I don't buy anything busnell EXCEPT their rangefinders. Most of us in our group own one and they have served us well.

Unless you want to pay through the nose, you won't get one to read at 800 yards in the rain, but I have had luck out to shootable ranges (400 yards) with the bushnell and it has been reliable.

Cabelas has a deal going right now where you get the Scout 1000 ARC (tells ballistic range if shooting uphill/downhill), a knife and a binocular. The binocular is ok to give a kid (not for serious hunting) but the combo is the same price as the Scout 1000 ARC by itself:

http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/links/link.jsp?id=0059756713069a&type=product&cm Cat=SEARCH_all&returnPage=search-results1.jsp&Ntk=Products&QueryText=bushne ll+rangefinder&sort=all&_D%3AhasJS=+&N =0&Nty=1&hasJS=true&_DARGS=%2Fcabelas% 2Fen%2Fcommon%2Fsearch%2Fsearch-box.jsp.form23&_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1

Or you can just get the regular scout 1000 (without the ARC) for $250 at Cabelas (probably less other places)