Sig Sauer KILO 2200 Laser Rangefinder Review

[ADMIN]

Great googly moogly! What an amazing bit of kit, really! The new Sig Sauer KILO 2200 is just spectacular beyond words, and you won't even begin to be able to understand until you own one of these laser rangefinders, or find someone that'll let you try one out. Read More...

This is a thread for discussion of the article, Sig Sauer KILO 2200 Laser Rangefinder Review, By MeccaStreisand. Here you can ask questions or make comments about the article.

 

[COmtnman1]

what is the extreme distance that it'll range & how far did you test it?

 

[elkoholic72]

Sig never released the Kilo 2000 at $350. It was released and sold at $499 MAP for 20+ months. MAP (minimum advertised price) was dropped in October to start the process of releasing the Kilo 2200MR and moving out the remaining inventory of 2000s. The price stayed the same and did not increase with the release of the Kilo 2200MR.

 

[Shootin4fun]

And how far did it range quickly and reliably on porous rock, dirt, bushes, tree foliage, and tree trunks? Steel plates are easy for these things to range for obvious reasons. But when I'm hunting, critters are rarely standing next to a steel plate. I know what the Leo 850 and 1200 do so would like apples to apples in the wild info.

 

[veezer]

I have a 2000 that is complete junk. It will not range anything past 900 and only reads to 900 every now and then. I sent it back to Sig and after 4 weeks they still don't know what is going on because you send optics back to New Hampshire and then they send them to their "optics facility" in Oregon and apparently the two don't communicate well at all. Pretty **** sorry service if you ask me.

This is not the first Kilo that I have seen/heard about that had issues. Apparently, all the ones you hear about or see videos of that range out to 2000 yards on a stop sign are few and far between. Just like the author stated, most rangefinders are junk.

One of my shooting buddies had a 2000 that would range out to 1500 on good days but never past that. He sold it hoping the new 2200 would be better. Guess what....same issues just in a new package.

I have used Leica rangefinders and they are spot on every time. At twice the price, they should be so it looks like you get what you pay for.

 

[Shootin4fun]

A little off the 2200 topic, but by comparison I played with a new Leo 850 for a few days recently and was quite surprised how well it reached out to 900 and beyond. I have a Leo 1000 and the 2 were always within 1 or 2 yards of each other at those distances. Acquisition and reading of targets at that range was equal.

Leo also has a lifetime warranty. If a unit breaks, they replace it and upgrade to the next higher unit if yours can't be fixed and is no longer made.

To me, the hardest thing about ranging small things at those distances is the inability to see them precisely with only 6x magnification.

 

[X08rtl1]

Just received my 2200 this week. IMPRESSED!!! As soon as I got it, I measured some things around my neighborhood that I always check and compared with other units I have... SUCCESS...

I then tried my first long range test. I aimed at the top of a water tank above the trees on a hill across from where I live... Had to point slightly off center, but the reading was ... 1776 yds... I then went to my computer and brought up Google Earth... Measured from my driveway to the tank .... 1784!!!

Going to a long range match this weekend. Can't wait to use it!!!

 

[BallisticsGuy]

what is the extreme distance that it'll range & how far did you test it?

I got it to a mile against things like a steel gate, 1500 against a wood exterior entry door painted white and a power hub (large grey box) at a large solar array project. The desert area I was in didn't offer any big wads of trees to test the advertised ability. Keep in mind target size has to grow with distance. I had best luck with targets of 2MOA or bigger when ranges got beyond 1000yrds.

And how far did it range quickly and reliably on porous rock, dirt, bushes, tree foliage, and tree trunks? Steel plates are easy for these things to range for obvious reasons. But when I'm hunting, critters are rarely standing next to a steel plate. I know what the Leo 850 and 1200 do so would like apples to apples in the wild info.

Zero problems on moist dirt and grass (barley) that was facing away from me (downhill angle) to 800 with fast reads. It did get a bit sensitive there. When the hillside was facing me I was able to get to 900 on dry fine silty soil but lacked hillsides much further away to test against. As stated above, trees are a rarity where I was able to test the thing at range so sadly I don't have good numbers on trees. There aren't any rocks to speak of so I used plastic barrels that have been roughed to hell and back by bullet spall to simulate porous rock. To 1000yrds I didn't notice any difference in user experience measuring the barrels versus the steel targets hanging 3 feet off the the side of 'em.

