Laser rangefinders and ballistic calculation
It doesn't seem like that long ago when a normal setup might include field glass, a mil reticle scope, some sort of calculation device such as a mil-dot master or pocket calculator, and a dope card. The procedure for finding, ranging, and hitting a target was rather long and went something like this: find the target with the field glass, mil it with the scope, calculate the distance with the calculation device, estimate the wind, look up the dope on the card, dial it into the scope, and then fire. Wow, 7 steps with 4 distinct pieces of equipment and without any compensation for a variety of lesser factors such as pressure or temperature. This procedure all varied depending on the situation. On a known distance range with targets, we may have overlooked the cumbersomeness. However, when hunting on unfamiliar land shooting groundhogs, it all came flooding back.
Enter the era of opti-electronics. Optics are not particularly new. We will put their birth at the Galilean telescope of 1609 and they have steadily improved since. Electronics you could date to the transistor of 1947 or the microprocessor of 1972. Either way, they are new and have improved at a pace something faster than steady. As such, the marriage of these two is something less than natural. My field glass, for instance, is a pair of Nikon Venturer 8x32's from about 15 years ago. These were what Nikon would later call their Premier line, a line that has since been discontinued. Nevertheless, they are still really, really good and you will still spend $1k if you want to beat them. Would you like to use a laser rangefinder from 15 years ago? I expect such a beast would probably have been heavy, astronomically priced, pretty short range, and may even have been a military only toy. I don't remember laser rangefinders from 15 years ago. Here we are though with the technology to produce $499 rangefinders that do 2,200 yards, have exceptional accuracy, and weigh practically nothing. We can put this technology in scopes, binoculars, or standalone devices and we can also integrate any calculation and memory functions we want, as well as wirelessly connect any of this to anything else or to a smart phone. This leaves us with some questions: what do we want the total of our kit to look like, and what are we willing to pay?
Ranging built into the field glass
My initial thought on this was that the start of the process is usually field glass and wouldn't it be nice to integrate all the opti-electronics into that. Leica did that about three years ago and has updated it this year with the Geovid HD-B edition 8x42's. These range to 2,200 yards (though only provide ballistic data to 1,200); include temperature, pressure, and angle sensors; and fully integrate your custom ballistic information. Leica also improved the ballistic formulas for this edition and assure me they are good. That range limitation of 1,200 for ballistic data output was confusing to me so I asked for more details. Apparently, this is a German export regulation and basically software limits the device such that if the range measures over 1,200 the unit is restricted to only output the dumb line of sight range. No angle compensated range or ballistic solution will be output to the user at all. Provided you are within that 1,200 yard range, the binos can be set to output your dope in mils or moa, in inches holdover, or in angle compensated range. For archers, the binos automatically switch to archery mode from 10-100yards and give the angle compensated range. The Leica binos are $3k. For those interested, Swarovski also updated their rangefinding binos but they don't range as far and, importantly, refuse to upload your ballistic data, so I feel they are a bit behind and basically choose not to be relevant because, European reasons. Bushnell also offers a notable solution at a street value of about $800 and which goes to ~1,760 yard, a precursor of which I reviewed awhile back. For whatever reason, they still have generic BDC information with "profiles" instead of upload of custom BDC info. Rangefinding binos with ballistic information looks like an elegant solution for the well-heeled. Of course if your field glass integrates rangefinding, you may not be using it 15 years on like I am using mine. The electronic component will be much improved and the optics very little.
Leica 8x42 Geovid HD-B Edition 2200 binos
Ranging built into the scope
Of course, another obvious place to put your rangefinder and ballistic calculator is in, or on, the scope itself. This solution has the downside that it ties all your rangefinding and calculating to one rifle, or at least one scope, but has the added upside that it can adjust your point of aim automatically by turning your turrets for you, moving a digital reticle, or lighting up portions of the reticle. The tracking point system is the most fully integrated of these systems. In fact, it is so integrated that it actually fires the rifle instead of you. Having demo'ed a few versions of this and not actually being convinced I hit any targets, however, I am not sure it works. Given that the tracking point booth went from one of the largest and most ornate at Shot Show to one person sitting with one rifle at the edge of the Shilen booth, I don't think the market is either. Or maybe the market just doesn't like the ~$16k price for the integrated system.
