Sig Kilo 2000 LRF

The hand-held laser rangefinder (LRF) has become a must have item over the last 10-15 years; essential for the hunter and bloody useful for target shooters too. There are some big names in the business: Bushnell, Zeiss, Swarovski and Leica and a host of others, with prices and options going from around £170 up to £2,500+. So, when SIG introduced its Electro-Optics series a few years ago, they naturally included a range of LRFs called Kilos.

Pleasingly modern

On test, is the Kilo 2000, which quotes the following maximum ranges in yards; reflective - 3400, trees - 1500, deer - 1200. However, real time factors like target shape, size, colour, reflectivity, atmospheric conditions and how steady you can hold it will make a difference to accuracy.

It offers enough useful features without going over board and is compact and pleasingly modern. The body is magnesium, with top and bottom rubber gripping surfaces. It’s waterproof (IP X-4 rating) and fogproof. The over & under build shows the laser at 6 o’clock and the 7x25 lens system at 12; given that most LRFs are 6x power, the extra 1x gives it an edge. At the rear/lower is the battery compartment for the CR2 cell; above is the focusing ring and length-adjustable eyepiece to suit glasses wearers etc. SIG includes a lanyard (always useful) and a belt pouch. Controls consist of MODE (function selection) middle left and RANGE buttons (top).

Los or amr?

The OLED display automatically adjusts to suit ambient light conditions. It shows as a red circle with the readout below and yards or meters (Y/M) to the right, battery indictor below and either LOS (line of sight) or AMR (angle modified Range) lower left. These functions are all accessed by the MODE button, press and hold for 3-seconds and the various options come up by pressing it again. The RANGE button allows you to toggle between options. There’s also a scan mode; by pressing and holding RANGE, the Kilo 2000 refreshes its reading four times a second- impressive!

LOS gives a direct reading, no matter what angle you are at, and also the angle, so you can calculate the correction. AMR automatically adjusts range for angle where applicable, given you know your range/drops corrections it’s best left in AMR! You also get best and last target options.

SIG says: “The KILO2000 will range over a mile with results displayed to the nearest 1/10th yard”; maybe on a tripod in perfect conditions! But that’s a long way for a small monocular (hand held) in a big world! Let’s get real; using known distances out to 600m it was accurate on various targets including deer, humans and dogs, giving good ID to know what you were looking at. Field of view (FOV) was good too! Using my Swarovski EL Range (LRF) binos I pushed it out to 1000m and it compared well, though again, stability with any hand-held/unsupported device is an issue for any LRF.