Brown santa stopped by....3000bdx

[catorres1]

Very cool, glad they are working for you. One thing you will want to do is verify exactly where your sensor is in relation to the reticle, I have only had one RF from any manu that was perfectly centered, though some are closer than others. Knowing that will help you range those smaller targets at long distance where you could conceivably miss it because of how little of the reticle they fill.

4400 plus....man, that's a long poke!

 

[JW74]

Catoress, thanks for the advice on figuring our where the sensor is within the reticle. As I understand the reticle is 3 Mils and the sensors beam divergence is ~ 1.5 Mils? I am hoping to get out later today to find out where exactly the sensor is in my pair.

 

[catorres1]

Catoress, thanks for the advice on figuring our where the sensor is within the reticle. As I understand the reticle is 3 Mils and the sensors beam divergence is ~ 1.5 Mils? I am hoping to get out later today to find out where exactly the sensor is in my pair.

The sensor on the 3k is basically oval shaped, wider than it is taller. The numbers I was given by Sig are 1.5 mils wide by .3 (yep, point 3), tall.

AFAIK, their spec allows for some part of the sensor to stretch outside the reticle, so it's important to know where your sensor starts and ends. That is one thing I wish they would improve, indeed all manus....some of my Leica's are off a bit, and someone I talked to has the same with his Swaro....I understand it is very difficult to get it precisely centered....probably possible but maybe very labor intensive? Not sure. But I'd like to see this improve across the segment.

 

[JW74]

I took my new Kilo3000's with me to the range today. I only have steel out to 700 yards right now. The results were as follows:

I was able to range IPSIC easily offhand at 700. The smaller targets were also picked up when I rested the binos on my shooting bag.
4" gong @ 400 yards
8" gong @ 600 yards
10" gong at 700 yards

Picked up horses offhand @ 995 yards
On the bag I picked up a farmer walking @ 1071 yards
Hit tops of telephone poles @ 1225
Hit a house of in the distance multiple times @ 4974 yards. The pic isn't that clear as I was not focused on the house when I ranged it as I was scanning my way out. I quickly held my cell phone up to the ocular lens to catch a pic of the distance.

 

[catorres1]

Took mine out today as well for some testing. Conditions were very bright sun, extremely hazy, even for being in the city, high humidity.
I hit 4893 on a van, 4875 on some tiny white dot (probably a sign, but it was too small to tell, 4750 on what appeared to be a street sign. These were all repeatable, shot handheld bracing off my knees. It was the hottest, brightest part of the day in Texas, and the haze was remarkable, so I was extremely impressed.

I tried ranging some people, but it's hard to tell if I was hitting them or something near them. The targets were 1499, 1562, and 1502 (a moving motorcycle in this case).

More impressive, at least to me, was when I moved to the other side of the hill I was on and shot across the Colorado river and into the river. I like testing on the water because the choppy water and sun reflections keep the RF from returning off the water, so it's like having skylined targets. Water being so reflective in full sun plays havoc with the beam, and it being so bright with radiant and random reflections, I was not expecting much.

But I was surprised to be able to hit jetskiers going full speed as far as 1388 yards on scan. More impressive was when a swan flew in and I was able to hit it in the water at 905 yards, even when it stuck most of it's body under the water to catch food. Unfortunately, it came closer, so I never got a chance to see how far I could still range of it, but hitting it at 905 and under was not at all difficult, so I think I probably had some good headroom. There was also a few ball sized buoys, not sure how big however...but much smaller than the swan, and I was able to hit them at 860 yards, however, these were in partial shade of trees near the bank, so that helped. The swan was in the middle of the river, full on sun, so I was really impressed.

Overall so far, it takes a bit to get used to not using the middle of the reticle because my sensor is not there. I still want to see that improved, but I am making due and getting the hang of it over time. Other than that, thoroughly impressed. I wonder how far it would go on an evening with no haze and maybe full cloud cover. Need to hire that swan for some more tests, deer are not very cooperative!

 

[JW74]

Catorres, those are great results! Have you ever used the terrapin x? I feel like these Sig binos are ranging right there with what people are seeing with the new generation of terrapin.

 

[catorres1]

Catorres, those are great results! Have you ever used the terrapin x? I feel like these Sig binos are ranging right there with what people are seeing with the new generation of terrapin.

Only looking at an early model before they went on sale, so not really. I have thought about trying to get ahold of a demo to run against my other stuff, but I'm behind finishing with the BDX stuff and still need to do an update on the 2800 since I got a production model...I'd like to check it out though and see. I know shlowlight did some eval on it and I think he was pretty impressed.

