Powerful, compact bino suggestions

[megastink]

I've gone through four pairs of binos and I'm still searching for the right ones. I've tried Vortex Vanquish 8x26, Steiner Predator AF 8x32, Bushnell Buckhorn 10x42, and an old pair of cabela's 10x30-somethings. I like the vanquish for a minimalist carrying bono when bowhunting, but I'm looking for something with some more magnification that I can carry in my Vortex chest harness. I don't want to go too big of an objective. I'm thinking that I want something like a 12x42, or a compact 12x50. 10x is ok, but I remember not being able to tell if a buck had brow tines from 200 yards away some years ago with the buckhorns. I want more than 10x. I'd also like to keep it below $300 if possible. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[IanCo]

Save up a $1000 or more and buy a nice set of 8x or 10x. Even if it takes a couple of years you will be better off. Try out some if you can to see what works best with your eyes. You can spend more money in the long run buy running through a bunch of cheaper options and never being happy with them. Buy once, cry once is the saying I believe. The nicer binos don't make anything bigger, but they do help see into trees and terrain better. So if you can try some out, try to pick out small details in a cluttered backdrop outside if you can. With the cheaper binos you see a wall of trees, with good ones to start picking apart shadows, sticks, individual trees, game trails and all of the details in the trees. And eventually after picking apart enough details you will start seeing more animals in timber.

12x are pretty nice but they are pretty shaky free-handing. If I was going to run a one bino system out west I would probably have 12x's and do minimal free handing and run them mostly off of a tripod. I currently have a pair of Maven 11x's and a pair of Leica 15x's that only are used off of a tripod. What I like about my two bino system is that the Mavens pick up or show a lot more of blue/grays and have a really good contrast. The Leicas show more greens which give me deeper colors. I like being able to go back and forth between the two if lighting conditions are changing.

My wife went antelope hunting last weekend and was able to borrow a set of Swaro's from one of the people in the hunting party and she refused to use the Leupold's I sent her out with . After years of busting my chops for spending money on better optics she told me she finally gets it and that I should go buy a pair of Swaro's. I've been happy enough with the Mavens that I don't know I'll replace them or not, but a free pass to upgrade is hard to pass up.

Another thing that may help you out is adding a tripod or some form of rest to mount your binos too. For one being able to lock them on something your not sure of and watching it for a few minutes without losing it is nice. And you gain field of view by the added stability when gridding out your glassing areas as well. It actually lets the edge to edge area increase just by taking out the added movements out of free-handing.

Take your time and look through as many different binos as you can. Even better if you can look through them in bad lighting conditions outside into complex terrain.

Good luck!

 

[Coyote Shadow Tracker]

We have Steiner Predator 8X22 COMPACT Binos and they work great. We keep a pair the truck consul and carry a pair in a Day Pack. These are just for when we need to look at something quick. We have regular size binos for Glassing.

 

[2rjshort]

Honestly it sounds like you may need to step up more in glass quality then magnification. You shouldn't have any problem spotting brow tines with 8x at 200. For the budget you suggested I would look at Sightron Blue Sky 8x32. They are very good for the price. I'd take these over anything I've looked through under $500. However, that being said I completely agree with IanCo. It's sound advice if you can work it out.