Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Best binos under $300

Ziess monocular; light, compact and easy to carry around. Great optics.


https://www.dccameras.com.au/carl-z...1eaY5QIVyxErCh0k0gDNEAQYAyABEgJ6svD_BwE.

Jeff_O-type obtuseness on display here. Congrats - it's a grueling feat to reach that summit.

Scoping... reminds me of an elk hunt where there was three hunters for two of us to take out. Plan was to ambush the elk coming out of a huge meadow, we weren't the only ones. 4 or 5 other groups were spread out around the edges. Not my way to hunt elk, more like dove hunting, but it's what they wanted to do. I met my hunter for the first time that morning in the dark, my plan was to hike into a big pond and wait till light.

My hunter was a nice guy, hadn't hunted much and his first elk hunt, small talked waiting for light.

I've got my 15s set up on the tripod and it starts getting grey. It gets lighter and the elk start moving. None are moving our way yet but headed towards our other hunters and more groups. There was a group of bulls a half mile out headed to all those hunters, we were the only ones at our location, I'm saying, 'they might hit those hunters and turn back to us'.

I'm locked on them and calling play by play... 'there's 6 bulls, 2 are decent 6s, 1 is broken on the left, they are headed for our guys, I can see our hunters and there's another group of hunters to their left and another over there, ect...

The guy say's, I can see our group and yep there's another, and the others... I can't see the elk very well it's too far... I glance over and he's scoping to see...

WHOA!!!!... I grab his barrel and jerk it up... he say's 'what the hell'... I ask, 'don't you have binos'? He say's yes and pulls out of his front pocket foldup tascos, but I can see better out of my scope. Now this guy had a brand new truck with a brand new side x side that never got unloaded, but had walmart tascos he probably used at football games.

What's the big deal?

You saw all those hunters... and they can see us... if they were looking at us while you were scoping them, they may come over and whoop our ass... and we would deserve it... I hiked him out.

One of our hunters killed a 4pt from that group of elk, I got my hunter an elk that afternoon in a hole of mine in the forest away from other hunters, our last hunter killed a 6 out of the meadow the next morning.

Kent

It's been probably 10 years since I've researched binos seriously, but here's some observations from seeing the younger hunters buying and selling, always changing it seems. Optics are a big deal for us coues hunters and it's a good testing ground for the good, bad and great.

Vortex has a big following but I see some inconsistencies with their owners. A few years ago the 12x50 razors were all the rage for tripod glassing... had to have them, sell the swaros buy the razor. And then a bunch were back up for sale in the classifieds. I asked my young buddy that had to have them why he then put them up for sale?... well I just want to find something different... no one actually bad mouths them as they want their money back in resale, but they sure sell a bunch of used ones... to buy the latest swaros.

Lots of binos in the classifieds on the local coues deer site, why do they use Vortex quality to compare to their less expensive bino... here's an exert from a recent add, it's the norm and the same comparisons were used in this thread...

'Newest model Cabela’s Euro Instinct HD binoculars less than a year old. They are the 10x42 model and made by Meopta. I love these binos but bought some Swaro SLCs and no longer need them. The glass quality, in my opinion, is better than my Vortex Razors.'

For each model vortex there is a less expensive alternative, hundreds less, at least in the eyes of those that bought them.

On the other hand, Chinese Zen ray... they were really pushed as HD, less expensive, great binos for the price, comparable to the high enders, on and on... Ton of people bought them because of the hype. What happened? they are gone now, along with some others.

I would be careful buying new company binos because of hype... Vortex would be a better bet in that case.

Binos are getting like computers and cell phones... the newest latest must haves and 6 months later it's another direction. I'm glad I'm to old to want to change what I have, I'm way behind the times and worthless in what's the fads now.

Kent

Has Bushnell ever won best of anything in a price class?

Probably the 29.99 scope/bino class...

Kent

Are you truly serious?

Optics have just plain improved. Two things I found is that dielectric coatings have made roofs palatable to me as far as brightness goes -and like you have been leaving my bigger 8x42's at home in favor of the Zen Ray 8x32's. The second thing might be that my eyes are now years older so maybe the larger exit pupil is less of a factor.

For some silly reason- and this forum maybe- I am always interested in something new. Just have yet to find the ZR's lacking in any way to justify a new toy. Easy to tote, good adjustments, view and brightness all are just working for me.

LRTSi.

Nikon Monarchs are pretty good

Him and Ringman could have some stellar optics chats....

Beating Nightforce?

At the price I paid, I would not have been able to get a Nightforce. Elites have always been pretty competitive IMO. But, I digress from the topic at hand, the ultimate $300 binocular.

I've never found riflesopes to be that handy at scanning around in the brush for critters....

Lol, I don’t glass people with a scoped rifle. I didn’t say I did, I just expected one of you to come back with that crap.

Maybe someone will manufacture a range finder that tells you what binoculars you should be using!

KACHING!

Thing is, you really don't know if there's a person in the brush or not. Hence scanning with a rifle mounted optic is stupid chit man.



ChaaaaChing.


Ohhh, I originally got that gif thinking of Trystan... No offense intended.

Leupold Yosemitie's are exceptional for the price

Please tell us what class your Bushnell scope wins.