Nikon Laserforce Rangefinding Binocular Review, By Matt Cashell

[Justin Crossley]

Our optics guru, Matt Cashell just finished up a great review of the Nikon Laserforce Rangefinding Bino. Check it out to see how they performed for him. Nikon Laserforce Review

 

[William Hanson (live2hunt)]

Another solid review. I'm to the point that I immediately look for one of Matt's reviews when considering optics as my first source of quality reference.

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[OG DramaLlama]

Great review, I'm with live2hunt and need the go ahead from Matt prior to any purchase....

Couple questions:

Did you have a chance to range many animals at the advertised distances? Always nice to range a house/reflective object at 1900, but what about Deer/Elk/Antelope/Bison...(Nice Bison BTW!)

Were you able to get a lot of the longer ranges off-hand or primarily from a tri-pod?

What about the width of the beam at the longer distances....Did you pick up a lot of "interference" from other objects in the fore(back)ground that make it difficult to get a good read.

 

[Matt Cashell]

Great Questions! This is why I love these review discussion threads, as they really add a lot of value and detail that don't make it into a published review.

Did you have a chance to range many animals at the advertised distances? Always nice to range a house/reflective object at 1900, but what about Deer/Elk/Antelope/Bison...(Nice Bison BTW!)

Thanks on the bison! My son is very proud and sits tall every time we have it for dinner.

I was able to get on-hair measurements out to 1200ish yards pretty consistently. On the tripod, 1000 yards was pretty easy.

Were you able to get a lot of the longer ranges off-hand or primarily from a tri-pod?

This seems to be another real advantage to a bino/rangefinder combo. The ability to comfortably use two hands and additional mass made the Laserforce better than a standard rangefinder for handheld ranges. Still, tripod mounted provided the most reliable method for long distance ranging. It was wise for Nikon to make either method easy with manufacturing the Laserforce with the standard 1/4-20 threaded receiver.

Of the beam at the longer distances....Did you pick up a lot of "interference" from other objects in the fore(back)ground that make it difficult to get a good read.

The beam divergence spec is:

Vertical: 0.062, Horizontal: 1.46

This worked out in practice that it was pretty reliable to get the intended target, but larger targets at the longer distances certainly improved performance. There is no "bullseye" mode like some rangefinders, so I did occasionally get readings on closer objects when ranging through trees, etc. However, it was pretty easy to deal with, and similar to most other rangefinders I have used.

 

[dotman]

Great review, maybe you’ll get to do a comparison to the Vortex for those in this price range.

 

[Matt Cashell]

Great review, maybe you’ll get to do a comparison to the Vortex for those in this price range.

As I noted in the review, while I really appreciated the convenience of the 2-in-1 function of the Laserforce rangefinding binocular, the optics need upgrading before I can fully recommend them to hunters in this price range.

Hunters in this price range should consider a separate binocular and rangefinder unless the 2-in-1 function is very important to them.