For years Burris has worked on the Eliminator series of scopes. Though designed for the hunting consumer, these have become more sophisticated with each generation, now accept custom ballistic profiles, are capable of reaching 1,200 yards with some cartridges, and now may well appeal to some long range shooters. They seem well-liked and I am rather curious as to their performance in the field. Unlike the tracking point system, the Eliminator is not a totally opti-electronic system where you are viewing your target on a screen, but rather a conventional optical system with light up aiming points and a small LCD in the field of view displaying information. It is also only about $1,500, making it cost less than the long range optics many of us use. I expect for the Eliminator to continue to improve with each generation and would not be surprised to see it begin to appeal to more and more shooters well outside of its initially intended market. In a similar vein to the Eliminator Series, Steiner also has a rather oddball laser rangefinding optic that uses light up points displayed in a conventional optics design. Their ICS (Innovative Combat Sight), at $4k per unit, appears to have been intended for deep-pocketed militaries and might work especially well for those whose basic marksmanship training have mostly been phased out as, presumably, said training interfered with various social program aspects of the institution or resulted in too great an environmental hazard from all that lead. The ICS is a fixed 6x scope that is pre-programmed for various NATO cartridges, ranges out to 800 meters, and otherwise seems rather similar to the Burris Eliminator series except, of course, in price. As Burris and Steiner are one company, it no doubt takes advantage of the years of research and development that have gone into the Eliminator.
Also in the model of integrating opti-electronic information on the rifle scope is the Vampire device from Infrared Research and Development. This device straps to a rifle scope and couples a laser rangefinder out to 1,650 yards with an onboard ballistic computer and tilt, cant, elevation, pressure, temperature, and humidity sensors. It can also link to a Kestrel or to its own remote sensors. They had one of these at range day, but, unfortunately, it was not mounted to a rifle. It also looks very, very expensive as the website appears directed to military customers, has no price list, and I did not find it sold elsewhere. Nevertheless, it was an interesting piece of equipment even if only as a proof of concept to most shooters.
IRD Vampire device
From the other direction, Chris Thomas (who you may remember from Premier Reticles) is now with Revic optics and they have a new scope called the PMR. This acronym does not stand for anything and is therefore industry leading as far as acronyms go, as I suspect all acronyms are clearly all destined to sound cool and stand for nothing. The PMR scope is based on a Light Optics 4.5-28x56 optical platform but has integrated just about everything related to range compensation except the laser rangefinder. It has a ballistic calculator, to which you upload your custom data from your smart phone, as well as integrating an altimeter, pressure sensor, temp sensor, compass, incline sensor, and input for latitude. Basically, what the scope does is tell you how many yards your turret is set to based on this data. You just match that to a rangefinding reading from the dumbest of rangefinders. Your rangefinder says 1,200 yards. Point the scope at the target and turn the dial until the scope says 1,200 yards. The idea seems to be that the rangefinder is the most rapidly changing technology in the equation as far as obsolescence, so bake everything into the scope except that. Prices are not yet set on the PMR scope.
Revic PMR through the reticle
Standalone rangefinder
Despite all of this integration though, I expect by far the most prevalent rangefinding tool is a standalone unit. These can be dumb, wherein they read only range, or they can be varying degrees of smart: from giving an angle compensated range, to having some sensors and generic trajectory profiles, to linking to a kestrel, all the way to integrating onboard atmospheric sensors with a ballistic calculator and offering a fully customizable firing solution.
There are a lot of products and I am not going to pretend that I know them all or even remotely care to. I will just cover a few that stood out to me. We will start with the smartest of the smart, the SIG KILO2400ABS. The interesting thing about this unit is that it incorporates Applied Ballistics software and hardware directly into the unit. In fact, the unit is actually compatible with the mil/LEO only version of the applied ballistics software application that is used with the shiny crazy expensive stuff Uncle Sam has. Presumably, the civilian app that you will get with the same unit will be a little more limited. Basically, the LRF part of the KILO2400ABS appears to be essentially a KILO2200 but it has onboard atmospheric sensors and a plug-in wind sensor which all feed into an onboard ballistic solver. In their opinion, those differences add up to a price change from $500 to $1,800, which I read as Applied Ballistics is getting at least $1,100 for their software and sensor chip on what is at most a $700 product without it. It seems to me there may be some military acquisitions thinking at play here which may need some adjustment to the world where the people doing the buying are also doing the paying. It may not seem right or just, but the competitive marketplace generally puts a fairly low value on knowledge or software type components of a product and atmospheric sensing hardware is pretty common and inexpensive. As I was learning about the KILO2400ABS after hearing about the KILO2200, I was expecting a $100 price difference. I actually laughed out loud when he gave me the price. I believe he also expected this as he had started by showing me the KILO2200 unit and did not actually seem to want to talk about the flagship KILO2400ABS. This indicated to me that he expected the 2200 to have the most market interest and was a little embarrassed about the other. The way I figure it, you take a $499 laser rangefinder with an incline sensor and then add a $150 kestrel 2500 for the additional atmospheric measurements, a $30 applied ballistics smart phone app for the software, a $10 TI calculator for the computing, and you subtract about $90 for the cost savings of a combined electronic device instead of four discrete ones and that lands you at about $599, not $1,800. My off the cuff estimation at the beginning therefore tracked pretty close to what should be expected, even though I had not actually looked up all the products needed to get the functionality at that time. Perhaps I am unfair and you should add some more cost for the flagship tax you generally pay in products to buy the single best in a company's line, but that added cost is not $1,200. I expect all this annoyance comes down to the same company, Applied Ballistics, offering similar products in the civilian and military markets and needing to maintain the military price structure even at the cost of competitiveness in the civilian market. Most companies, once they are secure in the military market, simply free themselves of this necessity by eliminating all civilian market presence (think Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed Martin). Those that do not (think Boeing) may have to answer for why they are trying to charge $4 billion to the government for what is essentially $714 million worth of aircraft on the civilian market. Digressions aside, I think the Sig KILO2400ABS is probably the most interesting standalone rangefinder, but that it is also a terrible value: though it's simpler sibling the KILO2200 looks like a very good rangefinder for the cost. I also expect that Applied Ballistics may have some decision making to do in the near future as many companies are very close to offering there own proprietary solutions with similar capabilities to the KILO2400ABS and those solutions will likely land in the $600-$800 range. I'm not going to pretend those solutions will have ballistic data as good as the stuff applied ballistics puts out. Brian is the clear market leader in this segment with about every trophy I can think of to prove it. Nevertheless, I expect the competing products to be good enough and much cheaper.
