Hi guys,
The big brown truck and the nice man that brings goodies to the house stopped yesterday with a package from Cabela’s.
I was deprived from sleep for the five days that it took between order and delivery, but finally the Nikon Monarch ATB 8×40 binoculars are here, and I will sleep soundly tonight.

Although I have quite a few binoculars in my safe, I don’t have nearly as many of them as I do flashlights (most of you know me as the crazy guy that owns all those flashlights); but fear not, I am getting there.
So it occurred to me that I should make a post about binoculars for those that are bored of hearing about my lights.
I had owned quite a good amount of binoculars since I bought my first as a 15 year-old with an itch about optics. I even owned an expensive Zeiss when I was single and didn’t had a family to take care of.
And I am here to tell you that the quality, brightness, sharpness, and durability of the new binoculars now on the market; it is better than ever.
Not long ago, if we wanted all these features in a good binocular the choice was between spending a thousand in a Zeiss, Swarosvki, Leica or Minox or looking for good Porro prisms in the Nikon or Pentax lines.
But since a few of years ago, the Japanese starting coating the roof prisms of their binoculars with Phase Coating, and the sharpness and definition of their roof prism binos had increased to the point to rival the European imports from the big four, and all at very modest cost.

Take, for example, the Nikon Monarch ATB (All terrain binocular) 8×42 I just received, or my Pentax DCF WP 8×42 that I bought last year.

All lenses are fully multicoated (that means all surfaces, not only the glass to air surfaces) prisms are phased-corrected and have mirror-coated lower prisms (not cheap aluminum). They have blackened tubes to avoid reflections and are waterproof and fog proof; they have a nice outer coating of rubber (silent) and very good ergonomics. I particularly like the twist eye cups for eye-glass wearers and the ample eye relief: no problem using it with my glasses and instant acquisition of the picture even with glasses on.

All that can be said for the Nikon Monarch can be said also of my Pentax DCF WP 8×42, except for the weight: the Nikon is lighter at 22 ounces but I don’t know how much my Pentax weighs until I get a new battery for my fish scale.

I like the approach of securing the objective caps to the body of the binocular that the Nikon uses as well. I had to get creative with the Pentax and cook up something home-made to hold the caps to the binocular body.
I did the usual checking for good prisms by holding the binos a few inches away and looking at the light spot in the ocular lens, nice and round without any hint of flattening, just like I was expecting. I checked collimation by holding it a few inches away and pointing them at the yellow line in the road, straight and sharp with not sign of being distorted.
To test the sharpness and resolution most people look from the inside to the outside thru an open window, and most binoculars will perform well under those conditions. I look for a dark corner in the room and try to read some labels or a newspaper print set for the occasion; that is what separates the mediocre from the good or great binoculars.

As the Nikon and the Pentax are so the same in quality I tried to spot any optical differences between them by perching one on top of the other and alternatively looking thru them. After several minutes of this I have to admit that they are both the same optical quality as far as my eyes can tell, without resorting to an optical laboratory.
I have looked thru many Swarovski and Zeiss lenses, (I hunt the stores) superb optical quality in those glasses. I can tell you for sure than the new Nikon and Pentax are almost the equal of those expensive brands; that I only paid just over $300 with shipping for such a superb glass as the Nikon still amazes me.

Kind regards,
Watchmaker

www.blackbearflashlights.com
admin@blackbearflashlights.com

COMPASS DIP

This will be of interest only to the people that travel to locations around the world, and are in need of using a compass to get their bearings.
I first encountered compass dip, many years ago, in a trip to Bariloche, Argentina. I was there to fly-fish for trout in the Nahuel Huapi Lake and climb the Cerros Tronador, Catedral and Lopez.
I took my regular base plate compass, which I had used extensively in North America, and I found there that the needle was sticking to the card providing false readings.

I was baffled until my guide explained that most climbers from the states had compasses that stick and that I needed a compass with the needle balanced for the area. In my compass, the pull from the forces of the magnetic north made the south end of the needle dip and stick to the card.

