Posted: 3/11/2007 8:09:13 PM EDT
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Looking for recommendations on a compass for Hiking, BOB, etc... Thanks, Troy |
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any two that work will do. I prefere compass's with flip top sighting mirrors (give accurate berings and double as signal mirrors)... instead of the hole schpeil......... go to rei.com they have a whole tutorial/how to pick a compass get a good book (or two) on how to use it, good maps (topo) for your area (rei has a tutorial on this too) and practice personally, i carry a silva ranger with all the bells, and a no frills, no name, old mill. knock off lenstatic that my father in law gave me that works just as well |
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Here's what NOT to get... I was at Target a couple days ago and they had a wire bin full of small Coleman combination compasses and thermometers for maybe $3 each. I've got a couple of them just for the thermometers because they seem fairly accurate, but the compasses are crap. So just for fun I grabbed about 10 of them and laid them flat on top of a sleeping bag box or something. I wish I'd had a camera. There were 2 that kinda pointed in the right direction, but the others were all over the map. It was actually funny to see just how many different norths were indicated. More on point, in my experience if you spend $20 on a name brand model (Silva, Brunton, and similar) they work well. They probably work even better if you spend a bit more, but I don't know. |
| ive had good luck with my Silva's.. they can be had from 10$ and up. simple map reading ones. not mil style. while those work well laso. ive grew up learning on the silva(from scouts) so its second nature to me,. they are also lighter and smaller than the mil style. Sunto is also a good brand. |
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I have the mil one, a silva ranger, and a silva map style (I don't know the name) that I've had for years. All work well. I'm most comfortable with the mil style because of my years of training with it. The feature on the ranger where you can dial in your deviation with a screwdrive is just a method to screw things up in my book. I still go by the LARS rule and never draw anything but grid north on the paper and never use anything but magnetic on the compass. I find less errors that way. Any method will work but consistency helps especially when you're cold, wet, befuddled and tired and just want to get warm and rest. The only one I can say that failed me was a generic no name plastic copy of the military engineer type. Worked for 5 or more years and then lost it's way. |
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I have a USGI Cammenga compass with the Tritium vials and I really love it. It is heavier then most units but I hunt so beingable to use the compass before light or after dark without needing to put the flash light on it is really great. I want to buy a second so I can leave one in my BOB as curently I leave it in the glove box of my truck when I am not out hiking. Here is a pic of what it looks like at nght with the tritium:  www.cammenga.com/cammenga-products.php?category=1 
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+1, Hard to beat a .mil Tritium Lensatic compass. Built to outlast a nuclear cockroach and bright enough to read by when your eyes are adjusted to the dark. I can see mine across a parkinglot... |
Built like a tank. A SpecOps guy I know swears by them, they are built like a tank-that has a quality all it's own. +1 on wearing it around your neck. In our lessons, one of the things drilled into us was to wear it around your neck-you can't lose it as easily around your neck as you would putting it in pouches and pockets all day long. A compass is the most important piece of gear you have as he tells it. A few of the guys here will remember the lesson I'm talking about. |
| Rodent: I am assuming the 'lensatic' feature is the part where you look down thru the lens and then shoot a bearing with the vertical hair-I like this because you can aim for individual trees and navigate dot-to-dot even if your route isn't straight between points. Say I am on one ridge, shoot my bearing and it ends up being third tree from the left on the second tallest grove on the ridge. Once I have identified that particular tree as being on that bearing, all I have to do is get to that tree, shoot the same bearing, aquire a new landmark/tree and head on my way. |
Great big +1 Love my Cammenga (however it should be noted I have a fetish for both Titanium and Tritium) |
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I have to favor the silva ranger.We were issued them for years[except in mortar platoon where we used prismatics ],until the army switched to Suuntos and nexus.both these models had problems with bubbles forming and the phosphorescent paint flaking off.All three models look and function virtually the same,but imo the Silva wins out for quality. If you go with a Silva ,buy a new one ,as some of the older ones have tritium markings which might also start flaking with age. For the casual user all 3 of these models should be perfectly acceptable[easy to sight,set declination ,etc]. |
Damn that is bright! In the store, I've always looked at those in the daylight. I used a t-shirt to cover it to simulate night conditions, but it definitely did not impress like that!!! |
+1 for Silva |
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you cant go wrong with silva, brunton, or suunto... that being said if you want a basic do all compass I choose the bruton 9020G its main feature is you can find them at almost any decent outdoors store, they are $13, withstood my roughest boy scout years and most of all, they are tool free for declination adjustment. www.brunton.com/product.php?id=116 |
I got a Cammenga GI compass I got at Ft. McCoy and I recently got my hands on an old, but still very useable Brunton M2 artillery compass from my local surplus shop for $30; man, what a steal. The M2 is on my BOB Manpurse and the Lensatic one is on my FLC vest; I'd go with a Brunton compass. |
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Piling on...this is my compass of choice. |
the one i just got from my uncle Sam is a tridium Chammenga just like Quarterbore posted. |
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The Compass Store I have the Suunto GPS Plotter Global Compass. 20 |
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I have use a couple fine compasses in the Rocky Mountains. Silva. Ranger 15 model hasthe flip top mirror. Lots of neat features. Liquid filled. Old $13 Boy scout model with clear floor plate did fine. Light weigth around the neck. Easy to whip out for sightings. I am going again on a trek this summer. Will take the small cheaper model for ridge hiking above the timberline. |