Question for those who know - I am thinking that a range finder would be a handy thing for shooting and hunting. My questions is what do you think about the digital range finders (Bushnell for instance) vs. a set of military surplus Binos with a range finder.

Also where would you reccomend I  find a set of military binos with a range finder?

As for the military binos,
how are you with mil-dot.

The mil scale in the current USGI binos is actually pretty fast to use once you get the formula down. You'll need to know the size of the object you're looking at, though, since the formula works on the relationship between an object's distance from the observer and its apparent size to the observer.

The formula is WORM - Width (of target in meters) Over Range (in meters) = Mils (on the bino scale.) So, R = W/M.

The laser rangefinders are a LOT faster and quite a bit more accurate, but the affordable ones are only good to 1000m. Most of us will never need to go that far, let alone any farther, but you never know when you'll need to range something 2-3km away.