Budget Rangefinder?

[Hoss50]

Put this in the wrong forum. My younger son is Gung ho on hunting and wants to get himself a laser rangefinder for his gear. He is running on a budget of about $200-250 roughly. 

What is out there and what has good performance and warranty? I have a Sig 2200 and like it alot, but I have heard Sigs warranty sucks. Mine is starting to act up and I am sure Sig will tell me I am SOL because I am outside the 5yr warranty. 

I am seeing the Vortex 1800 on sale at Sportsman's for $260 and a Leupold 1400 for $199. Thoughts or suggestions? 

[Curtis Reed]

I had the Vortex 1800 and hated it. Wasn’t getting good results with it. Had a hard time getting consistent readings over 600 yds. Sold it and bought a Leica 2400 r and love that thing. Night and day better than the Vortex. Buy once, cry once.

Don’t buy the Ranger 1800 IMO.  I’ve ready stories where it’s common for Leupold’s displays to fail after a while.

[Sky Island junkie]

I replaced an Sig a couple years ago with a Vortex Razor 4000. Not a Vortex guy for the most part, Swaro everything else, but did it for the warranty. I’ve been happy with it so far. It has ranged to a little over 3000 yards for me and pretty dependable at over 2000 yards. That said the Leica 2400r is on sale at Scheels for 399.00. I would’ve gone that route if I could have gotten one at that price. Might be a little out of his range but something to consider

[AZcoues_addict]

I had a sig kilo 2k, loved it.  But the LED's in the display went out after about 4-5 years.  Sig said its out of warranty, only offered a discount on buying a new unit. Total crap. 

Same exact thing happened to a friend, but his went out on his rifle elk hunt so he couldn't read the distance.  Very bad!  I loved the Sig until I realized it's a short lifetime with bad warranty. I'm not the type to buy a new rangefinder every 5 years. 

So I bought the Vortex ranger 1800 for the lifetime warranty over spending my money with Sig.  The Vortex works for me.  But I don't need it read much further than I can shoot.  I can get it to read out to about 800-1000 fairly consistently.  That's far enough for me, or I need to get closer.  Probably good advice, and a decent unit for new young hunter.

[HuntHarder]

I'd rather buy a new rangefinder every 5 years than own a vortex that is surely gonna give out on you during a hunt.  Most companies do not offer lifetime warranties on electronics.  I have owned most of them and now use a sig 5k.  I used to have a sig 2000 that worked great until I wanted to upgrade for the extra features of the 5k.  

I really liked my Leica's as well, but they used to have a hard time ranging my black archery target.  Not sure if they fixed that, it was the first 2 series of the crfs and the older lrf that had issues.  

I avoid anything that has the name vortex on it, too many warranty issues.  

 

[Hoss50]

Sportsmans had a Sig Kilo 2800 on sale, so we ordered it for him. It should arrive in a couple weeks! Thanks everyone.