I took a few minutes to acquaint myself with my new leica 1600 today. My first impression was that it was a piece of junk. I could not even get a reading on my 800 yard 4x4' target. So I got to wondering was it me or the range finder. To determine what the problem was I went and got my Swaro and also my wife's Swaro rangefinders to compare.
The conditions were pretty overcast but not too bad. To start I tried all three range finders while sitting in a chair on my back porch. I was able to get readings at 600, 715, and 774 yards with both Swaro range finders. Nothing with the Leica.
At this point I still had not gotten a readiing further than 455 yards out of the leica and was having doubts about the unit. So I advanced the test a little. I moved the party over to my reloading/shooting room and took a seat at my cement shooting bench. I then started re-ranging items of know distance on my range using my rifle rest as a prop. All range finders were held as dead still as possible. that is where the Leica started to shine. It seemed more consistand and quicker than the swaros out to 800 yards.
I then abandoned the rifle rest and tried using just my elbows resting on the table. The Leicas worked pretty well out to 600 but I never got a range on my 800 yard target this way. No problems with the Swaros.
Then I tested the other features against the swaro.......wait a minute the swaro has no other features. Leica wins that hands down. The real test will start tomorrow morning. I entered the closest matching ballitics table to my wife's new rifle. tomorrow I am going to take my shooting matt and do some testing from a prone position and even do a little shooting to test the ballistic abilities of the Leica.
Does anyone know if this thing will even give data beyond 300? So far I am not all that impressed with the Leica and am regretting that one of the swaro units I was using today are actually sold pending funds to a local buddy. I have range past a mile using the Swaros using a knee to rest LRF. I do not see me ever getting a reading past 1K with the leicas. We will see tomorrow since I am probably going to ride over where we shoot longer ranges for some of my testing.
Right now it looks like the wife has a new range finder and I am sticking with my Swaros.
The conditions were pretty overcast but not too bad. To start I tried all three range finders while sitting in a chair on my back porch. I was able to get readings at 600, 715, and 774 yards with both Swaro range finders. Nothing with the Leica.
At this point I still had not gotten a readiing further than 455 yards out of the leica and was having doubts about the unit. So I advanced the test a little. I moved the party over to my reloading/shooting room and took a seat at my cement shooting bench. I then started re-ranging items of know distance on my range using my rifle rest as a prop. All range finders were held as dead still as possible. that is where the Leica started to shine. It seemed more consistand and quicker than the swaros out to 800 yards.
I then abandoned the rifle rest and tried using just my elbows resting on the table. The Leicas worked pretty well out to 600 but I never got a range on my 800 yard target this way. No problems with the Swaros.
Then I tested the other features against the swaro.......wait a minute the swaro has no other features. Leica wins that hands down. The real test will start tomorrow morning. I entered the closest matching ballitics table to my wife's new rifle. tomorrow I am going to take my shooting matt and do some testing from a prone position and even do a little shooting to test the ballistic abilities of the Leica.
Does anyone know if this thing will even give data beyond 300? So far I am not all that impressed with the Leica and am regretting that one of the swaro units I was using today are actually sold pending funds to a local buddy. I have range past a mile using the Swaros using a knee to rest LRF. I do not see me ever getting a reading past 1K with the leicas. We will see tomorrow since I am probably going to ride over where we shoot longer ranges for some of my testing.
Right now it looks like the wife has a new range finder and I am sticking with my Swaros.