Is a cheap range finder a waste of money?

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Ridersfan

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Is a cheap range finder a waste of money or better than having no range finder? My hunting buddy has all good, high end stuff... I used his range finding binoculars during this year's hunt and decided it's awesome to have a range finder... but found out his binoculars were $3,000. That ain't gonna happen on my budget.
So off to amazon I go looking... AOFAR Range Finders seem to have positiveish reviews and are cheap.

Anyone buy the cheap stuff and still happy that they did, or should I just save my money?
Thanks
 
I was out the other afternoon with a hunting buddy.
He had a mid range Bushnell and me with my Leica 1200.
When we stopped to have a whizz, it was ne'er dark.
I tried out his range finder and was duly disappointed.
I put my Leica up to me eye bawl and noticed a great difference t'ween the two.

Hert yer pawkitt book once.
There is/was a decent on a Leica in the EE not too long ago.

Junk in junk and will always be that way.
 
Your question is your answer.....

What is cheap to you, price, quality?
To each his own.........

350-500.00 will get you a decent RF, and useful out to 250-300yds for deer, maybe a tad farther for elk and moose.

What more would you need
 
If you can scrape together $500 or so as a splurge/gift to yourself, I doubt you would ever regret spending the money on a Leica or similar quality RF.

I picked up a used Leica 800 here on the EE several years back, and it has been a solid and un-regretted purchase.

One of my co-workers had bought a cheap RF, and when I looked through it and panned across the scenery, it made me seasick almost. The lenses were that bad. YMMV, but good optics are going to be good forever, and cheaper to buy than a bunch of less expensive ones.
 
I've been satisfied with an older Bushnell model for a few years, and for the last couple I have been using a Nikon mid-range model...but my expectations and requirements for a rangefinder are low. If it works out to 500 I am more than happy, and even the Bushnell could do that. The Nikon is rated out to 1300, and seems to come very close to doing so. I haven't used it that far for hunting and never will, but it has made finding survey stakes a very quick and simple procedure well out past 1000.

For hunting, this level of performance is, for me, overkill. And, yes, fine optics are a joy to look through, which is why I have Zeiss and Leica binoculars, and Nightforce and S&B scopes. But I will spend about 0.1% of my hunting time looking through a rangefinder, so I just can't get it to matter to me how good the lenses are. I am more interested in durability and electronic function and the Nikon seems to give me those things.

If you're a "Best of the West" kinda guy...you know, shoot your Alberta elk from your Manitoba backyard...then things change. :)
 
Cheap range finders don't work well, save your cash and get a better one, but read a pile of reviews before you buy. I bought a Bushnell rangefinder a couple years ago and it was very disappointing in how poorly it worked, I normally like most of their products but not these units. I returned it for a refund.
 
I would agree with the above post. I bought a bushnell and found that its ranging abilities were limited and for bowhunting a the end of the day it was tough to even see animals. This was several years ago so I imagine all companies have made improvements but I went ahead and bought a leica and have never looked back. in fact the quality of the the glass made my binoculars obsolete as I could do everything with a 8x optics from the rangefinder. Cry once, buy once
 
It depends on your budget. What you're using it for.
Putting out over $500 for something that you're going to use a few times and then it sits in your hunting bag till next season...well...
Look at the features and see what you really need. There are so many choices.
Check out a few reviews Hunting Rangefinders – Top Rated For 2018 is a good one.
If you don't need all the bells and whistle...and just need to check distance on a object then I would say save your money and spend it on something your really need.
I went with the ohhunt 1500m for $130 us. My buddy has a Bushnell Scout DX.
I like my Ohhunt better. JMHO
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I used a cheap range finder for archery for quite a few years and I was more than happy with it.

I started shooting/hunting at longer distances in the recent years and have found that quality optics/range finders are a must. It all depends what you want to do with it, when it came to ranging animals out to 50yds, I was happy with my cheap range finder and it never failed me, for shooting, I can't say the same about that same cheap range finder...
 
the cheap ones work ok. I had one that worked well until I tried to range a gopher.... came back blank cause it couldn't isolate it.
For trees, rocks and fences it worked fine.
Read the reviews and stick to your budget, I'm sure for the few times a year you use it the cheap one will do just fine.

That said, I have a friend that first had both separate units, then bought the fancy binos combined with a rangefinder (leica or zeiss I think) for 3k or so.
He says its the best single piece of gear he's bought, compared to switching back and forth with the sep range finder like he used to do because he'd run out of time in a critical situation. By that logic, one of those rangefinder scopes would be the ultimate. Too bad they're so ugly.
 
I bought a new Nikon Laserforce bino/rangefinder and am quite happy with it. Sometimes you just need to go for it - eventually you'll forget about the cost but the unit you bought will always make you smile.
 
A quality binocular remains an excellent piece of gear for many, many years; improvements in optics progress relatively slowly compared to those in electronics. A top-line binocular from 20 or 25 years ago compares very favourably with today's apex models, and unpracticed eyes struggle to see any difference.

How often can you say that about a piece of electronic gear? Even if it continues to function for a long time...and that's a big "if"...it's capabilities are quickly outstripped by newer, better and usually less expensive contenders. Look at today's rangefinders in comparison to comparable models from even 7 or 8 years ago. The newer ones range further, faster and better; that increasing level of performance will continue, leaving you with an awesome binocular that also incorporates a very so-so rangefinder compared with the newer stuff that will come out. If you bought the combo unit, that probably means that you are a bit of a gear-head...and that probably means that you won't be smiling all that much a few years down the road when you see entry-level rangefinders matching or bettering the performance of your uber-binocular unit.

I'd much prefer a top-of-the-line binocular as a stand-alone unit, along with a rangefinder of whatever grade makes me comfortable.
 
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