constant / 6moa = 302 yards

18 inches X 95.5 constant / 6moa = 286 yards

17 inches X 95.5 constant / 6moa = 281 yards

there is a less than 3 inch difference between 275 and 300 even with the 308

this becomes a simple go no go , if the deer is not more than filling that 6moa space it is more than 300 yards away by measuring what the subtense of your scope is you know your go no go on taking the shot

once you do the math on a few common size targets like a mans shoulders are about 17-19 inches wide for most people even I am only a little larger than that

a mature deer chest to back is about 18-19 inches





if you know it is a deer say and you just want to know how far it is , ranging it with your scope is handy , when you make the decision of go or no go your just a breath and a trigger squeeze away from the shot.
no batteries to go dead
no second thing to carry

I really wish more companies would put rang finding like this into binoculars even if you had to close one eye to get the measurement it would further reduce gear carried

I carry binoculars and use the optic ont he rifle to range , not that I ever really range deer


a while back I attended a rifle clinic where we shot to 500 yards and once we had all shot at each known distance a part of the clinic was they told you only what size the target was in inches you were at the 500 yard line and you had to determine the range then fire they mized up where the targets had been while we were down in the pits also so you got back and nothing was were it had been . unfortunately I didn't have the reticle to measure in my optic at the time and was still new to the concept of ranging once you do it some and maybe make up a little cheat sheet or get used to rounding and end simple math

if I didn't feel like multiplying by 95.5 I could just say 18 inch target approximately and it measures 6moa that is about 300 yards 18 / 6 =3 add 2 zeros because 95.5 is almost 100 =300 if it is an 18 inch target and I rounded at 300 yards I still have lots of real-estate to make a hit , a little different on a deer where you want to hit about 8 inches

My wife bought me a Halo brand (around $100) from Gander (when still open)for Christmas a couple years ago. I use it mostly for crossbow and turkey hunting. I generally just mark the distance to trees, etc., for a frame of reference. It's a lot easier than pacing off distances.

I am not terribly interested in exact yards, etc., and it seems to work just fine for me for what I use it for.

Moosetrot

I shoot long range, so my rangefinder is way overkill and more expensive than you would need. I'm currently using a Leupold 2800, this and a previous Bushnell 1300 are a couple of the only rangefinders I have ever used where I have actually been able to range farther than their claimed range. As a general rule with most rangefinders, and in particular cheaper ones, figure about half of their claimed range in the field. I'll disagree with a former poster on here, I far prefer black digital readout to lighted readout. Too often in low light you can see the target you are wanting to range through the rangefinder fine when it is turned off, as soon as you hit the button to turn it on the readout lights up red and that is all you can see, everything else goes black and you can no longer see if you are aiming the rangefinder at the deer or at the next ridge beyond it. With a black readout I don't have that problem, and if it is too dark to see the numbers, I can usually point it at the sky after shooting a range and read the numbers against the lighter background.
You mention using it for bow hunting, in my opinion a rangefinder is very important bow hunting when you are spot and stalk hunting or doing something like calling elk. If all you are going to be doing is sitting in the same stand all the time, you can pace off and memorize distances ahead of time, when you chase a herd of elk through two drainages and finally have the bull turn around and come charging back to run off the interloper following him, this doesn't work so well. One thing to make sure of (pretty much all the decent rangefinders have this feature, but some of the cheap ones may not) is to get one with an angle compensator. Every brand calls it something different, but basically what you want it to do is tell you the horizontal distance between you and the target when looking up or down hill, rather than the slope distance that you are actually measuring. You want to hold for the horizontal distance (when you start shooting very long range you need to add in a few other calcs, but for reasonably long ranges with either bow or rifle horizontal distance is all you need worry about) between you and the target, if you are looking very steep either up or down hill the slope distance will be considerably farther and holding for it will cause you to shoot high.

Bushnell makes very good quality laser rangefinders, their optics usually suck, but the actual laser rangefinder inside is first rate. Their price is generally reasonable, so if you can live with the optics they are a good choice. Leupold are more expensive, and after the first leupold rangefinder I had I absolutely wouldn't recommend one for years, currently I own their top of the line one and couldn't be more happy with it, not sure how their cheaper models are however, wether they have improved enough to be worth their priced value or not. Sig have practically all very good reviews and everyone who has one loves it, I haven't personally used one, however. Vortex has a very nice top of the line rangefinder, and I have used another one of theirs that was very good, on the other hand I have used a couple and had clients with more that were pretty much garbage, research the exact model you are planning on getting is the best advice I can tell you on Vortex (or pretty much anything else). I also have an older Nikon that I actually found in the woods that the wife uses, bulkier but it works pretty good. Leica also makes good rangefinders.