Hawke Endurance 1500 LRF
- By Chris Parkin
- Last updated: 23/08/2021
Shooting at long range goes pretty much hand in hand with the use of laser range finders. Hawke offers a variety of solutions to match your budget. The top ‘Endurance 1500’ model promises a 1500m rangefinding capability, depending on light conditions for laser transmission. Importantly, it also has optics capable of allowing you to find and aim at your target with the red illuminated crosshair.
The 6x magnification, fully multi-coated optics system shows an adjustable dioptre on the eyepiece. This helps ensure that the internal red illuminated OLED display screen is in crisp focus, with no further adjustment needed from the BK-7 prismatic structure. Two buttons cover all control needs, with a simple first and second press to range target, the secondary menu structure delves deeper. As standard, it measures the range direct to the target in metres or yards. For you cosine alteration fans, it is capable of showing the inclination angle to the target. Alternatively, it will automatically calculate the effective horizontal range to make your shot and that would be my preference. Six brightness levels are easily accessible to tailor the image to surroundings, especially in low light where you don’t want super bright displays diminishing your night vision. Further modes allow better measurement functionality in rain or hunt modes, with good light transmission and true colour optics that don’t transmit the horrible yellowy/grey tinge that so many other lower-cost rangefinders are guilty of.
The Endurance 1500 is truly compact and comes with a neoprene pouch that slots on or clips to belt/luggage with the carabiner supplied. The lightweight construction makes it genuinely palmsized and ideal for what a simple rangefinder needs to be. It’s a handy pocketsized tool with a broad 140m field of view at 1000m and ergonomically designed to fit in your hand for fast scanning and target acquisition.
The reticle is well aligned to the laser and rangefinding on small quarry or larger target work to the +/-1m tolerance, was fast accompanied by a tiny hum from the inner electronics. Your ability to hold still is always key but it’s great to find good laser/reticle correlation, so well done Hawke! They are great for close-range airgun use, with reliable readings in my hands to 3.8m. The fast angle readout or compensation calculation is great for use in close confines with steep angles, where precision is vital with loopy trajectories.