Laser designators
 

ok, New to yotes but not new to hunting by a long shot. From the trail cam pics and observation while deer hunting since September, it looks like the coyotes are almost completely nockturnal. I'm in a semi residential/Rural area with a bunch of open and wooded land behind me, some of it mine, that I can hunt. We have coyotes and I would like to them gone, plus I'd like to shoot them.:happy0157:

Now, my .223 with red dot upper is fine but limited even at night because of course, you still have to see what you are shooting at for both ID and good aiming. I have another target upper, scoped that is a tack driver and I've been looking into laser designators. (night vision is out of my reach financially)

Questions I have are:
1. Does it cast a beam that you can see accross the field that might give you away to game?
2. Does the laser harm the eyes of game that you might light up like deer? (I don't want to blind all my deer around here)
3. What kind of input can those of you who have them give me.

After Deer season is over, I'm going to do my level best to take out these critters before they decimate my deer. What say ye brethern?

Your best bet is to call around dawn and dusk but daytime calling works good to.You have to call regardless of time and your neighbors will be a lot happier not hearing gun fire after dark.Save that for areas far from populated areas.

laser des is cool, better get the sub zero model. i have seen video of guys lightin up yotes,...yote didnt seem to see it or be bothered....i did see a review from a photographer that said the animals were bothered by the light and took off running. as for me..i'll let ya know in the spring when i go get one.

Laser "designators" to me are just expensive LED lights. Basically, they're the same thing, except the laser is polarized. The price is the big difference. But ultimately, they're just a light...

Anything red or green (including an old fashioned incandescent lamp with a red filter) will be essentially invisible to the dogs, as long as you don't "backlight" yourself, and you don't shine the focus of the beam directly on them. That's a downside to laser designators. They're very focused beams, so it's hard not to spook coyotes. Incandescent lamps, while not as focused and not as efficient (and get HOT), tend to have a "halo" of dimmer light around the focus beam, so you can hold the light "above" your target, watch it's glowing eyes, then drop the focus onto your target when you're ready to shoot.

That said, make sure they're legal in your state.

1) Yes, it casts a beam (laser beam) onto your game.
2) I'm not sure if it is intense enough at range to "blind" deer or not, I would assume not.
3) I have 2 incandescent scope mounted lamps (Red), an LED scope mounted light (Red), and 2 laser designators (green). Frankly, they weren't worth the price. I could buy 5 or 6 of the incandescents for the price of the laser. The laser, for the same power supply, is more focused, and gives a longer range, but they're still in the 200-300yrd range at best.

<BUZZER SOUNDS>

try 5 miles silly.

http://www.impactguns.com/lg-grn-las...676040752.aspx

As I mentioned, I have 2 laser designators, an ND-3 Sub-Zero 40mm and and ND-3 Sub-Zero 50mm.

No, the marketing is NOT lying. I can stand on the roof of my barn and shine a beam that DOES show up on my neighbors barn 3miles away (on a clear night). That is to say, my neighbor can see the dot on his barn (about 8-12" dia, he's never measured it, but his wife swears it's 8", he swears it's 12". Sounds like they've had this arguement before! haha). But at the end of the day, a 3 mile range for a DOT doesn't matter, because I dam sure can't see anything in my scope that far away. I bought these two because they claimed they had 400-500yrd+ visible ranges. I'll admit, they'll make an animals eyes pop like diamonds WAY out there, but if it's past 300-400yrds, it gets pretty hairy trying to tell whether it's a coyote, a coon, or one of my goats.

Maybe your eyes are better than mine, but frankly, to me it's a moot point. If I can't do any better than getting coyotes to come in closer than 300yrds at night, then I don't have any business trying to shoot at them in the first place.

I WILL admit, however, that when a laser designator says it has a 400yrd range, it probably actually has a 300-350yrd usable range, whereas if an incandescent lamp says it has a 350yrd range, you're probably only really going to get 200yrds at best, especially after you take the batteries a couple cycles, and put a few hours on the lamp. I will also admit that a green laser IS more visible than a a red ANYTHING, and the lasers are more uniform, rather than having bright spots and dim spots in the beam. Sometimes it's nice having the ability to "hover" above your target with just the dim halo shining their eyes, then dropping the center "bright spot" on them to shoot, but it's also handy to really get to see your target too.

But again, I have over a thousand bucks wrapped up in these TWO lasers, whereas a cheap incandescent like the Primos Nightblaster 350's get me almost as far, and only run about $100 (1/5 or less of the cost of a Sub-Zero). No, they're not as cool, and yes, they're big and heavy, but for $500, I can stand to carry a 6V battery around (mount it to the right side of your buttstock, you'll never know it's there).

Hindsight's 20/20 I guess....