Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Good compass?

Who makes and honest to god good compass?

Brunton, Silva, Suunto, come to mind right away

Rickt300: My Leupold has worked wonderfully well for decades now.
I am not sure if they still make them - but if you see one on the used market buy it.
Good luck in your quest.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I use a compass at work all the time. We buy Suunto and Silva, typically the models in the $40-50 range. We occasionally get a bad one from either brand, but overall they both work fine.

I have Silva’s as well, very good units. It’s crazy but the compass on my phone mirrors them very well but without some of the specific functions of a compass.

Osky

Cammenga ...all day, everyday, bet your life on it.

And affordable, so why settle for less?

I use the G.I from them and a Silva hanging from paracord around my neck as a backup.

I think it all depends on what you plan to do with it. I have a couple of good ones that my dad had, but honestly I like the one on my iPhone even better. Over the years I've discovered that I don't fish the good ones out of my pocket nearly often enough, so the $3.00 ball pin on compass on the outside of my jacket has been way more useful.

Foresters compasses are great, no question...give me a military (Cammenga) when you take a tumble in a boulder strewn creeklanding on the compass, forget it in a pocket while drying your clothing next to a fire, and on and on of hypotheticals. Night? Most foresters compasses are not night friendly. I won't bore you with the mil spec durability tests. You can imagine.

The one on my Samsung phone will give you the general direction but it's not accurate enough for orienteering or serious use. It can get you to a road, anyway.
Any of the major brands will have some good ones in the $40 to 50 range. The easiest to learn are the mirror compasses. Military types are harder to learn. They're designed differently than what you might call a civilian type.

Those ball pin compass are probably not the best, bit it's the one I use the most. I usually keep a Sylva in my pocket for a back-up.


https://www.amazon.ca/Coghlans-0126...&hvtargid=pla-307322448188&psc=1

Like others are saying, what you plan to do with it is important. I need to have some form of sighting system on mine, and adjustable declination is absolutely essential for the work I do. A ball pin compass like the one posted above is certainly better than nothing in some situations. Military-grade compasses look pretty sweet, but I have gotten by with the same Silva compass for the last few years and have treated it very roughly. It works well enough that I can't see a reason to spend more for anything I would use a compass for.

The Southern Oregon guys can confirm this, but every big Pacific front that comes through with low snow levels, we get reminded what the mix of stupid and GPS results in. This last storm, 2 families on Bear Camp between Grants Pass and Gold Beach, and a lone guy on Grayback mountain. No deaths this time, search and rescue got them out, but bad judgement and super bad GPS info will do it every time.

Mannlicher's suggestions are all good. My GPS units will also generate bearings (the direction one should strive for) and headings (the direction one is actually going) as well.

Cammenga 3H, bet your life on it. I have used them all and I always come back to the Cammenga lensatic, cannot beat it for reliability. toughness and ease of use both daytime and in pitch darkness.

If you don't know land nav. learn it ie declination, terrain association, azimuth
/back azimuth, pace count, map orientation etc. etc.----It can be a lot of fun and an important skill to know.

Folks don't use a compass often enough perhaps thinking it is sissy, but one can get turned around and lost very quickly, stepping off the trail in thick vegetation, out grouse hunting and a fog rolls in, cloudy skies in a hard rain, out on the tundra in the far north a foggy/snowy a white out can happen in a heart beat. It is good to know your back azimuth or what some call a panic azimuth back to a known feature such as a blue line, road, RR track etc.

Do NOT rely on GPS, batteries die, if you are in the bush for more than a day you better savvy land nav w/ a compass and map.

Of course you should also learn natural direction finding, ie shadow tip method, watch method, moon and star methods etc. etc,

The Best of the Best:

Suunto Optical Compass

Price is lower than when I bought mine over 30 years ago. This is what I used to layout miles of survey line prior to setting up instruments for high precision work. Easiest and quickest to read.

Fooking A, right on!

I've seen a number of kids with these things. They're cheap and you get your money's worth. There's no straight edge for orienting a map. There's no way to sight with them other than just pointing in the general direction. I've tried to teach orienteering to kids with them and it's almost impossible.

I have a Silva that I bought in 1971. Made in Sweden. Still points north.

I carry it as a backup to a newer one made in China.

This past season I'd been using an old-model Bushnell Backtrack I bought here in the classifieds. Suits my needs perfectly.