(Photo courtesy of Leupold)
August 21, 2024
By Adam Heggenstaller
Many big-game hunters, particularly those who frequent open country with a rifle or any type of country with a bow, consider both a binocular and a laser rangefinder to be essential equipment. An animal must first be found, and then the distance to it accurately determined, before a shot can be taken. Optics do a much better job of revealing game and measuring range than the naked eye.
Since both will be on the trip and used almost simultaneously at times during the hunt, it makes sense to combine a bino and a rangefinder into one unit. A rangefinding binocular streamlines gear and eliminates fumbling from one optic to the next in those tense moments of preparing for a shot. Hunters can go from finding an animal or confirming it’s “the one” to getting a range in a second or two, all while maintaining a clear view of the target.
Leupold understood those advantages even as it watched competing brands introduce rangefinding binos. For years hunters asked the company to develop its own model, but Leupold waited to come out with one until it could ensure rangefinding capability, optical performance and ruggedness were all optimized in a unit that would be ergonomic and user-friendly. Last year Leupold reached that goal, and the resultant BX-4 Range HD is an example of an object that’s greater than the sum of its parts.
Those parts tend to make rangefinding binos a bit bulkier than standard binos, as there needs to be enough space inside the optic to accommodate the electronic components of the rangefinder, but Leupold did a great job in controlling the size of the 10x42 mm BX-4 Range HD. While the barrels are thicker than those of the BX-4 Pro Guide HD and a robust single hinge joins them instead of an open-bridge design with two hinges, the magnesium-alloy-framed BX-4 Range HD isn’t a drastic departure from traditional form. Its length and width are very close to those of the 10x42 mm BX-4 Pro Guide HD. The biggest tradeoff is weight; the Range HD weighs 39 ounces, which is 14 ounces more than the Pro Guide HD.
Advertisement
Leupold didn’t sacrifice optical quality when adding the rangefinding feature to its BX-4 bino. The Range HD utilizes the company’s Elite Optical System, emphasizing light transmission, clarity, resolution and glare reduction just as in the Pro Guide HD and VX-3HD riflescopes. Leupold developed the system to focus on how optical components work together in order to present the best view. As such, the glass, arrangement of the lenses and coatings are all scrutinized so the bino makes available light most useful to the eyes. On top of that, Leupold’s Guard-ion lens coating on exterior glass surfaces repels dirt and water.
Key to the rangefinding performance of the Range HD is Leupold’s proven Digitally eNhanced Accuracy (DNA) laser processor, or engine, which reads signals from the laser and turns them into distance readings. Ranging distance, accuracy and speed are the three factors by which laser engines are judged, and the DNA engine excels at all of them in the situations most of us find ourselves while hunting.
The Range HD will measure the distance to a deer out to 1,100 yards, a tree to 1,600 yards and a highly reflective object to 2,600 yards. Accuracy is within 1 yard when ranging to 1,000 yards and within 0.2 percent of any distance beyond that (4 yards when the range is 2,000 yards, for example). Bowhunters will be glad to know the minimum ranging distance is 12 yards.
Advertisement
While many environmental variables influence the speed at which a rangefinder provides distance readings, the Range HD gave nearly instantaneous numbers in the hunting conditions I tested it, from dawn in the Pennsylvania woods to midday on the Montana prairie. The red OLED display was easy to see in a variety of lighting, and hunters can set its intensity for three levels.
(Photo courtesy of Leupold) Leupold includes its True Ballistic Range/Wind (TBR/W) technology in the Range HD. The function offers 25 ballistic groups that account for a wide range of bullet trajectories, and a hunter can select the one that corresponds to his load. This helps the onboard ballistic calculator determine the most accurate equivalent horizontal range when shooting uphill or downhill, as factoring in trajectory is more precise than relying solely on basic trigonometry to arrive at a ballistic solution. The TBR/W mode also provides holds for a full-value, 10 mph wind based on the selected ballistic group, so a hunter can get all the data he needs to make a shot while glassing an animal through the Range HD. Bow mode, which provides the equivalent horizontal range for arrows, and Line of Sight mode, which displays the straight-line distance to an object without accounting for angle or ballistics, are other options.
Hunters can choose to display TBR/W ballistic solutions in minutes of angle, milliradians, inches or centimeters (if the Range HD is set to measure distance in meters). All options are included in a menu that’s navigated by pressing the two buttons located on the Range HD’s bridge. The functions of these buttons can be switched, too; users can set the power/range button on the right and the mode button on the left, or vice-versa. Power is provided by a CR2 lithium battery, which Leupold reports is good for 3,000 rangefinder actuations.
The technology Leupold built into the Range HD certainly offers practical benefits in the field, but there are two other advantages inherent to its form. First, 10X magnification makes ranging distant targets more precise than the typical 6X or 7X offered by most standalone rangefinders simply because the additional magnification makes it easier to determine when the reticle is on the animal and not another object in the field of view. Second, the Range HD is optimal for two-hand operation, which makes for a steadier hold and better reading. In addition, the Range HD is equipped with a threaded port centered on the front of the bridge that accepts an adaptor for mounting it to a tripod to gain more stability.
Combining high-definition optics with a powerful rangefinder and ballistic calculator, the BX-4 Range HD improves efficiency in the field by decreasing the time between spotting an animal and collecting the information a hunter must have to make the shot. Seconds count, as big-game species typically don’t stand in the same spot or position for very long. With this laser-rangefinding bino, mere seconds are all a hunter needs.
SPECIFICATIONS: LEUPOLD BX-4 RANGE HD
This article was featured in the August 2024 issue of Game & Fish magazine. Click to subscribe .