I found later that when compasses are made, they are balanced for the zone that they are going to be sold, and that the manufacturers have indentified 5 zones of dip.

MAP OF THE FIVE ZONES

Compasses sold in North America are adjusted for the zone one, and where I was in Argentina was considered zone four. Compasses sold over there by the sporting good stores where adjusted for that zone.
If you have opportunity to travel to Australia, you will be in zone five and the dip of the needle will be even more pronounced.

ENTER THE GLOBAL NEEDLE

Suunto has come out with a couple of traveler’s compasses with a global needle. Brunton has at least one in their line and maybe other manufacturers are doing the same.

This is a needle that is optimized to be use in all places (that is why they are called Global compasses). Brunton is making the 8096 AR (a racing compass) with the global needle, and it makes sense as the runners don’t have to stop and level the compass perfectly to take readings as the global needle can work with even a 20 degree tilt.

Climbers can benefit from a global needle as they have more latitude to take a reading from a peak that is too close, as sometimes bearings have to be taken using the imaginary center line of a mountain instead of a peak when using the regular compasses, as the tilt upward will ground the regular needle. With the global needle the chances that you can still use the peak for your target are increased if the angle is less than 20 degrees.

So we should welcome the development of the Global needle and hope that more choices will be made available in the different models of compasses.
All the best
Watchmaker

www.blackbearflashlights.com
admin@blackbearflashlights.com

KNIVES FOR HUNTING

Many of us hunters of long have a love affair with the tool of a successful hunt; the knife.
In our minds, we have this idea of the perfect knife that will fit our hand like a glove; that will perform surgery like a scalpel; that will not need to be sharpened ever, and will remove a cape as well as field dress and skin anything from a deer to a moose.

In our search for the perfect blade, we accumulate many of them that are probably as good as the best knife ever made, but in our search for Nirvana we keep adding new blades and hoping to do enough hunting to test all of them on game.

On the other hand, some hunters are not interested at all in the tool. My friend Frank that has probably field dressed at least fifty deer with the same Buck hunter knife in the last 20 years removes it from the pack once every year in hunting season to field dress a deer or two, and the blade goes back into the same pack to wait for next year’s job.
Perhaps his father being a butcher has something to do with it. He was taught how to field dress a deer early in life, and to him it is just a necessary job that has to be performed. To others like me it is a culmination of all our efforts and should be done as elegantly and as clean and bloodless as possible and with the most effective of tools.

I have found in my long search for the perfect blade that many of today’s knives in the market qualify as superb blades for the job. A good knife blade of 3 ½ to 4 inches will be plenty for most chores. Preferences in my case are for the drop-point blades, but I have had good service from clip points or other shapes.

Some of us like a fancy wood or antler handle or perhaps some engraving on the blade. Those I label dress knives and are a great way to stir a conversation between fellow hunters. I am one with that type of taste and will always appear at camp with a fancy blade. The truth is that I perform all of my field dressings with a plain one that I keep hidden in my pack.

Here is one of my fancy blades, the Browning model 122 one of one thousand, and the one that does the actual field dressing, a Buck 192 Vanguard.

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admin@blackbearflashlights.com

COMPASSES

Hi guys,
The impulse to write this post came with the recent discovery that we live in the midst of a generation so dependent on gadgets (and adept at using them) that they lose, or never discover, the simpler way of doing things.

I conducted an “antler hunt” in the April spring woods with a group of Boy Scouts of my son’s troop. The plan was to scout the woods during the day and using flashlights at night, employing compasses to coordinate the excursion.
The group consisted of several boys aged 13 to 16 years, bringing with them a large assortment of electronic equipment. I have to say that they were very excellent at using them, especially the iPods, cell phones, two-way radios, and GPS’s, but they failed miserably in their understanding of the low -tech compass.

THIS PICTURE SHOWS A VARIETY OF COMPASSES AND TWO GPS’S, THE GARMIN XL12 LT
AND THE GARMIN E-TREX SUMMIT, AS WELL AS A SUREFIRE AVIATOR FLASHLIGHT.

