Optical rangefinder source?

line- Don't really know squat about optical range finders other than the cheesy ones they use for golf and archery. There is a ton of info. on the net but for convinience purposes and a couple hundred bucks I have been able to use a LRF out to 500 yd. depending on target size. Since 500 yds. is plenty of distance for my equipment I never thought about it. We'd shoot a bit, go fo a walk and laser back to the truck. Since these are pastures most have correctly spaced fence posts and a small marker on certain ones makes for excellent yardage markers. If you know that a certain post is xxx yards and the next one is xxx yards the corrections are pretty easy.
Besides after days of staring thru rifle scopes at prairie dogs I pretty much just know what they should look like at different distances and automatically hold there.
 
I shoot a lot of different towns, and quite often there aren't any fenceposts or set-distance objects for quite some distance.

I once tried surveyor ribbon on re-bar as range markers, but due to my eyesight, it didn't work well for me. My right eye is considerably stronger than my left, and while supposedly both are corrected to 20/15, there is still a difference, and it messes with my depth perception. For distance vision, I use only my right eye, which means no stereoscopic vision. Much past 400 yards I have difficulty telling which range marker the dog is between. I honestly can't tell if the dogs between the 400 & 500 yard marker, or the 500 & 600 yard marker. Since switching to monovision contacts, the problem is even more pronounced.

I believe even if I hunted around fences with evenly spaced posts, I'd still have the same problem. For me, at least, once the distance is long enough that trajectory enters the equation, a ranging device of some type is a must.

Mike
 
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