It spanked the Leupold and Leica 12's. For a direct comparison I compared against a Leica 1200 against dirt and short sparse grass that was facing me and the 2200 beat it hands down at all ranges in speed. The real capability victories started with moist dirt and short grass that was in shadow at 748yrds that I just couldn't get the Leica or Leupold to return on though they would work at closer than 700yrds. At every range the Leica and Leupold offerings we had to compare against also took pretty darned long to give the reading where the kilo 2200 was very fast, nearly instantaneous regardless of range. I have a feeling that if the L's had faster response time that their effective range might be longer just due to reduced shake in the hand giving a more stable reflected beam with less signal noise.

A little off the 2200 topic, but by comparison I played with a new Leo 850 for a few days recently and was quite surprised how well it reached out to 900 and beyond. I have a Leo 1000 and the 2 were always within 1 or 2 yards of each other at those distances. Acquisition and reading of targets at that range was equal.

Leo also has a lifetime warranty. If a unit breaks, they replace it and upgrade to the next higher unit if yours can't be fixed and is no longer made.

To me, the hardest thing about ranging small things at those distances is the inability to see them precisely with only 6x magnification.

I like the Leupold myself, more than I did the Leica for user experience. The Kilo was just so much better in every way though and the Kilo was wickedly faster than either of the L's.

Distance calculation accuracy is based on the speed of light and a timer. The speed of light doesn't change in a medium of consistent refraction index so I'd never expect a substantially different result from one LRF versus another. Minor differences due to processing speed and coding of the computational engine would be something I'd expect to lead to very very tiny differences like those you've noted. The ability to get any reading at all has always been my biggest bugaboo.

The relatively low magnification and optical quality of the viewfinder did present minor issues at long range as noted in the article but having a set binoculars would be helpful for that sort of thing anyway since this is not to be confused with a spotting scope for sure. The optic was quite clear but just didn't resolve fine enough in one particular instance for me to read a target ID correctly where I would have expected it to.

I can't speak to the SIG warranty as I didn't even read it.


All in all, the level of impressed I was with the K2200 is more than I've been impressed with anything in years. It really is quite brilliant and that's not supporterism or marketing hype. I like easy to use things and that was soooo easy to use. It really very well unwound years and years of LRF hate.

 

[gpo1956]

My gosh, that was excruciating.

 

[SupressYourself]

I have a 2000 that is complete junk. It will not range anything past 900 and only reads to 900 every now and then. I sent it back to Sig and after 4 weeks they still don't know what is going on because you send optics back to New Hampshire and then they send them to their "optics facility" in Oregon and apparently the two don't communicate well at all. Pretty **** sorry service if you ask me.

This is not the first Kilo that I have seen/heard about that had issues. Apparently, all the ones you hear about or see videos of that range out to 2000 yards on a stop sign are few and far between. Just like the author stated, most rangefinders are junk.

One of my shooting buddies had a 2000 that would range out to 1500 on good days but never past that. He sold it hoping the new 2200 would be better. Guess what....same issues just in a new package.

I have used Leica rangefinders and they are spot on every time. At twice the price, they should be so it looks like you get what you pay for.

I just sent my Sig 2000 in as well. It had no problem ranging a stop sign at 1760, but couldn't range a house or barn over 900-something, couldn't hit trees over 500, and wouldn't do a grassy hillside past 320. So unless I go around planting road signs all over my hunting areas, it's no better than my old Nikon. After reading about your customer service experience, I'm no longer optimistic...

 

[mildot1960]

So far I have not seen anything impressive from these Sig LRF's, Out of all the LRF's they have sold they must have gotten around 60%+ returned by unhappy Customers, So that told me all I need to know about them, I could not get hold of the new version of the G7 and after a lot of research I went with the Bushnell ConX, It has it all and I tested it out and It has to be the best sub $1500 LRF On the market at present.

John.

 

[veezer]

As a follow up, I sent my kilo 2000 in for repair on 2/16/17. They finally decided that it was faulty and are going to send a new 2200 to me. That was on 3/20/17. Every time I call, they say that a new one will ship the next day and guess what....still no rangefinder. I hope others have better luck than I do with Sig. I am done with them.

 

[SupressYourself]

Veezer, did you ever get the new 2200?
If so, how is it testing?

They received mine on 3/17, and while they've been pretty quick to respond to my emails, they can't tell me anything about it either. The last response I got was:
"As of now there is not currently a status update on it. Repairs are tending to take the full 6 weeks lately though so I would expect more information as we move into May."

 

[veezer]

I did get a new 2200. I have only had it out one time. It was an overcast morning and I was able to get hits on bushes out to 1700 and it was a fast read too. My buddy had a Leica right beside me and he was having trouble going past 1200, so maybe I got a good one this time.

My only complaint is that in really bright sunlight, the readout is a little hard to see, even if you set it to high or auto.