I' ve got a pair of Tasco Rare Bird Falcons, which are 8x40 and are damned good glasses for the money. I ordered them based on some recommendations I got and they turned out to be great. I was chagrined, however, to find that nowhere on the binoculars is their magnification specification marked (8x40). What do I need to have on hand to prove the binoculars do not exceed rule speficiations?

I' ve got a couple pair of less expensive " compacts" that just don' t get the job done and don' t want to buy another expensive pair of glass just so I have manufacturer specs marked on them.

hi robert, as long as i have been shooting i have never had anyone ask about
the power of my bino' s. or ever heard of this. if you say there ok there ok
C ya phil

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this question is mainly in regard to the World Championships at Snowshoe Mtn. I' ve seen binoculars checked there and want to make sure mine can check OK.

I think this is a ligitament question. I' ve never seen anyone' s binos get checked all the years I' ve shot there and I know one guy who purposely scraped off the 12 and repainted it with a 8 for several years to fool the group he was shooting with cause he didn' t want to buy a separate set for IBO. He hunted with 12x and he knew they weren' t going to check. (He has since that time gotten another pair of 8x.) If you are going to have that rule I feel it should be enforced.
I also don' t see the need for a restriction in bino power at all anyway. 12x, 50x, or just 8x what difference does it make? You don' t shoot your shot through the binos anyway. So what if you can see if a arrow caught a line from the stake or not? You' ll see it when you go forward to score it anyway. I just don' t really see where even a big 50x spotting scope is going to give ANY advantage to anyone over a pair of 8x56 savorski' s? I personally wouldn' t care if the guy next to me had a spotting scope with him or not. If he feels like carrying the heavy thing around I say let him. End the bino restrictions.

I thought the same thing about binocular restrictions until I came to read that higher magnification binoculars can be used as rangefinders to a fairly accurate degree based on the turns of the dial to focus. Apparently 8x or less isn' t sensitive enough in field of focus to provide that capability. At the qualifiers, there was one guy out with rangefinder binoculars that got caught and another guy with 12x binoculars with marks on the focus wheel for ranges.

I never heard that was possible before. Learn something new everyday I guess. If I' d see someone ranging targets with ANY mechanical device I' d turn that into a protest in a heartbeat. That' s a whole different issue.