Visionary Compact Bino & Monocular

Besides the modern styling, the U Series 8 X 30 binos are termed as ‘High Definition’ optics. They’re light, compact and use BAK4 porro prisms. The multicoated lenses reputedly give ‘superb definition and natural colour.’ They have a long eye relief, large multicoated eyepiece lenses and a green and black rubber armoured body. The eyecups fold back, to help prevent light entering from the side.

PRACTICAL BUILD

The focus is within easy reach and operation is fast. The right eye-piece is the dioptre adjuster and work superbly well. The lens system gives a bright and clear picture. In use with some cheaper optics you get to the stage where you’re not sure if you’re in focus and the object is seen but unidentifiable. Put these up to your eyes and you can clearly see what you are looking at! Light gathering is very good, I’ve looked through some big brand name compacts but none are that much better than these at the price…

The M12 Monocular is one model in a range of similar units, others either being higher or lower magnification. It proved to be an excellent monocular, but then again it does feature the same BAK 4 prisms as the compacts, and multicoated lenses, and they’re fully waterproof.

WATCH AND SHOOT!

The build of the M-12 Mono offers a magnification of x12 with a 50mm objective. It’s a chunky piece of glassware but it uses the poro prism design so the body casing needs to accommodate this. It comes with a mini-tripod and I used it off my shooting bench to see targets were hit and how I was grouping.

Initially I didn’t think it’d be of much use in the field until I tested it alongside a well known and respected low light scope. The light faded and I began to watch rifle prone on a bipod with the M-12 on its tripod to my right. I certainly got a brighter image to the point it was almost too dark and I couldn’t use the scope if anything had appeared but could still watch it through the monocular.

Basically the Compacts are ideal for our sport, while the Monocular proves the quality of the lenses. Visionary deem suitable for an observation aid and I’d reckon if it’d been a higher mag monocular it’d been ideal for checking longer range practice grouping. But all things said, the Visionary and other optical kit from Optical Hardware, is well worth taking a good look into.