This is like the roll royce in compass land. It is great to use, after reading the brochure though. After that nothing can go wrong. It is strong, well protected en still easy to use.

Customer Service

dont know

Similar Products Used:

none

I have used this compass for rogaining in the Australian bush. Temperatures have ranged from around 5 to 20 degrees Celcius and I haven't seen any sign of a bubble developing in the vial. I bought this compass specifically for its robust design, accuracy and data cards although I have yet to use them in the field. In practice, I have found the compass very easy to use and have found the circle in circle concept easy to work with, particularly at night when I use a small light to illuminate the compass. It's big and bulky, but it's also very robust. The rubber casing gives it the ability to take a lot of knocks without damaging the compass itself. This is important when you are scrambling through heavy forest and climbing over rocks. I attach the lanyard to the sternum strap on my backpack and don't worry about all day. The accuracy of the compass is probably far better than my own navigation skills, but I am getting better. I can now navigate on a bearing and pace counting through heavy forest to find a checkpoint over a distance of six hundred metres without any problems. I would recommend this compass to anyone doing any navigation work in heavy or rough conditions.

Customer Service

So far I haven't had to call for help

I had to find some way to spend my REI co-op refund credits so thought I'd get another compass. I like the info card included. The unit is too bulky & heavy though. They should have made the forward heading numbers large & green and the back bearing numbers smaller & black. Duh ! This shows dumb design or its likely someone screwed up in quality control before it went to manufacturing. For this kind of money you'd think theyd get it right. - - Glad I didn't fork out cash for it.

Customer Service

Havent called them.

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Silva Ranger - - - still my go to compass. Cheaper, lighter - even though it may not look as 'cool'. - -

I bought this because I lost my regular compass and thought I'd try out a top of the line model. I like this compass because it is designed to keep you from making common navagation mistakes and has a lot of neat features like a 1 degree scale. It is a little difficult for older eyes to read that scale inspite of the magnifier. The documentation is also first class. However, it should be noted that I am a compass nut. For general use, it is a bit on the over kill side and heavy. When I backpack, I use a Silva Ranger (the one I lost and then found a day after buying this one). But for day hikes and teaching scout skills, this is a fun unit to use.

Customer Service

Never had to use them.

Similar Products Used:

Silva Ranger

This is a very good compass particularly if you want to make accurate position triangulations. I also like the reference card stuff. On the down side I too have problems with a bubble. If it didn't have this problem I'd give it 5 stars. For a top of the line compass you would think they could eliminate this problem. I have also used it for an orienteering meet but it is slow to use for that purpose.

With all the great features, it amazes me that the direction ring is so poorly thought out. My purchase was returned because the forward bearing numbers were very difficult to read and located on the inside circle of directional numbers. The back bearing numbers were larger and where one would think the forward bearing numbers should have been. I thought this might have been a manufacturing flaw (I still think it might be) but I looked at other units and all were the same. If I had kept this compass I would have permanently removed the rubber case, which makes it difficult to lift the "under mirror" cover, and I would have taken the reference tools off the lanyard and kept them in a shirt pocket. All in all, the compass is nice in theory but is lacking in useability. I'll probably stick with the Silva Ranger line of compasses. I've used my Ranger for more than 20 years without a complaint.

Customer Service

I have no experience with Bruinton's customer service but I thought I was going to have to wrestle the people at Mapco to see if they were going to take this back or not.

Similar Products Used:

Silva Ranger, et al.

This top of the line compass has all the bells and whistles. I paid only $45 bucks at the L.L. Bean outlet in Maine. Can be very complicated to use or easy depending on your level of knowledge. The only thing about it is that when you leave it hanging around your neck on the outside of your jacket during the winter, the vial will develop a bubble. This bubble is from the liquid contracting in the vial when it's cold and will dissappear once you warm it up. The tech support tells you to keep it under a lamp or sunlight to rid of the bubble. I like to keep it in my inside pocket and let my body heat get rid of the bubble. I have a feeling that developing the bubble for vial compasses are quite normal as the liquid will contract at a faster rate than the vial itself, hense the bubble. Anyone else can add their experiences to this?

Customer Service

Called and got someone on the phone about the bubble in the vial thing on the first try. The rep was semi-competent.

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My first professional magnetic compass.

A very well built and accurate compass. Much better bang for your buck than one of those digital compasses built in to a hand held GPS. The ease of use of the circle-over-circle system is excellent and results in much better overall accuracy compared to conventional compasses. Another thing that amazed me is that for a compass with this many features...clinometer, etc., it is very easy to learn to use.

Customer Service

The only problem I had with it is that it came to me with a bubble in the vial. Even though it doesn't effect performance, I called customer service and they asked me first to place the compass in dir

A great compass for precision navigation. It's accurate to 1/2 degree hand-held, with increments of one degree. The circle-on-circle design makes it a lot easier to align the needle than with older models. The baseplate has some useful UTM grids & it comes with a strong neck lanyard, though I like to carry mine in a separate pouch.

Similar Products Used:

Silva Model 15 Ranger
Nexus 25 Pro

not to much to add, just wanted to mention brunton's customer service...i had a bubble in my vial and they replaced the vial no questions asked...trouble is, it came back with cracks in the mirror....i called them up and they said they would send UPS around to pick it up and they would send me a brand new compass...i haven't gotten it yet (too soon) but i'm pleased with the hassle-free service...

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