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I have a Zeiss Victory bino/LRF that is on its fifth season and still works fine.

Before that, I tried the Leica lrf binos and they would not range a big black cow at 300 yards on a hot sunny day as a test run. Took them back, Cabela’s exchanged them for another Leica. Same problem.

Changed to the Zeiss lrf binos and it works like a champ regardless of conditions.

jeffbird,

You may know this already, but dark objects (especially if somewhat irregular in shape, like a black cow) and sunny days are the least "cooperative" targets for laser rangefinders.

That said, my Zeiss Victory 10x40 ranged Angus cows under similar conditions out to 700+ yards when I first tested it five years ago...and ranges more "cooperative" targets further.

Yes sir, understand. I mostly hunt north of Laredo, where it is hot with intense lower latitude sun, and occasionally also humid, as the most common conditions I hunt in for most of the year. I shot a pig week before last with the temp breaking 100F every day and hitting 108F one day. So, I try to use hot, bright sun against a dark colored target as a test.

As an aside, I've hunted in some extreme cold in Saskatchewan and I'll stick to our blast furnace in the thorn brush.

I have the original Geovids from back in the late 90s.
I have to send them in because the eye cups have deteriorated.
But the Lazer works just fine.

dave

Leica sent me new eyecups when I contacted CS some years ago. Takes seconds to replace them.

I bought a set of 10x42 Leica BRF right when they introduced them in late '04. They lasted 4 yrs and I sent them in for "single fade" under warrantee and they got fixed no questions asked. I sold them when Zeiss introduced their 10x45/8x45 Victory LRF.

I had a set of 10x45 Zeiss that failed the 2nd season I used them while I was on a hunt in MT. Zeiss was kind enough to overnight me a set of demo's so I lost about a day and a half of full capability. In my mind they did everything they possibly could do to right the issue as fast as it was possible to do. When the original set was returned I sold them to a friend and bought a set of 8x45's which I used a couple seasons then sold here in the classifieds.

I bought a demo set of Leica 8x42 HD-B to compare to the Zeiss and preferred the Leica so sold the Zeiss. The HD-B didn't ever give me a problem.

A couple of friends bought the Swaro EL Range and I liked the more compact size so bought a set of 8x42 and compared them to the 8x42 HD-B. I really couldn't find a frog's hair worth of difference between them optically. I like the Leica targeting square better than the Swaro as it's smaller and that makes it seem more precise to me. I didn't like the Leica ballistic software as it requires you to plug in a specific trajectory to work, I change rifles too often for that. I REALLY liked that the Swaro had a mode that would spit out actual distance as well as the angle-compensated distance on one screen. It's simple to me:

Press the range button, dial the short displayed range, hold wind for the longer one.

It doesn't matter which rifle I have in my hands, so long as there's a chart on the rifle, the bino spits out everything I need to know.

The 8x42 Swaro are on their 5th season without a hiccup. I intend to take a good look @ the 8x32 Swaro as soon as I find one in a store.

It's been close to a decade since I've experienced a problem with a binoc/LRF combo and I have zero intention of going back to separate units as primary. I do have Meopta binocs and Leica 1600 hand-helds that stay in my 2 vehicles as "backup" and in case I'm not carrying my Swaro on any given day.

Are there any range finding binos that have the range readout in the left eye versus the right? My original Geovids readout is on the right eye and I have trouble reading it. A left-eyed version would be a lot better for me.

the two previous swaro El Range Models did IIRC.