What would you buy?

Nikon Monarchs. I already bought my pair last year and then they dropped the price. Great binoc's for the money. One of these day's i'll upgrade to some Leica's or Swaro's. But i no gotty the funds for those yet.

I got a pair of Steiners that were about that price and I like them a lot better than the cheap Bushnell's I had. Auto focus, rugged rubber coating, gather light pretty well. Works for me.

TB

Minox that they have on clearance at cameraland..

for what?
you want a compact and lightweight set for walking / stalking?
from a blind for glassing?

I have a set of Nikon Monarch 8.5x56 for glassing and hog hunting at night, they are VERY bright and clear

But not what I would want to use out stalk hunting

Blind and riding around.

vortex diamondbacks

Vortex Diamondback
x2
or Zen Ray Summit

+1... close to euro quality.

Vortex

Cool, guess I need to check out the Vortex!

Go to academy and check out the Redfields. They are way under priced for their quality IMO. Have some now and love them.

Bought some Leupold Acadias for around $175 last spring and have served me very well so far, and they're camo! LOL No complaints at all.

X2 Academy has several different Leuoplds for 250 and less.

I am personal friends with the academy hunting/fishing manager here and asked him what he thought about binocular selection. He said for the money, you cant beat the redfields. They were much cheaper than the Leupolds and looked like better glass to me. Redfield is actually owned by Leupold or Bushnell I believe...

I agree with Jayrod. I love my Nikon Monarch's. The quality is more than enough for me and for the price they can't be beat!!!

Leupold is decent, if you can find a good deal, Steiners are excellent glass. I used to spend about 6 hours a day staring through 10X30s, as well as 20X80's when i was deployed watching my sectors, and the 10X30s have some pretty insane clarity even in low light. There were times i picked stuff up with the glass some of my guys were having trouble seeing with thermal imagers (they knew it was there, just not clearly what it was) even though the thermal had 30X zoom.

I have been looking at the Bushnell Excursions and the Minox BV. The Bushnells are under $200 while the Minox are $300. When dealing with inexpensive binoculars, $100 can real make a difference. I would like to spend a little more as $500 binos are not much different than $1000 binos. But there is a big difference between $250 and $500 binos. This site has a lot of information on Binos in different price ranges: Best For Hunting www.BestForHunting.com

My brand new in the box Nikon Monarch ATBs that I will sell you for $250

The nikons are a decent pair for the money..... I sat mine on the dash of the truck in CO as the bang around pair..... Only though about chunking them in the lake a cpl times.

Send them back to Nikon, they have a 25 yr warranty. Did mine and they sent me a brand new pair. I told them that I used mine daily like you.

FYI-Nikon changed the Monarch ATB's this year. You can find some real deals on the closeouts of the current models, but they are going very quickly. Here is an example: http://cgi.ebay.com/Nikon-7295-Monarch-A...21?pt=Binocular

They have the 10x42's for $230 including shipping.

Good luck!

Bob

That was my budget too, but I settled on Leupold Yosemite 8x30mm for $100 and I'm very glad I did. They have great low light capability and weigh very little.

Leupold Acadia. They are a little more than that but are great binos.

I have the same pair and they are great. Catch them on sale and you won't regret getting them.