With the start of the hunting season, I had a chance to do a little more testing with my 2700b and thought I would pass on a few interesting things I observed.
As far as reach goes, I got ahold of a tripod mount made by Leica. Very nicely made, it allowed me to test some ranging out at Big Bend State Park in west Texas while hunting. Overall, I was able to reach out to 2785 yards with my particular unit on trees/bushes. This was at the end of the day, so lighting conditions were pretty much ideal. During the middle of the day under a very full sun, I hit an occasional 2660 or so, but mostly returns were good out to 2000-2400 under those conditions, again ranging bushy trees for the most part. Overall, these returns are what I have seen in previous testing, for the most part, so I’d put my unit’s capabilities in the ‘just over 2700 yards’ range when ranging trees, depending on the conditions.
While that pretty much tracks with what I have seen in the past, the most interesting opportunity afforded during this week of hunting was when it started to rain while we were out. It started as a drizzle and I was surprised to still be hitting longest target of opportunity at that location at over 1800 yards. As the rain picked up into a solid light rain, I could still hit out past 1600 consistently (1685 IIRC). Eventually, the weather turned worse and we were into a full rain. At that point, the tops of the hills and ridges I was ranging off of were no longer fully visible. That is, you could see the hill, but not any detail in terms of trees, bushes, or rocks, only the shadowy shape of the hill. The 2700 appears to be limited to this level of visibility, that is, I was still able to range out to 1565 under these conditions, which corresponded to the distance at which I could still barely make out some detail either with my eyes, or with the RF, or my binos. Essentially, if I could see detail, I could range it….which in this case was out to 1565. Some time back, I had the opportunity to test in very dense fog and found the same to be true. If only the outline of the tree could be seen, but no details, it would not range. If you could make out some detail, it would range it. Overall, I was pretty impressed with it’s performance in the rain. When it really started to come down, I told my son we were probably screwed for getting a range if we found anything, so I was very pleasantly surprised that I was still able to reach nearly a mile in under those conditions. So far, my experience has been that the 2700 handles weather very well, much better than I expected. If the weather allows you to see the detail, the 2700 seems to be willing to range it (up to a point of course).
The last bit of learnings is around the ballistic capabilities. In my previous review, I mentioned that the returns pretty much matched my AB kestrel out to 1000 yards, within .1 MOA, as long as aero jump and coriolis were not a factor. At that time, I was using a handloaded 200 grain ELDX out of a 300 win mag. This year, I worked up a new load with the 212 ELDX. For those not familiar with this particular bullet, it has a very secant ogive and a deep boat tail, so much so that, according to the Hornady tech I talked to, the bearing surface is actually smaller than on the 200 ELDX. The reason I was talking to the tech is because the Hornady data I had for these two bullets had the same powder charges and the same velocity ranges for both bullets, and I thought this must be an error (it was early data).
But back to the ballistic data on the 2700….while the ballistic returns for the 200 closely tracked with AB, the returns for the 212 did not. Keep in mind that in both cases, I am using AB’s custom drag model instead of G7 BC’s, and in both cases, I am building a custom curve on Leica’s site and loading it on the RF. What I found surprised me in that, unlike the 200 ELDX, the 212 was off by nearly 1 MOA at 1k. By doing some tinkering with the BC and the velocity, I was able to get the returns to match to less than .1 MOA out to 1k (coriolis and aero jump excluded), just like on the 200. I then tested the RF vs the Kestrel at home and then under various field conditions in West Texas, and found them to match in the field as well. Since my AB data has been validated out to 1125, I’m pretty happy.
I cannot say with absolute certainty why the 212 needed adjustment to match, but I have a pretty good idea, and I thought I would update my information for others shooting long boat tail secant ogive bullets (Bergers for example). Basically, Leica’s software uses G1’s only…no G7, certainly not custom drag models. I believe, the farther you get away from the prototypical G1 bullet shape, the more error is introduced into your return. The 200 ELDX, while certainly more of a G7 shape, does not deviate from the G1 model as much as the 212. The 212 is a long way from conforming to the G1 model, much more so than the 200, hence the much larger discrepancy in terms of ballistic return accuracy. So if you are running one of the longer ELDX’s, or a Berger or other similar VLD bullet, you may find that you need to adjust the velocity and BC that you enter into Leica’s profile builder to get accurate returns. It’s not really that hard to do, and for those shooting these kinds of bullets, it makes the ballistic returns useful and a fast solution for the mid to mildly long range. As I said, once I got it worked out, I found the 2700 to, again, track to within .1 MOA out to 1k yards.
For those wondering how the 2700 does under various conditions, and how useful the ballistic returns are, hope this sheds some light for you.
Shortly, I should be receiving Sig's 2400 BDX to test through the season. Really interested to see how these stack up against each other both in terms of ranging performance and workflow!