Sig KILO2200 and KILO2400ABS units
One step further down the list of integration is the Leica CRF 2000-B. This is not the full custom ballistic data of the Geovid HD-B edition 8x42's binos (though it should be), but it does have the integrated sensor suite as well as a slightly less robust ballistic calculator that instead relies on a generic set of "representative" ballistic profiles of which you chose the closest to what you have. I am not really sure, in practice, how far this will get you compared to, say, having a fully custom ballistic solution in the form of a printed dope card with that card being a little off by assuming a temperature and pressure that are not representative of the day's conditions. I suspect you are probably better off with the custom data that is a little off of the day's conditions. I have little use for standard "representative" ballistic curves. Of course, you could just use the $800 CRF 2000-B as an angle compensated rangefinder (and Leica has a good reputation for these) with a set of instruments and one of the wide variety of smart phone apps available to get to a real custom firing solution. It will only give you the angle compensated range out to $1,200 but I do expect that it will range as well, or better, than anything else out to that range. Leica has that reputation.
Summary and current thoughts on the state of rangefinding and firing solutions
For the long range shooter, it is overwhelmingly likely that you are either currently or will soon be using laser rangefinding as your primary distance measurement method. They go a long way now, are fast, affordable (at least by long range shooting standards), and very accurate. Similarly, it is also quite likely that your firing solution for that first shot is now a fully custom one that integrates range, temperature, pressure, angle of incline, and maybe even coriolis. Sadly, all this probably is not integrated into a single, cost conscious, device, or even two devices, but rather is probably the output of a smart phone app coupled with inputs from an angle compensated rangefinder, Kestrel, and the smart phone itself. It is not ideal, but it is much cheaper to do it that way. I still tend to lean, in my boundless avarice, towards full sensor and application integration with field glass and the Leica binos look an excellent unit for the well-heeled, but I do find some of the other options compelling. Certainly, an angle compensating rangefinder with temperature and pressure sensor(s) and a smart phone app together are a cost conscious solution that is somewhat future proofed in that the most rapidly advancing component, the rangefinder, is not tied to the slowest in the field glass or rifle scope. I cannot say that I am currently fully satisfied with any of the offerings, but I am far closer to being satisfied than before and I am becoming very enamored with a laser rangefinder as the primary ranging method. It is only this year that it seems to have become common for rangefinders to be offered that will stretch to a thousand yards and even a little further on targets that are not perfectly reflected, and that is a huge factor in and of itself.
Update on Sig KILO2400ABS
I have learned some more about the pricing on this unit from a variety of sources. In light of Brian's price expectation in his book, I do not think that the $1,200 price increase for the KILO2400ABS over the KILO2200 is mostly due to the AB license fee. I have also learned that the 2400 has a different laser diode and collimating lens that the 2200 in addition to the bluetooth module, environmental sensors, calculator, software, and extras including an LRI the tripod adapter. There is also some additional QC performed. QC as well as design, assembly, programming, calibration, and range testing is all done by hand at the Portland facility. My immediate thought on this was that maybe I would like a Kilo2200ABS for ~$700-800 instead of a Kilo2400ABS for ~$1,500-$1,800. I really would like a laser rangefinder that completely eliminated the separate Kestrel and smartphone app from the equation but I am less keen on the high cost for a very little additional range and some extras. Of course, it may be more than a little extra range in practice as the range ratings on rangefinders are notoriously nebulous. Leica's for instance, are well known for ranging further on average relative to their claimed range than most brands. In any case, the KILO2400 ABS is the cheapest and best featured full ballistic suite laser rangefinder on the market even if I still don't like the price.
