Has anyone ever considered or used a golf range finder, rather than the expensive "Hunting" range finders? Is there much difference. Found these and if they would do the same job for a lower price, I am all for it. Although the 100 yard max. equipment wouldn't be of much use to most of us, the 800 to 1,000 yard range finders would be within the distance that 99.99% of us shoot.
Any discussion would be appreciated.

The site is:

http://www3.shopping.com/xPP-rangefinders-golf_range_finder--price_range_0_150

Welcome to the forum Mike. I've never looked at golf rangefinder so can't comment on those. I have a Simmons laser range finder and use it often even though it's as big as a vidio camera.

I use mine to get an idea of ranges when I set up to shoot coyotes and not so much for ranging game. For big game hunting it seems that usually there's not enough time to use it, though one of my friends has one of the new compact ones that fit in a front shirt pocket and he uses it a lot.

My rangefinder only goes to 800 yards and thats well past my range limitations anymore. I saw my friend shoot a deer at 600 yards last season and using his range finder, a solid prone shooting rest and a 7mm STW scoped with the Burris ranging plex scope it was a one shot affair. He killed a nice elk at about the same range.

If the golf course rangefinders use the same reflected laser principal to give you range then I don't see why they wouldn't work as well as any rangefinder, after all the idea is to find out how far away the game is.

I know that a new compact rangfinder is on my want list along with one of the new electronic preditor calls.

I went back and took a look at what your talking about and what they do. They use the hight of the flag stick compared to an optical reticle to tell you the distance to the flag. I doubt that your going to find many big game animals carrying around one of the golf flags on a pole. Your going to have to look at other options. There are still a few inexpensive optical rangefinders for sale. I've used a couple of these and found them to be of little real use.

Mike,
I can't comment on the golf rangefinders either, and I'm not sure what cost category they're in. I might guess that they are mostly "fair weather" instruments since most golfers are too! Some of the "hunting" rangefinders have various filters for rainy and snowy weather that will still get you a reading where these others may not.

Although I have a Leica 1200 LRF, I haven't yet used it much, but friends have several of the same models. These are now in the $400+ arena. In using this particular brand, I have yet to NOT get a reading within its intended range.

I purchased a Bushnell Yardage Pro Sport 450 it is marketed as a sporting rangefinder but the instructions book is very clear that it was designed as a golf range finder. It was absolutely worthless for anything but bow hunting at very close range in clear weather and an open view. I don’t know how they came up with the supposed ranges that it was good for but it wasn’t even remotely capable of ranging them. I returned it and got the Bushnell Yardage Pro Scout $100.00+ more and the rated ranges are less than the 450. I still think the rated ranges are very optimistic but at least this one is usable to about 300 yards under ideal conditions.

In my experience with a few laser rangefinders, the maximum range is what the rangefinder will range a steel building at, on a clear, low humidity day :)
In other words, the max range is very, very optomistic!
I would suggest you cut the maximum stated range in half to get an idea of what the RF will do in real life, real world hunting conditions.

I looked at the new Leupold Wind River range finding Binos recently. They are a huge improvement over the range finders out there. But I am going to wait a few years and let the price go down a bit.

last month i bought a Nikon 1200 after borrowing one during last years season. I haven't gotten solid readings on anything much over 900 yards. Does real well on deer up to 500 yards. Will screen out the clutter of branches and bushes between me and the target.

So far, with the limited time I have on it, I'm pleased.