I don't care for it's size or shape, and at least upon release, it only had 1 way comms with the Kestrel, though I was told they were working on implementing 2 way coms. Those things combined with it's cost kinda pushed down my list for personal use.

 

[cohunt]

I wish sig had included the full version of ab on their scopes rather than the "lite", the bdx range finders and binos will communicate with the bdx scopes but due to the lite version the scopes will only show holdovers for 800y max.
Sig needs an upper model scope with the full version and better glass in the future.

 

[catorres1]

The scope is not actually limited, it will take whatever ballistic solution you throw at it...that is...if you are using ultralite onboard the RF, it is limited to 800 yards. However, if your RF is paired to a Kestrel, then it will give you a solution to as far as the dots will allow. On ours, that's just under 1k, and because of the digital focal plane, if you turn down the mag on your scope, it stretches farther.

The key is that the trajectory etc....is controlled externally...my understanding is this is why it is legal for hunting in some states where some other systems are no. The scope is not 'smart'...it just lights up the dot that the Rf tells it to, or when using without an RF, what the App tells it to.

As far as ultralite goes, it's works pretty much like Leica's in that it will not consider higher forces like Coriolis etc, so it's a limited distance solution, but connect with a Kestrel, and that limit comes off.

As for BDX moving upstream, I suspect we will see that happen. I think they wanted to get it in at a level where it was accessible to more users. If you look at the price of a Tango 6 scope, for example, then add the 'BDX' cost, well, I certainly could not afford it personally. But I think we'll be seeing something like that in the future, not that I'll be able to afford it!

In terms of full AB, and I would add onboard environmentals and compass, that is what the 2400 ABS is, but without BDX. Been quite a few people asking about that...I wonder if that does not come out sooner or later. Again, that will probably put the RF into nosebleed prices (at least for my nose). But it would be pretty cool, especially if they put the same divergence laser as the 3k BDX has.

Again, I think the decision to go without those things in the current BDX is purely a price play, as they already have that implemented in the ABS....just the cost is prohibitive for most folks.

 

[Kerryt38]

I just got the 3000 BDX binoculars and was wondering what ranging mode I should be using. I've got been trying to range my targets on my range and it's not picking up my targets but the ground on the other side. I've only had them for a few days and am trying to figure them out. I'm very happy with what I've seen so far. I just haven't been able to range small targets inside my 720 yard range.

 

[catorres1]

I just got the 3000 BDX binoculars and was wondering what ranging mode I should be using. I've got been trying to range my targets on my range and it's not picking up my targets but the ground on the other side. I've only had them for a few days and am trying to figure them out. I'm very happy with what I've seen so far. I just haven't been able to range small targets inside my 720 yard range.

Usually 'best' is best, but you can also set it to 'last' IIRC.

But I suspect your problem may be sensor/reticle alignment. First thing to do would be to figure out where your sensor is in relation to your reticle. Find a telephone pole and some electric power lines and use them to figure out precisely where your sensor starts and ends in the vertical and horizontal planes.

This is perhaps my main dislike...that is the sensor is not necessarily in the center of the reticle, in fact, it it may not wholly be within the reticle at all. In fairness, the majority of the RF's I have tested, Sig and otherwise, the sensor is not in the center of the reticle, but most of the time it's contained within it's boundaries. Sigs will sometimes run outside the boundary. My 3k does, but I know where it is by testing, so I'm good.

But to my mind, they (all manu's) need to be more precise here, and in the very least, I think Sig needs to look tightening up the process to make sure it is in the reticle, though to be honest, even if it is all inside the reticle but not in the center, not sure that makes much of a difference....you still need to know precisely where it is when ranging small targets at distance.

 

[Kerryt38]

I have it set on best already. I'll try and figure out where the sensor is. Thanks for the information. Like you said it's not tier one glass but it's actually better than I expected when I ordered them!!!

 

[tulku]

Interesting discussion . How does one go about determining where your LRF Sensor starts and stops ? TIA .

 

[catorres1]

I use a telephone pole or a flag pole. I start ranging on one side into clear space...so get no reading, I keep moving it towards the pole until it reads and I have found the one horizontal boundary. Then do it from the opposite side, and this gets you the other horizontal boundary.

For the vertical, I do basically the same thing but use a skylined horizontal target....powerlines often work well. Range from the top until you find the top, range from the bottom until you find the bottom.