good place to start?

A

archerynut

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my father bought me a pair of binoculars for my birthday, these happened to be used. they are made by swift and appear to be a number of years old. 7x35 ratio and they have a 372ft vantage at a thousand yards. so they were OK in the summer, but I took them chasing whitetails this past weekend, and they pretty much froze up to the point where they would not flex or focus. nothing, and to force them probably would have resulted in something breaking.

whats a suggestion for a good set of binocs. I don't mind paying money for a quality item. I'm a firm believer in "you get what you pay for" and I tend to take care of my possesions, so anything I purchased would probably still be used for the forseeable future - I'm 28 - probably looking at a max limit of $300 to $350 dollars. something lightweight that I can wear all day around my neck and have handy for checking out possible targets...
 
The new Leupold BX-3 Mojave's should be great glass if they're comparable to the old Mojave. My mom has the 8x42 Mojave (old style) and I prefer them to my brother's 8.42 Gold Rings. I spent a lot of time looking through both in low light in Africa and I feel that the clarity and optics are very comparable and th Mojave feels about a half-pound lighter. Cabelas sells the BX3 Mojave for $379 (just checked) which would make them a great deal, possibly the best deal out there today. If they would only come out with a 6x or 7x 30 in the Mojave I'd buy another set in a heartbeat to supplement my 10x42 Pentax DCF SP. Apparently Phil Shoemaker uses the BX1 Yosemite 6x30 which only runs $100. The word is that they're very clear, light and compact. plus if they get lost or broken you can replace them for a minimal amount of money. I imagine that the 8x30 for $119 would be nice glass as well.
 
thank you for the excellent and informative post. I will look into - no pun intended - the BX1 model you spoke of, as well as the BX3 model, but if my inexperienced binocular eyes have a tough time telling the difference in clarity/light levels between the BX1 and BX3 model, I will probably go with the cheaper set and purchase a good quality harness. when I was trotting across the prairie near Oyen chasing some WT does, the bouncing around of my current set of binoculars was very annoying. many thanks again.
 
In the price range you stated you could also look at the Vortex Diamondbacks, I have a pair and have used them alot for general purpose glassing. They are now my truck binos as I have upgraded to Viper HDs as my go to glass. The Diamondbacks though offer good quality glass and coatings, rubber armored housing, water proof/fog proof, and internal argon gas. They retail for about $250 to $300 depending on what magnification you need.
 
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The new Mojaves arrives last night but they're shrinkwrapped. A good friend would open his buddy's Christmas present to make sure they weren't damaged in shipping, right?

Right?
 
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