I have nothing against GPS’s; as a matter of fact, I use them myself and have a couple that I use often to complement the compass I use.

After all, the GPS can give you your position (and you can plot this in a map) in any weather and even at night, making it easy to walk cross-country in the woods. However, I am not one of those guys glued to the GPS. After I get my position and course to follow, I put the gadget away and use the compass to get the direction for my trek.

This is going to be sort of a very short (space limitation) refresher course on how to use the basic base plate compass. Of all the types available, I am going to stick to the Silva system for now, as it is the easiest to understand. They come in several flavors; from the inexpensive less- than-$10, to the more elaborate of $50 or so, but they all do the basic job of guiding you well.

That I stick to the Silva system doesn’t mean that you have to buy a Silva Compass. The market is full of others brands that use the same base plate system such as Brunton, Suunto, Kasper & Ritcher, etc.

The mechanics of taking bearings and following directions are very easy. I will try to make them short and understandable, as the scope of this article is only to produce the basics, and should not be considered a treatise in navigation.

The compass’ needle points to the Magnetic North, not the geographic North, but we only have to compensate for it when we use the compass together with a map.

For navigation in the woods without a map, this is what you have to do. With the compass in front of you, point the direction-of-travel arrow in the direction you want to go, then rotate the capsule until the magnetic arrow North part (usually red) lies pointing to the letter N (for North) in the capsule. Read the bearing (in degrees) at the junction of the line-of-travel arrow and the capsule. In this case, it is showing 270 degrees, which means that the direction you want to travel in is 270 degrees, or exactly West.

Now, move your feet and rotate your body (not the compass) until the magnetic needle points to the N. Pick a landmark lying in your direction (West) and walk to it without looking at the compass. When you reach that landmark, reorient your body again, pick another landmark (a tall tree?) and keep walking until you get to your destination.

When you want to return, don’t change anything on the compass! Move your body, putting the South part of the needle over the “N,” or alternatively, just invert the base plate with the direction-of-travel arrow pointing towards you. Or, if you want to change the setting, just put East as your returning direction in the line-of-travel; that will be 90 degrees in your numbered capsule.

And to make this explanation as simple as possible, I will explain compass and map together in the next posting.
Best wishes
Watchmaker

www.blackbearflashlights.com
admin@blackbearflashlights.com

Not long ago to get magnum illumination out of a flashlight, I had to drop down the tube, six of the big D batteries on a Maglite 6 D size.
That the light weights three pounds one ounce and measures 19 ½ inches was just incidental to the use if I wanted to get a really good, powerful beam.

Later Surefire come up with small lights that could take two and three or four small but powerful 123’s camera batteries, some of those lights, come up and surpass the 181 lumens of the big Maglite 6 D.
I am thinking now of the specialty tactical light than Surefire have as the M-4 that uses four of the 123 batteries for 225 lumens for one hour run time. The M-4 was made famous by been used in the CSI Las Vegas series.
Incidentally the M-4 is not precisely inexpensive, costing $330 USD from Surefire or their dealers.

The only problem is that the little 3 volts batteries are quite expensive, and using four of them for one hour run time can cost you $8.00 for that hour.
And that is if you buy them at discount over the Internet, when purchased in the camera stores (such as Wal Mart) the little 3 volts batteries cost as much as $4 each.

So a light of the size of the Surefire M-4 (9 inches long) was highly desired if it could be made to run on rechargeable batteries, to avoid the big battery expense of the M-4.

Enter the Bear Cub, a nine inches light, with a 13 oz. weight that is rechargeable and uses Lithium Ion batteries.
This little light makes 220 lumens for 90 minutes of run time, and then recharges its two batteries with a fast charger that is included, in three and a half hours.
The Lithium Ion batteries can be recharged up to 1,000 times and when they eventually get depleted can be replaced with $30.

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admin@blackbearflashlights.com