Ever More Efficient

Laser rangefinders have become essential tools for nearly all hunters in recent years. As evolving rangefinder technology has allowed the production of ever-smaller and more powerful units, nearly all of those hunters have looked forward to the day when laser rangefinder capability would be integrated into hunting’s other essential optical tools--binoculars and riflescopes.

Today, most of us carry three separate optical tools whenever we hunt: a binocular, rangefinder and scoped gun. When we spot a potential quarry, we first raise the binocular to study it. Then we lower the binocular and raise the rangefinder to assess the range. Then we lower the rangefinder and raise the gun. If the animal is moving, we often find ourselves swapping back and forth between gun and rangefinder several times before a final shot opportunity presents itself. How much better it would be if our binocular could tell us the range when we first study the animal; and how much more better it would be if our firearm’s scope could tell us the range to the animal continuously as we track it through the crosshairs.

Well, laser rangefinder binoculars have been available from various manufacturers for about five years now, in ever-smaller and more effective units. And finally the first really usable integrated rangefinding riflescopes have arrived as well.

The first of what I will call these "first generation" tools is the 4-12x42mm LaserScope from Burris. During last November’s Illinois deer season, I mounted a Burris LaserScope on my Mossberg Model 930 slug gun to try it out.

Now, I realize that a lot of readers might not think that slug-gun hunters have much need for a rangefinder device. That view is mistaken. The real purpose of having a rangefinder in any kind of hunting is to allow for correct trajectory compensation when you make your shot, and, in reality, that allowance is actually much more critical for hunters using low-velocity, curved-trajectory, short-range tools than it is for hunters using a flat-shooting, high-velocity centerfire rifle on targets hundreds of yards away.

Think it through. If a bowhunter estimates the range to a forty-yard target to be thirty yards, or if a slug-gun hunter estimates a 125-yard whitetail to be 100 yards, that error will be off enough to miss a kill zone entirely. By contrast, a hunter with a .270 who thinks a pronghorn at 250 yards is only 200 yards away will still take his quarry (if he can shoot). The more like a rainbow your trajectory is, the more you need a rangefinder, regardless of range.

I found the Burris LaserScope to be a very effective tool on the Mossberg 930, and managed to take several herd-management does at distances from 50 to 175 yards.