Compact Binos

Dooger

Member
Joined
Nov 11, 2018
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66
Looking for a quality set of compact & lightweight set of binos for western hunting. What ya think?

+/- $500
 
What regular size binos do you already have that these will augment?

Be interested to see what others recommend but why on earth would you want compacts for western hunting. Not once in 20+ years hunting out west have I thought I wanted to carry lesser glass than my 10x42 binos. A high quality 10x42 is perfect in any situation and if anything I use bigger glass (spotter) to get detail and long range. With a harness they are comfortable to wear all day every day for glassing at close and distant range.
 
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Exactly. I’m looking for some 10x42’s. I have a massive pair of 10x50 Bushnell which are good truck binos. That’s about it though. Harness or no harness, I’m im not walking 10 plus miles with them on my chest. Look at the Leupold BX-4. That’s the size I’m looking for.
 
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I tried the maven c1 this fall on a spike elk hunt. They were great. They have a cool demo program that you should try. Also they have a black friday deal coming up.
 
There are probably a lot of options out there, but I have a pair of 10X38 compacts from REI that probably cost like $150. They are surprisingly bright and clear. Certainly rugged and light weight. I've used them a lot in the past 5 years and beat the tar out of them, belly crawled through snow and rocks and such. They've held up great. I see no reason to change.
 
I have a pair of zeiss 10x25’s that I really like. They’re small enough to fit in the breast pocket of a button up shirt. They are clear at dawn and dusk and the field of view is really good. I had bought a pair of the compacts when I was in high school like 15 years ago. I was out looking for critters a couple months ago and somehow broke the focus knob off. I sent them in to zeiss without much hope for them being fixed. But they ended up sending me a pair of factory replacements. Which I thought was pretty cool. While I was waiting for them I used my wife’s 10x32?? Diamondbacks and I didn’t really care for them. The field of view sucked I thought and I couldn’t get them comfortable on my face. I thought hard about the compact leicas and the swarows but couldn’t ever find any to fondle. Those two are a touch over 500. In short, I’m happy with the compact binos and probably won’t go to anything bigger. Good luck in your decision.

Edit. I just saw that you want a pair of 10x42s, my bad.
 
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