As far as reach goes, I got ahold of a tripod mount made by Leica. Very nicely made, it allowed me to test some ranging out at Big Bend State Park in west Texas while hunting. Overall, I was able to reach out to 2785 yards with my particular unit on trees/bushes. This was at the end of the day, so lighting conditions were pretty much ideal. During the middle of the day under a very full sun, I hit an occasional 2660 or so, but mostly returns were good out to 2000-2400 under those conditions, again ranging bushy trees for the most part. Overall, these returns are what I have seen in previous testing, for the most part, so I’d put my unit’s capabilities in the ‘just over 2700 yards’ range when ranging trees, depending on the conditions.
While that pretty much tracks with what I have seen in the past, the most interesting opportunity afforded during this week of hunting was when it started to rain while we were out. It started as a drizzle and I was surprised to still be hitting longest target of opportunity at that location at over 1800 yards. As the rain picked up into a solid light rain, I could still hit out past 1600 consistently (1685 IIRC). Eventually, the weather turned worse and we were into a full rain. At that point, the tops of the hills and ridges I was ranging off of were no longer fully visible. That is, you could see the hill, but not any detail in terms of trees, bushes, or rocks, only the shadowy shape of the hill. The 2700 appears to be limited to this level of visibility, that is, I was still able to range out to 1565 under these conditions, which corresponded to the distance at which I could still barely make out some detail either with my eyes, or with the RF, or my binos. Essentially, if I could see detail, I could range it….which in this case was out to 1565. Some time back, I had the opportunity to test in very dense fog and found the same to be true. If only the outline of the tree could be seen, but no details, it would not range. If you could make out some detail, it would range it. Overall, I was pretty impressed with it’s performance in the rain. When it really started to come down, I told my son we were probably screwed for getting a range if we found anything, so I was very pleasantly surprised that I was still able to reach nearly a mile in under those conditions. So far, my experience has been that the 2700 handles weather very well, much better than I expected. If the weather allows you to see the detail, the 2700 seems to be willing to range it (up to a point of course).
The last bit of learnings is around the ballistic capabilities. In my previous review, I mentioned that the returns pretty much matched my AB kestrel out to 1000 yards, within .1 MOA, as long as aero jump and coriolis were not a factor. At that time, I was using a handloaded 200 grain ELDX out of a 300 win mag. This year, I worked up a new load with the 212 ELDX. For those not familiar with this particular bullet, it has a very secant ogive and a deep boat tail, so much so that, according to the Hornady tech I talked to, the bearing surface is actually smaller than on the 200 ELDX. The reason I was talking to the tech is because the Hornady data I had for these two bullets had the same powder charges and the same velocity ranges for both bullets, and I thought this must be an error (it was early data).
But back to the ballistic data on the 2700….while the ballistic returns for the 200 closely tracked with AB, the returns for the 212 did not. Keep in mind that in both cases, I am using AB’s custom drag model instead of G7 BC’s, and in both cases, I am building a custom curve on Leica’s site and loading it on the RF. What I found surprised me in that, unlike the 200 ELDX, the 212 was off by nearly 1 MOA at 1k. By doing some tinkering with the BC and the velocity, I was able to get the returns to match to less than .1 MOA out to 1k (coriolis and aero jump excluded), just like on the 200. I then tested the RF vs the Kestrel at home and then under various field conditions in West Texas, and found them to match in the field as well. Since my AB data has been validated out to 1125, I’m pretty happy.
I cannot say with absolute certainty why the 212 needed adjustment to match, but I have a pretty good idea, and I thought I would update my information for others shooting long boat tail secant ogive bullets (Bergers for example). Basically, Leica’s software uses G1’s only…no G7, certainly not custom drag models. I believe, the farther you get away from the prototypical G1 bullet shape, the more error is introduced into your return. The 200 ELDX, while certainly more of a G7 shape, does not deviate from the G1 model as much as the 212. The 212 is a long way from conforming to the G1 model, much more so than the 200, hence the much larger discrepancy in terms of ballistic return accuracy. So if you are running one of the longer ELDX’s, or a Berger or other similar VLD bullet, you may find that you need to adjust the velocity and BC that you enter into Leica’s profile builder to get accurate returns. It’s not really that hard to do, and for those shooting these kinds of bullets, it makes the ballistic returns useful and a fast solution for the mid to mildly long range. As I said, once I got it worked out, I found the 2700 to, again, track to within .1 MOA out to 1k yards.
For those wondering how the 2700 does under various conditions, and how useful the ballistic returns are, hope this sheds some light for you.
Shortly, I should be receiving Sig's 2400 BDX to test through the season. Really interested to see how these stack up against each other both in terms of ranging performance and workflow!
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