Gunwerks G7 BR2 Rangefinder Review

Gunwerks G7 BR2 Rangefinder Review

By Shawn Carlock, DefensiveEdge.net

I am always looking for the improved mouse trap. In my business I have to stay on top of the latest and greatest of the long range shooting world. A while back I caught wind of development of the Gunwerks G7 laser rangefinder (LRF) and of its capabilities. Given these rumored capabilities I thought a call to Aaron and Mike Davidson at Gunwerks would be in order. After a lengthy conversation with the guys (great guys to talk to) I had a Gunwerks G7 laser rangefinder on the way to my shop to test and evaluate.



Now I knew right up front that the Gunwerks G7 was not going to range as far as my Vectronix PLRF 10 and that is OK; my needs are not the same as the majority of my customers. With that in mind let's establish what kind of shooting categories most people fall into.

The first category is what I call the hunter category. This is the guy who is not necessarily interested in anything except extending his range past hold over distance to effectively take game in the field. This guy is certainly not interested in packing more gear or spending all year working on his long range abilities, he is simply trying to hunt more efficiently through some additional technology. These people usually fall into the 600 yard and under category.

The next category is the long range hunter. The LRH practitioner is interested in long range hunting for the sake of long range hunting. Much like bow hunters being masters of the stalk and close ranges, the long range hunter is trying to be the master of longer distance shots mostly for the experience of making the longer than normal shot and the precision of the hunt. It seems this group has the arbitrary goal of being effective to 1000 yards.

Then there is the extreme range hunter. The extreme range hunter is the guy who has exceeded the long range hunter in technique and equipment. This category of hunting requires a pile of gear and more importantly a pile of practice and technique. This guy is usually not so interested in taking game as far as possible but being prepared to if given a good opportunity. The ability to shoot the extreme distances opens ways to hunt some areas that are otherwise nearly impossible to hunt. The people equipped and practiced to effectively hunt these distances are very few in number. I am talking of preparing for distances 1200 yards and beyond. The extreme range hunter will always be pushing technology and ability in practice. These guys will always be looking for more range no matter what.
What does all this blabber about categories have to do with the Gunwerks G7 laser rangefinder? Well, of the people who consider themselves long range shooters, 95% of them are what I call 3 digit shooters (1000 yards and under). The effective equipment for this shooting can differ from the extreme range shooter. It has always been my opinion that ballistic cams and ballistic reticules excelled and suffered from the same thing. They are fast and user friendly but at some distance they will hold you back in terms of effectiveness. For the most part I considered this range to be 600 yards or so given my accuracy requirements. The reason for this is simply the lack of ability to factor in the atmospheric conditions of temp, pressure, elevation etc. To be effective past this distance I needed a ballistic program, weather station and a dial up scope. This is a good system in terms of precision, but can sometimes take too long to get into play. Barrett tried to correct this situation with the BORS system years ago but it had no range finding capabilities, did not read pressure fine enough and had no reference for windage adjustment. It also required a laptop to adjust the unit for ballistics.