I have owned a pair of Leica 10x42 BRF’s for about 15 years. The glass is excellent, but I have never been overly impressed with their range finding capabilities. After using them for 6 years, I even returned them to Leica for re-collimating. While performance improved, ranging deer much beyond 600 yards was still hit or miss.
When the 3200.Com‘s came out early last year I contemplated replacing my 10x42 BRF’s, but backed off after reading several of the threads here on the Hide that documented the connectivity issues. While I had every reason to believe that the glass would be up to Leica’s reknowned performance and very much valued the benefit of being able to carry a single unit in the field (rangefinder and binocular), I just couldn’t bring myself to spring for a product that seemed to be experiencing growing pains.
Still wanting to improve range finding performance and gain the utility of interfacing a rangefinder with a Kestrel 5700 ELITE AB with Link., I Bought a Leica 3500.Com last fall for around a third of the cost of the 3200.Coms even though they were reported to have some of the same connectivity issues.
After spending some time learning how to set the 3500.Com up and experimenting how to use them with the Kestrel 5700 ELITE AB with Link, I spent a week in Texas hunting with the 3500.Coms and came away with the following observations:
Glass and Range finding performance are excellent. I had no issues ranging steel out to 800 yards or deer out to 1200 yards, as long as I could get a steady position when lazing the target. That’s not to say that the 3500.Com’s couldn’t range these size targets much farther , I just didn’t have the occasion to do so. Ranging larger objects such as tree lines and houses were no problem whatsoever. One clear morning, I repeatedly ranged a house at over 3300 yards with consistent results.
While I did experience occasional connectivity issues, I was able to minimize the number of instances by using a few, simple hacks.
First, make sure to have a fresh lithium battery installed. Connectivity is vastly improved if you can place the Kestrel in front of, and at least level with, the 3500.Com; it seemed better if the Kestrel was slightly elevated. Connectivity was still possible with the Kestrel behind the 3500.Com, but connectivity fell off rapidly with distance. That said, I had very few connectivity issues sitting at a bench with the Kestrel mounted on a vane and tripod 3-4 feet laterally. I was able to simultaneously link the Kestrel to the 3500.Com and an IPhone or IPad using Link. Occasionally, I would notice bogus windage solutions displayed in the Rangerfinder’s viewfinder, but that bogus windage solution in the rangefinder’s viewfinder was always accompanied by a correct windage solution on the Kestrel’s display.
For each new session, I would turn the 3500.Com on first, turn on the Kestrel, then go through the pairing sequence noted in the Manual. It is important to note that the Bluetooth Icon is displayed in the 3500.Coms viewfinder before proceeding. I had very few issues getting the 3500.Com to wake up and talk to the Kestrel as long as I woke up the 3500.Com with the function button first, made sure that the Bluetooth Icon was displayed in the 3500.Coms viewfinder, and only then proceed to ranging.
A few words on Customer Service... Hamilton Boykin, Leica Customer Service Rep, was a great resource for interpreting the sometimes less-than-user-friendly manual. While it sometimes took a day, He always responded to my calls and e-mails. Hell, one time he even called me back when he was duck hunting! I include his contact information herein for convenience, but have read that some have recently not been able to get in touch with him. Hopefully, he’s still in the game. +1 (843) 532-2472,
[email protected].
Regards
JHC
